Sore Sore

Born in 1970 in Senegal, Diogal Sakho is an author, composes and interprets his songs. Living in France, he released three albums: Samba Alla (2002) and Liir (2004), both produced by Celluloid/Melodie and endorsed by FIP Radio, and Li lan la, released in March 2008. Diogal has produced his last album and recorded it in his own studio, "Wasia".
From his Official Website.

I am currently addicted to Diogal's 'Sore'. Check out the live version here:

Diogal au Satellit Café : "Sore"
Uploaded by Studio_Wasia. - See the latest featured music videos.

The Thing Around Your Neck

I am currently reading "The Thing Around Your Neck" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Adichie is an award-winning Nigerian writer. The book consists of 12 short stories about both, life in Nigeria and the life of Nigerian immigrants in other countries (mostly America). Having moved to the US herself at the age of 19, Adichie's first-hand accounts of the situations faced by Nigerian immigrants is realistic and insightful. So far, I have found the book immensely interesting and would definitely recommend it.

Adichie's Unoffical Website had an interesting co-incidence listed on it under her biography: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born on 15 September 1977 in Enugu, Nigeria, the fifth of six children to Igbo parents, Grace Ifeoma and James Nwoye Adichie. While the family's ancestral hometown is Abba in Anambra State, Chimamanda grew up in Nsukka, in the house formerly occupied by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe.

African Music Encyclopedia

I stumbled upon an interesting repository of African Music and Artists. Check out the African Music Encyclopedia.

Kenya sings for India

India celebrated its Independence Day on August 15th. Here's a beautiful and relevant video which was shot as a part of Pangea Day.

"Set against the backdrops of Nairobi city and the beautiful landscape of Uhuru Park (Maasai country), a Kenyan choir sings the Indian national anthem. The director has chosen the Indian anthem because Kenya is home to a sizeable Indian population (including Sikhs & Jains also) of approximately 2.5 million, most of them descendants of the East African Railways labourers who were brought over by the British during the late 19th and early 20th centuries when the British colonialists ruled Kenya and the rest of the East African region."

Tea in the Sahara

You never realize how much Africa there is around you until you start looking. Here is a beautiful number, 'Tea in the Sahara', from The Police.

Languages in Sub-Saharan Africa

Image from here.

Linguistically, sub-Saharan Africa is dominated by the Niger-Congo phylum (distribution shown in yellow), with pockets of Khoi-San in Southern Africa, Nilo-Saharan in Central and East Africa, and Afro-Asiatic in the Horn of Africa. Read more here.

Sub-Saharan Africa

We often hear the term "Sub-Saharan Africa". What area does this term refer to?

• Sub-Saharan Africa is a geographical term used to describe the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara, or those African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara.
• It contrasts with North Africa, which is considered a part of the Arab World.
  The Sahel is the transitional zone between the Sahara and the tropical savanna (the Sudan region) and forest-savanna mosaic to the south.
• The Horn of Africa and large parts of Sudan are geographically part of sub-Saharan Africa, but nevertheless show strong Middle Eastern influence and are also part of the Arab world.
• The Sub-Saharan region is also known as Black Africa, in reference to its many black populations.
  

Simplified climatic map of Africa: Sub-Saharan Africa consists of the arid Sahel and the Horn of Africa in the north (yellow), the tropical savannas (light green) and the tropical rainforests (dark green) of Equatorial Africa, and the arid Kalahari Basin (yellow) and the "Mediterranean" south coast (olive) of Southern Africa. The numbers shown correspond to the dates of iron artifacts associated with the Bantu expansion.

The Sahara Desert

• The Sahara ("The Greatest Desert") is the world's largest hot desert.
• At over 9,000,000 square kilometers (3,500,000 sq mi), it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as the United States or the continent of Europe.
• The desert stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean coasts, to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean.
• The Sahara divides the continent of Africa into North and Sub-Saharan Africa.
• To the south, it is delimited by the Sahel: a belt of semi-arid tropical savanna that comprises the northern region of central and western Sub-Saharan Africa.
• The Sahara covers huge parts of Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan and Tunisia.
• Here's a beautiful image of the Sahara.
• Read more here.

The King of Raï

Khaled Hadj Brahim, better known as Khaled, is a raï singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist born in Sidi-El-Houari in Oran Province of Algeria. He began recording in his early teens under the name Cheb Khaled (Arabic for "Young man Khaled") and has become probably the most internationally famous Algerian singers. His popularity has earned him the unofficial title "King of Raï". Read more at Wikipedia.

Here are my two favourite Khaled songs: Didi, which never ceases to catapult me into high spirits and Aicha which I regard as one of the most romantic songs ever written (by the amazing Jean-Jacques Goldman).

(For better audio, try the version of Didi here).

Picture from Cheb Khaled's Official Website.

La Victoire sur les Sachets

An interesting short film by Sarkis, La Victoire sur les Sachets shows how plastic trash (20 tons of it) as used effectively in Africa to manufacture 2000 Djembés (musical instruments).

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com

Synopsis from Culture Unplugged: Ingenuity is at work in an African community where plastic bags are transformed from garbage into musical instruments. The film, created and produced by ART for The World is born under the auspices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and supported by the European Commission, French Government and SESC, Sao Paulo, Brasil, is a long feature composed by 22 short movies by filmmakers and artists from all over the world. Each short (documentary, fiction, drama, comedy, etc) is based on one of the major themes highlighted in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: culture, development, dignity and justice, environment, gender and participation.

Kenya: 'Witch' lynchings

A reminder of the horrific practices that still exist in the world.

MJ in Africa

Back after a fairly long hiatus. A short video of MJ's 1993 visit to Africa:

Africa mourns the loss of the King of Pop.