The Trajectory of a Street Photographer
By Santu Mofokeng “… capturing and recounting the world of omens, premonitions, cures and superstitions that is authentically ours, … looking at reality without the limitations that rationalists … through the ages have tried to impose on it to make it easier for them to understand … [D]isproportion is part of our reality too. Our […]
Gordon Parks Photo Essay
Katherine and Elridge Cleaver (Algiers, 1970) Ethel Sharriff (Chicago, 1963) Leader of the women’s corps of the Black Muslims/ Wife of the chief of the elite guard/ daughter of the Elijah Mohammed Duke Ellington Mrs. Jefferson (Fort Scott 1949) — All images by Gordon Parks AKA Shaft This […]
The Sound of Freedom
[…]For over a decade Louis Moholo has been the only surviving member of the original Blue Notes. Nick Moyake died in 1969, Mongezi Feza in 1975, Johnny Dyani in 1986, Chris McGregor and Dudu Pukwana in 1990. However, their collective recorded legacy is nearly a hundred albums and, individually and collectively, they changed jazz immeasurably […]
Liner Notes
As listening trends move rapidly to the online interface, the knowing of music through the writing that accompanied ‘the album’ is, like the oral traditions that went before, a dying art. Ben Verghese recalls the poetry and consciousness that enlivened the musical arrangements of some the world’s greatest players Side A Liner notes, sleeve notes, […]
What We Did After We Lost 100 Years of Wealth
By Agri Ismaïl “World finance had, in 2008, a near-death experience.” The words belong to a partner of a renowned international law firm. The partner was standing at the podium, looking over a sea of bearded faces within which bobbed a scattering of men and women without any facial hair, some of whom (those from […]