Africa
Jenny Gilbert
Superstition, herd instinct, brutality, base terror. Whatever the precise narrative themes of Pina Bausch's response to The Rite of Spring – the most admired of dozens of dance settings of Igor Stravinsky’s score – it’s clear that it concerns aspects of behaviour deep-rooted in the human animal.“How would you dance if you knew you were about to die?” was the question posed by the choreographer to her dancers back in 1975. And that visceral immediacy is brought to the fore by a 36-strong company of dancers assembled from across 14 African countries expressly for the performance of this Read more ...
howard.male
The album title ‘Where’s the One?’ is the question that often cropped up during the album’s creation. That’s to say, ‘the One’ is the opening beat of each bar that the western rock musicians often had trouble locating in the rich, complex brew of distorted thumb pianos, duelling guitars and intricately overlaid percussion generated by the Congolese musicians. And in some instances, the mystery was never solved. But clearly this problem became a mere technicality when the band of 10 rock musicians (including Deerhoof, Wildbirds & Peacedrums and Juana Molina) joined 10 Congolese musicians ( Read more ...
Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou
To read Scholastique Mukasonga’s memoir, The Barefoot Woman, beautifully translated from the French by Jordan Stump, is to see simultaneously through the eyes of a woman and a child.The mother, the industrious and ingenious Stefania, watches her children attentively, preparing them for any possible danger that might assail them in or out of the home. Her daughter, the young Mukasonga, is the faithful storyteller of her mama’s one-time magical griot, whose loving and ever-watchful gaze, much like her narrative, never strays from the resilient and resourceful mother before her. Their entwined Read more ...
Nick Hasted
“Lingui” is the Chadian word for “sacred bonds, the common thread”, a social ideal put to the test here by an illegal abortion. Director Mahamet-Saleh Haroun – Chad’s artistic conscience, best-known for A Screaming Man – focuses for the first time on the sort of strong women who raised him, as they wage guerrilla war against cultural and religious strictures. Backstreet abortions were staples of ‘60s British kitchen-sink cinema, signifying grim, grey working-class reality. Haroun’s approach is very different, showing resilience, not bleak despair.We meet our heroine Amina (Achouackh Abakar Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
One of the most interesting tracks on Essiebons Special 1973–1984 Ghana Music Power House is Joe Meah’s mysterious "Dee Mmaa Pe". It’s not mentioned in the compilation’s accompanying booklet, and Joe Meah doesn’t figure in any of the standard discographies littering the world-wide web.Despite this inscrutability, Essiebons Special’s second cut has a surprisingly familiar touchstone. Mainly instrumental with stabbing brass, a sax solo and odd vocal interjections it has a shuffling soul vibe. But the keyboard part dominates. What’s played nods so overtly to The Doors’s “Light my Fire” that it’s Read more ...
Graham Rickson
There’s much to enjoy in Running Against the Wind: Jan Philipp Weyl’s contemporary Ethiopian epic is a visual treat, with excellent performances from its two young leads. And how often do we get to see a film in Amharic with English subtitles?We first encounter Abdi and Solomon (played first by Ashenafi Nigusu and Mikias Wolde) as children playing in their remote village. Abdi has a talent for running, while Solomon is intrigued by visiting western aid worker Tino’s digital camera. He takes the boys on a two-day trip to Addis Ababa, where Abdi is enraptured by a glimpse of the Berlin Marathon Read more ...
Aleks Sierz
The Young Vic, led by the inspiring figure of Kwame Kwei-Armah, is back. After a prolonged closure, during which this venue has passionately continued to work with young directors, the local community (including both delivering food and creative engagement) and the Black Lives Matter movement, the main stage now reopens with Booker Prize winner Ben Okri’s short play, Changing Destiny, directed by Kwei-Armah. Based on a 4,000-year-old poem from ancient Egypt called Sinuhe, the story is one of political intrigue, fearful exile and then spiritual rebirth. At a time of increasing rhetoric and Read more ...
Helen Hawkins
What’s in a name? In Benedict Lombe’s incendiary debut play at the Bush Theatre, the answer to this question encompasses a whole continent, an entire existential experience - the Black experience, to be exact - though not in the way that "roots" stories often proceed. The lost first name that the lead character of Lava needs for her British passport application is indeed her African one, long banned by her original home country, but not for the reason you’d expect. And home for this character, billed simply as Her (Ronke Adekoluejo), isn’t a straightforward proposition either. To Read more ...
Tim Cumming
Hailing from Benin and based in Paris since she was 23, Angélique Kidjo can sing in five languages, has collaborated with an A-list festival line-up of global stars ranging from Alicia Keys and Philip Glass to Herbie Hancock and Peter Gabriel, and had her first albums released by Island, after being spotted by label head Chris Blackwell. Each of them was studded with guest artists, including Branford Marsalis and Gilberto Gil, and featuring covers such as Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child”.She has won Grammys, travelled widely as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and set up a foundation to empower Read more ...
Peter Culshaw
Peter Culshaw’s periodic global themed radio show is allowed back in the MusicBox Radio studio with special guest, the distinguished soundtrack composer Dominik Scherrer. Dominik’s latest hit series was The Serpent, the dark tale of Charles Sobhraj, the “Bikini Killer” or “The Serpent” who killed young often lost, idealistic Western travellers mainly in Bangkok in the 1970s, but also elsewhere on the hippy trail east. Sobraj drugged and killed many travellers.The series had violent moments but also was full of groovy beach parties brilliantly recreated. We discuss ultra-violence and Kubrick, Read more ...
Mark Kidel
Mdou Moctar is often dubbed as the “Hendrix of the desert”. He is not the first West African musician to be linked with African-American guitar stars. Just as you can hear echoes of John Lee Hooker in Ali Farka Toure, and Taj Mahal could collaborate seamlessly with Toumani Diabate, the young musicians emerging brutally into a world of international mining robbery and fundamentalist terror, naturally find inspiration in music from over the ocean. As with so much in music, the influences flow both way, or, from another point of view, there is an epigenetic kinship resounding through shared DNA. Read more ...
Tunde Jegede
In this era when there is so much talk and discussion around crossing musical boundaries, diversity in music and inter-disciplinary work it seems strange that there is still so little knowledge of how, why and when it works. Ironically, much of this type of work and collaborative process is much older than we often think and give credit to.As a composer I have always been interested in this type of work because it speaks to my experience both socially and culturally. Having studied instruments and traditions in both the UK and West Africa, I was acutely aware from an early age of differences Read more ...