Four Kornerz Release New Single For 2011

All-brother band Four Kornerz are to release their new single Superstar on Monday 2 May, 2011.

This is the band’s first officially release since their ground-breaking independent album release Soulectric (2007) which included the hit singles Clap Clap and Gonna Make It. This latest masterpiece from the London based-quartet dons the familiar leads from Deji, the eldest of the four brothers.

Known for their inspirational lyrics, Four Kornerz once again adopt the same stance but unusually from a female’s perspective. “The song was inspired by a lot of things. A large part of the story behind this song is based on the unrealistic body-type expectations mounted us in today’s popular culture,” says Deji. “The lyrics are more specific to women as I think the pressures on them are more extreme from things like size zero, cellulite and botox to perfect skin and teeth. However, both men and women can embrace the universal message in the song; Celebrating how awesome and wonderful you are!”

Superstar is produced by Scsi, part of the Four Kornerz production team, and draws influences from the Soul artists of the Motown era as well more modern chart toppers like Bruno Mars and Jamiroquai.

The band will feature the new song alongside sneak-peeks at other material from a forth-coming project at their first major London concert since 2007 on Wednesday 27 April 2011. Support will be from songstress Dionne Reid and popular Electro-Grime artist Guvna B. On the night, fans will also be given the opportunity to download a free exclusive Four Kornerz track.

“We are taking a different approach towards the Four Kornerz brand. It’s not just music but a whole creative process which will see us enter into other fields like a digital graphic novel which will accompany the Superstar release. More on that little venture soon,” hints Deji.

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+ Superstar will be available as a digital download release from Monday 2 May 2011. preview now on  www.fourkornerz.com

+ “Four Kornerz live in Concert” is on Wednesday 27 April at 229 The Venue, 229 Great Portland Street, London W1W 5PN. Starts 7pm. Tickets £10 (+ booking fee) in advance, more on the door. For more information and to book tickets, visit: www.fourkornerz.com

Save the ACLT

The ACLT (African Caribbean Leukemia Trust) charity is in crisis. They have until the end of March 2011 to raise £80K and avoid closure. They have so far raised £37K and need to keep the momentum going.

Please read this urgent plea from Beverley De-Gale and Orin Lewis – Co-Founders of the ACLT

Following an extremely tough year in 2010 in which all sources of funding have dwindled dramatically we ended the year feeling relatively cautious yet optimistic about the prospects for a brighter new year in 2011.

Over the year and in the run up to Christmas, we went to many fundraising events and met so many people who have helped to support the charity. We returned to the office after the festive break raring to go, but alas, we were confronted with devastating news about our long term funding.

We now only have sufficient funds to keep us going until March 2011!

Christmas is a very difficult time for us following the loss of Daniel, but we make the best of the festive spirit of giving. Receiving this awful news has made it extremely difficult to understand the lack of recognition and long term investment for these vital services.

This is a desperate situation and we need to dispel the long held public viewpoint that the charity is well supported and will get through any financial donation shortfalls…as sadly, this is not the case.

Virtually all of our income comes from small public donations + proactive and reactive fundraising initiatives eg events, sport & challenge events, entertainment events etc. The revenue from these general fundraising activities has & continues to diminish. We receive no government funding or funding from major supporters or philanthropic investors.

Implications for the future

From humble beginnings, we started when there were just a few hundred people from the Ethnic Minority groups registered as potential bone marrow donors. Over the years we have fought tooth and nail to keep the ACLT going on a shoe string and have achieved some amazing things with the help of our supporters. Due to our collective efforts the numbers of potential bone marrow donors, blood donors has increased by tens of thousands and life saving matches have been found. More recently we have started to encourage and recruit more organ donors.

Together we have helped to save lives…many, many lives, and this work is now in severe jeopardy.

How to donate

A Virgin Money Giving Page has been set up. The page allows you to donate funds to the ACLT and see exactly how much is being donated.

