KÀDDU- THE ECHO OF DISSONANT DISCOURSE
Ibrahima Wane Translated by David Leye When it was published by Présence Africaine in 1954, Cheikh Anta Diop’s Nations nègres et culture acted as a trigger for many black intellectuals, particularly young African students in France. Recognizing their own significance, leaders of the Federation of Black African Students in France (FEANF) distributed Diop’s research on […]
SUNGURA STORIES
Ranga Mberi travels back in musical time to the 1980s and 1990s, the era of sungura music. Dubbed the “authentic sound of Zimbabwe”, sungura weaved together Congolese rumba with Zimbabwean jiti and Tanzanian kanindo. Rooted deeply in the struggles, heartbreak and suffering of the times, but also in joy and celebration of common people – […]
The Tyelera Moment
by Thabo Jijana On December 13, 2016, in Salem Party Club v Salem Community, the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled in favour of 152 land claimants representing a community of amaXhosa who’d been dispossessed over a century ago by the 1820 British settlers and their descendants. While the court victory has been rightfully celebrated as […]
The Invention of Africa by Franco & T.P.OK Jazz
– Ntone Edjabe A few years ago, while researching the political history of Congo/Zaire/Congo via the country’s music archive, particularly through the output of Luambo Makiadi aka Franco, we turned to the legendary record collection of “Jumbo” Donald Vanrenen – a scholar of late-style rumba and early soukouss (a sound he helped construct via various A&R gigs […]
They Won’t Go When I Go
A Manifesto/ Mediation on State of Black Archives in America and throughout the Diaspora by Harmony Holiday The ashes a black mother scattered into the lap of a seemingly indifferent police chief, her daughter’s remains in ash and shackle, the ashes of her daughter who had been killed in jail either by neglect or force, […]