SISTER FROM ANOTHER PLANET
The Nigerian remake of "Purple Rain is cinematic magic
by Dangerous Minds | Photos: Jeremy Fino
“A revolutionary story of guitars, motorcycles, cell phones – and the music of a new generation” is how director Christopher Kirkley describes his West African re-imagining of Purple Rain. Set in the Saharan city of Agadez in Niger, Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai (Akounak for short) is a visually sumptuous and musically thrilling movie that works splendidly with or without the Purple Rain mythos. But riffing on Prince’s tale locates Purple Rain’s universal heartbeat.
Like the lone, nameless...
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** UPDATE **
After 20+ years, Brother Israel's is another casualty of the raging gentrification in Bed Stuy; he closed a few months ago. He said he was looking for another spot and he had a couple of leads...
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by Richard Metzger, Dangerous Minds
(This guy really did his homework!)
Although a famous Vogue magazine cover shot by Patrick Lichfield of Marsha Hunt, naked, with a huge Afro, as a London cast member of Hair is an indisputably and quintessentially iconic image of the 1960s, Hunt remains under the radar of most music fans. For one (quite good) reason, there are exactly zero CDs of her music on the market currently and there is nothing on iTunes or Spotify either. This is too bad, because...
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3
Oct
From Afripedia.com:
When Africa is changing, when the world is changing and the perspective is shifting, the image of Africa and Africans needs to change too.
Afripedia is promoting and collaborating with a new generation of storytellers leading the way. A source for art, design, videos, photography, fashion, visual arts, music and contemporary culture from the African continent and African creatives working all over the world, Afripedia is a platform and future forum for African creatives worldwide.
Five short films and live musicians...
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27
Sep
Mind Blown by Manzel Bowman
Unveiling Visions: The Alchemy of the Black Imagination is sure to satisfy the sci-fi/fantasy nerd in all of us. Curated by artist John Jennings and Reynaldo Anderson, this exhibition includes artifacts from the Schomburg collections that are connected to Afrofuturism, black speculative imagination and Diasporan cultural production. Offering a fresh perspective on the power of speculative imagination and the struggle for various freedoms of expression in popular culture, Unveiling Visions showcases illustrations and other graphics that highlight those popularly found...
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David Hackney, a founding member of Death (courtesy Smithsonian)
by Ally Schweitzer, bandwidth.wamu.org
In the early 1970s, years before punk rock exploded in the U.S., three brothers from Detroit started a band called Death. David Hackney and his siblings Bobby and Dannis played blistering rock, a faster version of The Who and MC5. It all sprouted from David’s imagination — he loved rock music, though his family and neighbors didn’t understand why three young black men would want to play it.
Death turned out to be a hard...
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Rock music from Africa is nothing new, but this is a good piece on some of the latest bands. (I've been a fan of The Brother Moves On for a couple of years, thanks to my South African inside music source, Palesa.)
by Lateef | teefonline True Africa
I may not be versed in every language and dialect in Africa… but I know bad-ass rock music when I hear it. So, here’s a list of five hard rock bands performing on the continent in a range...
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by Blacks Going Vegan
Filmmaker JLove Calderon recently released an exciting new documentary entitled ‘From Gangs To Gardens’ which chronicles Ietef Vita’s progression from gang member to organic urban gardener, heading up the Eastside Growers Collective.
“I am more than what you see” ~Ietef Vita
Vita is a hip hop yogi, educator, midwife, emcee, deejay, youth advocate, and seeker of self sustainable life. He started the garden project to heal his neighborhood. “In order for us to see environmental improvement we must begin with the health of...
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25
Aug
by Natalie Weiner Noisy | Music by Vice
LONGREADS OR WHATEVER
Thundercat, Kamasi Washington, and Flying Lotus, image by Lia Kantrowitz
You’re listening to a jazz record. There are the frantic, slightly irregular drums; the thrumming of an upright bass; virtuosic runs on some invisible Steinway—all punctuated with the familiar crooning of a tenor sax. The melody, consciously separate from the genre’s well-worn standards, could easily pass for a new composition. But it’s not. It’s an acoustic rendition of “Never Catch Me,” the Kendrick Lamar-featuring...