Alternatively, please pay directly into the ACLT Bank Account

Nat West Bank
Account name: African Caribbean leukaemia Trust or ACLT
Account no. 30921791
Sort Code. 60 05 14

www.aclt.org

African Literature Book Club: Review of Black Sunlight by Dambudzo Marechera

For our last discussion of the African Literature Book Club, we read and discussing Black Sunlight, a challenging piece
of work by Zimbabwean author Dambudzo Marechera.

Present: Alice, Aminata, Angela, Elizabeth, Sasha.

What on earth is going on?
Sasha:  This book was so weird. It starts off quite violently and I assumed the action was in Africa but then there were all these Western influences. So you aren’t always sure where it is set. I started to get into it around Chapter 4 and I know they were activists…
Alice: They were terrorists weren’t they…
Elizabeth: and he [the protagonist known as Christian] is a photographer for their subversive magazine Precision.
Alice: I could follow it in the beginning; I can follow his life which is quite straightforward up until he enters the cavern. Then it just gets weird…
Elizabeth: It just gets weirder and weirder from there, very trance like, he talks to someone who looks like himself.
Sasha: …and then he starts seeing people who I thought were people in authority who they had captured and tortured, and then they disappear. At that point he doesn’t know his own mind anymore and I stopped reading

Why couldn’t we finish it?
Elizabeth: It’s just too hard! I would need a whole academic year to dissect what’s going on in this book. I simply couldn’t follow this when reading it on the train and I started to fall asleep with the effort.
Ami: I agree it’s simply too hard to read. You can’t follow the story because you’re translating it and trying to find out his meaning.
Alice: After the protagonist enters the cavern, the book gets highly philosophical.
Sasha: It’s such a shame because I felt there was a lot of profound things being said but I was missing them simply because people don’t speak like that and you feel like you have to excavate the message that he was trying to communicate.
Ami: Sibusiso was telling us last month about the author, Dambudzo Marechera; that you either get it and love it or you think he is crazy.
Elizabeth: I don’t think he is crazy. This reminded me of the Beat Poets – and I don’t particularly like the Beats…
Alice: *gasp*
Elizabeth: Sorry. But this kind of stream-of consciousness was different from the Beats style and I liked it.
Alice:  This book seems to have a lot of Marechera’s story and influences in it. He attended Oxford university but he was completely insubordinate and tried to set his college on fire so they gave him a choice to either leave, or stay and get psychiatric treatment. So he left the university but stayed around Oxford with friends and wrote his novels. His first one House of Hunger was published by Heinemann and did very well and they had similar expectations for Black Sunlight but when they got it they refused to publish at first and then relented, so maybe his first book is less chaotic.
Angela: That happens a lot though with publishers and authors, they do second third and fourth revisions of books before they decide to publish. When I read this I immediately thought “this is like James Joyce Ulysses”
Elizabeth: Yeah there’s a lot of comparison between him and Joyce. I don’t think Ulysses gets nearly as psychological as this and thank god this isn’t as long as Ulysses. I would like to read Marechera’s poetry though.
Ami: He is so good with language and imagery, which would be fine for poetry but not in a novel it’s just too much. Did he ever go back to Zimbabwe?
Alice: Channel 4 was going to make a film of his book and they flew him out to Zimbabwe and housed him – but then he started arguing with them so they left and he stayed there. He died penniless aged 35.
Sasha: Well they do say there is a fine line between genius and madness but I agree I would like to read his poetry. There is a line in here that I underlined “The silence slammed the door after him, as he ravenously left.” (?!) I mean what is that?!
Elizabeth: How can Silence slam doors?
Alice: How do you ravenously leave?
Sasha: Then there are the references to a Jonah Complex [which is fear of one’s greatness]. Clearly you have an author here who is incredibly smart and to truly understand him you have to find out all that he is alluding to.

Is it African?
Alice: Well it’s definitely more substantial than the Tadjo book. Even when you can’t follow it you have a strong sense of the protagonis’s background, his friends, his origins, his duty to take photos and change the country.
Elizabeth:  I couldn’t always tell the races of the people in the novel because I didn’t want to assume. The only one I could identify as white was Blanche.
Sasha: I had the same problem I wasn’t always sure who we were with and where we were because the characters are just dropped in and then we lose track of them.
Angela: Does it matter whether the characters are black or white?
Elizabeth: It does help me situate myself when he has flashbacks to being in Oxford and then being on a University campus in Zimbabwe.
Alice: I definitely think it has all of the hallmarks of an African novel in the beginning…

Verdict
We see you smirking – all these educated black women can’t get through this 137 page book. We challenge you to read and understand this novel in one month with all the other stuff going on in your busy lives…yeah we didn’t think so!

