Africa
Sebastian Scotney
The British writer and Africa specialist Michela Wrong recently wrote a whistle-stop summary of the upheavals that afflicted Congo in the early 1960s:“A botched independence swiftly followed by army mutinies and attempted secession by two renegade provinces, egged on by a colonial power. A charismatic black leader who comes to a sticky end, aged just 35. A first-of-its-kind UN military operation climaxing in a mysterious plane crash and the secretary-general’s death. Cold War skullduggery of the most nefarious kind, with a poison vial stowed in a safe. Not one, but two, coup d’états.”These Read more ...
Nick Hasted
The Oblong Box is a phantom 1969 follow-up to Michael Reeves’ Witchfinder General, sharing star Vincent Price and much cast and crew, after the brilliant young British director’s OD forced his dismissal days before shooting. It also began replacement Gordon Hessler and co-writer Christopher Wicking’s own Price-starring horror sequence, notably the bizarre, Mod anti-fascist Scream and Scream Again (1970), placing this obscure film at a packed cult crossroads.Witchfinder General’s savage account of Matthew Hopkins’ 17th century East Anglian rampage had been dragooned into AIP’s Poe-Price cycle Read more ...
Jenny Gilbert
It takes a lot to make an audience not want to head to the bar at the interval. But the preparation of the stage floor for The Rite of Spring in the version by Pina Bausch is a piece of theatre in itself, and many at Sadler’s Wells couldn’t tear themselves away. This is the second time that Sadler’s has hosted this special production of Bausch’s extraordinary response to Stravinsky’s score. The choreography dates back to 1975, and for years was exclusively danced by Bausch’s home company. The idea of assembling and training a pan-African troupe to present it came much later, in a bid to Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Mati Diop’s “speculative documentary” reverses the transatlantic journey of her feature debut Atlantics’ ghost Senegalese migrants, as plundered Beninese artefacts are returned from France. Dahomey is about African displacement and despoilment, and Diop chooses to give these ancient, ritually charged statues of men and beasts the sonorous voice of some alien god found floating in an sf space-capsule, an Afrofuturist deity speaking across centuries.The Kingdom of Dahomey’s fierce war against French colonisation was lost in 1892, when thousands of treasures were looted and shipped back to Paris Read more ...
Saskia Baron
The Battle for Lakipia is a beautifully filmed and thoughtfully directed documentary that was made over a two-year period. Its focus is the conflicting claim to Kenyan land made by white ranch owners of English descent and the indigenous pastoralist people. In the 60 years since Kenya gained independence from Britain, tensions between the descendants of colonial Europeans and Kenyans have flared up periodically, and in recent years climate change has added fuel to the fire.Global warming has led to longer and more terrible droughts that scorch the grasslands and make it impossible Read more ...
mark.kidel
Kokoko! hail from the Democratic Republic of Congo (formely Zaire), and specifically from Kinshasa, a source over the years of a great deal of irresistible dance music. On their second album, more electronic than the last (Fongola -2019), traces of bouncing soukous music, mixed with the old-style house delights of Milwaukee-based DJ and producer Thomas Xavier, make for a heady brew.In sharp contrast with West African music, langourous High Life, elegant Manding praise songs, and the intricate polyrhythms of Afro-Beat, the music of Kokoko! draws energy from the ancient forests’ spirits, Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Claire Denis’ 1988 debut is a sensual madeleine to her Cameroonian childhood, with its taste of termites on butter, sound of birdsong and insect chitter, and the camera’s slow turn and rise into vast vistas. It’s also a colonial reckoning, setting out themes of violent incomprehension and fractured souls. Like the gaze of France (Cécile Ducasse), her child surrogate in this 1957 tale, Denis’ initial African vision is enigmatic and unblinking.Chocolat is framed by the adult France (Mireille Périer, pictured below), returning to Eighties Cameroon to seek her old colonial home. Modern Read more ...
Guy Oddy
Despite its title, Mdou Moctar’s new album is no slow-paced mournful dirge. In fact, it is louder, faster and more overtly political than any of his band’s previous discs – not so much desert blues as desert punk.Taking up the twin causes of the Tuareg people of West Africa and the post-colonial disaster that has befallen Niger since the end of French occupation, it is nothing short of ferocious in its revolutionary zeal. Repeated riffs, hand-clap percussion, explosive guitars and call-and-response vocals all combine to build an irresistible set that will no doubt create a serious storm when Read more ...
Sarah Kent
Yinka Shonibare’s Serpentine Gallery exhibition opens with a piece of cloth twirling in the breeze; except that it’s a bronze sculpture probably weighing a ton or more – such is the power of art (pictured below right: detail of Wind Sculpture IV, 2024 with African Bird Magic, 2023).And metaphorically speaking, this is the airiest piece on show. Other works address weighty and contested subject matter, but with such beauty and lightness of touch that you never feel preached at or pulverised with guilt.Take The War Library 2024, for instance (pictured below: detail). Gallery Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
At a time when conflicts in the Middle East are reaching fever pitch, Emel Mathlouthi represents hope. Her new album MRA, is titled for the Arabic word for “woman” and was created entirely by women, as in, every single person involved with it at any level is female. She has said of it, “I've come to discover the true meaning of sisterhood… I want us to change the system from within, by and through women.” Happily, this outlook is attached to music that’s sonically exciting.Based in New York, the Tunisian-born singer first created waves when her initially banned song “Kelmti Horra (My Word is Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Brazzaville is on the north side of the Congo River. It is the capital of the Republic of the Congo. Kinshasa is on the south side of the Congo. It is capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly known as Zaïre. The cities face each other, about 1.5km apart, divided by the river and being in different nations.Congo Funk! - Sound Madness from the Shores of the Mighty Congo River (Kinshasa/Brazzaville 1969-1982) unites them by collecting 14 tracks demonstrating their musical fortunes were intertwined. Take the compilation’s Les Bantous De La Capitale, who were formed in Read more ...
Saskia Baron
Io Capitano works on several levels. At first glance, it’s a ripping yarn – two optimistic Senegalese teenagers embark on a dangerous journey, across the Sahara, through the hell of Libya and on to an overcrowded boat across the Mediterranean – all inspired by the lads’ dream of Europe. It could be watched as a terrific, occasionally terrifying adventure movie, but its Italian director, Matteo Garrone, has greater ambitions. Flights of fantasy (pictured below) are occasionally woven into the naturalistic action. In interviews, Garrone has described Io Capitano as Read more ...