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by VMartinWrites Spectrum Council for Diversity in Media
The CW’s online streaming platform CW Seed is will be streaming Vixen, an animated show based around the adventures of Vixen, an African-American superheroine with the power to mimic animals.
An African-American woman is getting her own show. I don’t think people are fully registering how big of a deal this is. Let me help you by asking this question: when was the last time a black character—a female black character—was the focus on their own TV show?
Elisa...
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by VMartinWrites Spectrum Council for Diversity in Media
You can’t talk about the contributions and milestones of African-Americans in American animation without talking about the history. However, the history is long and evolves a lot of discussion and revolutions in both art and technology. To save time, we’re going to jump begin our story in 1930, during the Golden Age of American Animation.
During this time, the industry is still in its infancy. Cartoons are black and white and synchronized sound has only...
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25
Aug
by Taryn Finley Huffington Post Black Voices
Serena Williams, Beyoncé, Misty Copeland, Queen Latifah, Ciara, Kerry Washington, Willow Smith and Amandla Stenberg are serving all of the black girl magic on their respective covers.
For print publications, the September issue is among the most highly-regarded issues of the year and is usually the industry's most anticipated release. For at least eight black celebrated women to be recognized on its covers during magazines' most significant month is not just special, it's monumental.
Though these...
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by Jenny Ye | The WNYC Data News Team
New York City is packed with ice cream — and the East Village is the most packed, with 77 shops per square mile. But where's the nearest cone when you need one? The Ice Cream Radar is here to help.
With a click of a button, we'll detect your location, scan the vicinity and find your nearest scoop. (Sorry, our data is for New York City only.)
New Yorkers without a smartphone (we know you're out there) can text 9292-COOL-ME with...
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If you know anything about me, it's that ice cream is my drug of choice. I give emphatic recommendations to wary strangers in the supermarket. If I had to choose one food to live off of, it would be ice cream. I'd mainline that sh*t if I could.
by Black Wall Street
August 19th was National Soft Ice Cream Day, so it’s only right that we share some of our favorite black-owned ice cream shops around the country. The following businesses serve the best in...
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The Vinyl Factory
One of my all-time favorite bands, Cymande was a UK band in the 70's made up primarily Guyanese immigrants (my homeboys). "Nyah-rock" lives!
Following their 2012 reunion and a string of successful shows, Cymande will release a full length album produced by most of the original core band members.
Following over forty years of dormancy, the UK based ‘nyah-rock’ and funk band are set to release their first album in four decades with most of the original band members, including...
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I sobbed when I heard Amy Winehouse died--sobbed. I mean WTF, I didn't even know her. No one was surprised of course; she was the proverbial train wreck waiting to happen. But that didn't mean we didn't hope against hope.
Come on girl, don't let your Saturn Return put you in the 27 Club, please. I know you're hurting, but not like this. Don't take your gift away just yet, we need you. Don't go.
Like Sia, Janis Joplin, Lisa Stansfield, Annie Lennox, Lulu, Alison Moyet,...
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Collaborator with reggae poet legend Linton Kwesi Johnson, founder of Matumbi, production master and one of the key creators of the reggae sub-genre 'Lovers Rock', music legend Dennis 'Dubmaster' Bovell has created a great show called 'Dub on the Air' for Soho Radio. Packed with 70's dub, lovers rock gems, new reggae from around the world, a little punk and his resonant voice sharing his great history, tune in to 'Dub on Air' (love the play on words!). Live toasting, too--Blackbeard still got it goin' on! (Listen live every Sunday...
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The Web is not a post-racial utopia.
by Megan Condis Aljazeera America
Rust, a 2013 indie survival game from Facepunch Studios, plays like a cross between Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto. Players find themselves “born” into a mysterious wilderness, naked and alone, forced to forage for resources and to craft clothing, supplies and shelter for themselves. They must contend with starvation, hypothermia and animal attacks, but by far the most dangerous threat comes from other players who roam the island.
When the game was first opened up,...
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