Rapture Film Club Hosts For Colored Girls Screening

As guests trickled into the Stratford Picturehouse on 10 December 2010, others waited patiently for their tickets. It was Tuesday evening and we were all about to watch an advance screening of Tyler Perry’s For Colored Girls hosted by Rapture film club.
Upstairs in the bar/lounge area was live music by Gospel artist Ayo Tomori and poetry by Teju Chosen to keep us entertained in the meantime. Buzzing chatter over guitar strokes, laughter from the audience as the sassy poet rhymed witty puns and drinks hot and cold enjoyed throughout the room all adding to the excitement that evening.

The Q&A after the film was a great outlet for dialogue between the audience and special guest panellists Wil Johnson, Angela Wynter and Tameka Empson. Key themes like sisterhood and the portrayal of men in film were discussed. While the film felt like an emotional overload it was by far Perry’s best effort to date.

Rapture film club holds monthly film screenings perfect for film lovers and an opportunity to network with like-minded people.

Visit Rapture film club website for more information on Rapture upcoming film screenings.

For Colored Girls – Review

I want you all to know that I had only good thoughts before entering the screening of this film. Having read Ntozake Shange’s choreopoem/play, I knew that the task of adapting the language and themes within For Coloured Girls into a film was never going to be an easy task. The controversy caused by having Tyler Perry adapting, producing and directing this film did not go unnoticed, but I decided to reserve my judgement until I had seen the film. I was prepared to accept a good effort, a film that is watchable, alluding to Shange’s play but able to stand on its own as a decent piece of cinema.

Well by my beginning you can tell this film did not meet my standards. Aside from all the regular bad film faux pas; bad pacing (it dragged), bad dialogue, thin plot – this film is lazy. A cut and paste job, a bit of Tyler Perry’s dialogue there a bit of Shange’s poems there, and there’s your film – it’s insulting.

What I had definitely not expected was for the film to be crass; there are points in the film where the juxtaposition of Perry’s dialogue and Shange’s poem is such a bad fit it results in a sarcastic snort of laughter from the audience. For example Loretta Divine character acts out a poem, about a minute long, powerfully telling the man that she loves that she has had enough of putting her love for him before herself only to have the reply “So I guess this is goodbye then.” The experiences of black women have been ridiculed for too long for sarcastic snorts to be response to a film adaptation of such an expressive and important play.

The most tragic part of this film is that all the actors in this film were trying so hard to make this film work: The performances here could have been great ones were they not in such a badly conceived film, instead they become twisted, overwrought and melodramatic slipping back into the caricatures of black women we know so well. So instead of being worldly wise with an honest desire to help her neighbours Phylicia Rashad’s character becomes a sanctimonious nosy neighbour. Instead of being a professional with a strong desire to help women in the community Loretta Devine becomes another sassy black woman with snappy one-liners. You get the idea…the caricatures start when Perry’s dialogue does. Shange’s poems sit confusingly and uncomfortably in the moments in between so no character ever really portrays the full beauty of the play.

Black men don’t come off very well in this film a) because it’s not about them [see title] and b) this is a badly conceived film, and they are simply too two-dimensional to be taken seriously – the emotional impact of the film takes a knock because of it.

Overall I’m saddened, because this was an opportunity that was wasted, a proper black arts film expanding on the legacy left by films like A Raisin in the Sun, and Killer of Sheep – expanding the black experience in America beyond the typical racial caricatures into something real that people, regardless of their colour, would be able to relate to.

For Colored Girls
Directed by Tyler Perry
With: Janet Jackson, Loretta Devine, Michael Ealy, Kimberly Elise, Omari Hardwick, Hill Harper, Thandie Newton, Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose, Tessa Thompson, Kerry Washington, Whoopi Goldberg and Macy Gray.

