Originally Posted By i12bent

cmyk4life:

igather:

i12bent:

One of the founders of contemporary African (anglophone) literature, Chinua Achebe, is 79 today…

He is best known for his first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958) - and for creating the Conrad controversy with his 1975 lecture, An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” and its criticism of Joseph Conrad as “a bloody racist”. Interviewed on National Public Radio with Robert Siegel, in October, 2009, Achebe remains consistent, although tempering this criticism in a discussion titled ‘Heart of Darkness is innappropriate’: “Conrad was a seductive writer. He could pull his reader into the fray. And if it were not for what he said about me and my people, I would probably be thinking only of that seduction.”

Glorious early photo of Achebe in 1960 (Lagos, Nigeria) by Eliot Elisofon, LIFE

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Girls I rolled with were fashionable, both in hairstyle and dressing. They strutted like peacocks in heat. Brightly coloured boubous swept the grounds at Sunday afternoon disco halls, and flirtation filled the air with the scent of pubescence and innocence. Boys’ bell-bottom trousers were larger than royal umbrellas. And platform shoes made us walk like stilt-dancers. Life was high.

At school we had annual photography sessions, where each and every student practiced poses for weeks before the photographer’s arrival. And yes photographers were treated like kings; they got all the beautiful ones. They were magicians that froze beauty for eternity, so they were loved freely. Photographers also had some of the coolest nicknames - Sunny De Ricko, Alabama and Afro were the most famous ones around. They had a swagger that couldn’t be duplicated by anybody else.

- Victor Ehikhamenor

EXCUSE ME SIR: Scent of pubescence

via Africa is a Country

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Let them vote with their feet « Aid Thoughts

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Technology penetration in Africa: Powerlines: 55% Mobiles: 30% Landlines: 5% #bcafricauk09

maneno

So thirty percent of people in Africa have cellphones. Yeah, but how many have that app for the iPhone where you pretend to drink a beer with your phone and it mimics the real thing on a screen. Yeah, I didn’t think so.

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Originally Posted By igather

igather:

I decided to give myself a treat today so I went and bought a movie. One of the ladies at work carries around an enormous box of them in her back truck but usually I just pre-order- let her know what you want and then she’ll burn it and show you the preview on her mini dvd player so you can make sure it’s what you ordered but today I found out she has a huge collection of african (mostly nollywood) movies.

And now I own the whole Kingdom Apart series all for 19.99!

score.

I’m liking the intertextuality: Yeats’ “the center cannot hold” by way of Achebe.

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Originally Posted By thelifeinrose

thelifeinrose:

Moussa Doumbia “Keleya”

this song is all kinds of perfect

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8195913.stm

BBC NEWS | Special Reports | Audio slideshow: Making music in Freetown

I like audio slideshows.

edit: apparently I can’t embed BBC video. Yeah, so follow the link and you can see photos from a music video shoot in Liberia and hear the artist and the director talk about their craft. Photos by Glenna Gordon.

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