Out Now. Full cinema listings on londonnet.co.uk

Review of Onwords & Upwords/Verb [swish]’s Teach-Err, Teach-Err album launch

Verb [swish] to my mind is one of London’s, if not the UK’s, most erudite and eloquent performance poets.  Combining a speaking voice that’s a broadcaster’s dream with witty observations on everything from anonymity vs. celebrity culture to spiritual enlightenment, he’s in a class of his own.

Last Friday 12 November Verbs launched his long-awaited album ‘Teach-Err, Teach-Err’ at the packed out Horse Bar, Central London as part of his ‘Onword & Upword’ series of showcase events.  The night got underway with a set from Abimaro Suit and her band The Free.  With the effortless beauty of her warm, smoky voice and its enchanting vibrato as well as her considerable songwriting ability, Miss Suit delivers consistently great performances.  Those familiar with her previously acoustic guitar-led sets would find the transformation of some of the same songs intriguing.  On Luke for instance, inspired by the third Gospel account, Abimaro has added a few well-placed harmonica solos.  The acoustic guitar might be out but the song’s arrangement remains stripped bare and somewhat vulnerable, the musicians unobtrusively supporting Miss Suit’s gorgeous voice and thought-provoking lyrics.  Alex MontaQue’s piano accompaniments are especially sympathetic to her compositions, free indeed from the constraints of what has become standard r&b fair.
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An Afropolitan Shopping Experience

Launched as a tribute to African Women’s Decade 2010 – 2020, the MsAfropolitan boutique celebrates the successes of African women in the diaspora, showcasing must-have fashion, jewellery, art and interior design collections all made by cosmopolitan African women.

Each of the designers featured in the MsAfropolitan boutique has been chosen because they offer a unique product that draws inspiration from the African continent and that supports ethical causes and/or production methods.

The MsAfropolitan shopping experience includes not only distinct products but also a history and journey of the African Diaspora woman through the interview series on the MsAfropolitan blog where each woman whose products are sold in the boutique shares her story.

The brands available in the MsAfropolitan boutique make  perfect presents to people who value the uniqueness and beauty of a product, perhaps even the buyer them-self.

Items sold in the MsAfropolitan Boutique all have a 10% discount on the retail price.

For more information on the MsAfropolitan boutique please visit www.msafropolitan.bigcartel.com or the MsAfropolitan blog

African Literature Book Club: Review of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart

For our 5th book review, we tackled Things Fall Apart (Pocket Penguin Classics)by the father of African Literature Chinua Achebe. It is a discussion we were all looking forward, as some of us had already read and adored the book.

Present: Aminata, Alice, Sibusiso, Elizabeth and Tope.

Things Fall Apart revisited

Alice: Penguin were going to send us another book for this series but it wasn’t available for the UK so they offered us Things Fall Apart  as an alternative. I agreed because it is a classic. And I love it just as much as I did when I first read it 15 years ago.

Sibusiso: It didn’t work for me; I think maybe I had huge expectations. You know Chinua Achebe “the father of African literature”. Perhaps I over romanticised it and so it didn’t work for me. But I respect the book in terms of what it achieved but I’ll be interested to see how Chinua Achebe’s writing has developed.

Elizabeth: I felt like that the first time I read Things Fall Apart, and maybe it was just because I really did not like Okonkwo (the novel’s protagonist) and I think I missed a lot of the nuance. But now with all the other novels I’ve read in this series I can really appreciate how well this story is told.

Aminata:  I found it very powerful: through one character and his life Achebe manages to tell us a lot about Nigerian history. He shows how easy it is for a group to come in and divide and conquer. It’s definitely a book that I would read again to pick up on the small details I may have missed.

Tope: I got what I expected from it and I mean to go read the follow up novels (No Longer at Ease / Arrow of God). I love it.

Where Things Fall Apart falters
Sibusiso: The proverbs, the irony of conversation, the stereotype romanticism of being “poor but happy” in the storytelling – It just didn’t work for me. I wish we had gotten to see some of the elders’ flaws: it would have been more realistic. I would like to have seen a bit more darkness. Compared to more contemporary African authors or someone like Wole Soyinka there wasn’t enough there.

Tope: [to Sibusiso] I understand what you are saying about the changes from when this was written and how it would perhaps be written by a contemporary author today. For example if Toni Morrison had written this you know you would have been in tears. She would have gotten to the bitterness of their everyday life and the new bitterness of colonialism, whereas Chinua Achebe glossed over all the whippings and the struggles…

Sibusiso: Yeah, I feel he needed to go there.

Tope: But then again the book isn’t about that, it is about African pride. The story is focused on Okonkwo, the protagonist. Iit’s not about colonisation which only takes up about one third of the book.

Achebe tells us how colonisation went down

Alice: You always kind of wonder how it was that Africans let down all their guards and traditions and embraced something so foreign [as Christianity]. The way the story is told in history books is that colonisers bought the natives with trinkets, and guns. But in this book it shows that people went to Christianity to escape the oppression of tradition.

Elizabeth: Definitely, the stories of Christianity are what they used to get people on their side, they used it to divide and conquer.

Aminata: There was inequality and unfairness in Okonkwo’s village. The missionaries used that to lure them into embracing Christianity. If you’re an Ozu [a person without a title] then why would you stay in a tradition that sees you as worthless? Like the woman who is forced to abandon her twins – why wouldn’t she join a religion that allows her to keep her children? It is possible to attract people without force or bribery, just by giving them more freedom.

The ending *SPOILERS*

Alice:  The ending is a bit the same as in Weep not Child: the main character tries to commit suicide. But Okonkwo succeeds whereas in Weep Not child the main character fails. I thought both characters acted in a very cowardly way.

Aminata: I thought Okonkwo’s suicide was a form of resistance. He knew the white people would come for him and he thought “I’ll kill myself before I let you kill me”.

Elizabeth: I agree that his suicide was “they’ll never take me alive” Okonkwo is a control freak until the end.

Tope: No, I think Okonkwo gave up; he reached the end of his tether. I think he thought it would be better to die in the evil forest than to be buried amongst his clansmen. You know at the end there were so many sentences about “they are behaving like women” when he committed suicide he couldn’t stand the thought of living or dying remembered by such a weak clan.

Alice: There is something so mythical about this story, like a greek tragedy, or something from Shakespeare.

Elizabeth: You could compare it to Othello! Only with Okonkwo it is mostly internal, you have his kinsmen directly telling him “you don’t have to do this to prove yourself”, but he always has to be the one controlling the situation. Whereas with Othello even though he is paranoid as a black soldier in all white Venetian society, Iago is the one playing on his paranoia.

What makes Things Fall Apart the quintessential African Novel?

Ami: It has everything on the list we made: family, politics, education a sense of duty from Achebe, the proverbs, and mostly being as far away from Alexander McCall Smith as possible!

For Colored Girls UK Release – Preview

The crowned king of melodrama has reached outside of his comfort zone and taken on more mature content  in his film adaptation of Ntozake Shange’s choreopoem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf.

Translating an experimental 1975 stage play to film would be a challenge for any director, but American critics had a hard time envisioning Tyler Perry at the helm of this project. The greatest obstacle facing this film wasn’t the budget or even casting choices, it was the lack of faith in Perry’s ability behind the camera. With the exception of his loyal fan base and those who decided to reserve judgement until after they saw the film, naysayers were predicting failure even before shooting began. As the saying goes, “you can’t please everybody,”’ and For Colored Girls wouldn’t be any different.

Perry used key elements from Shange’s 20 poems as a guideline for the characters he created. Instead of seven women identified only by colour i.e. The Lady in White, Perry added two more female characters and five male characters, giving them names and a brief back story. The setting is a walk-up apartment in the middle of Harlem where most of the characters live. Their stories intersect at different points throughout the story with new characters introduced in an abrupt manner. Similarly, the rough transition from dialogue to monologue was noticeable as Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter pointed out ‘the switch in writing between [Perry] and Shange is jarringly pronounced. The words belong to different worlds.’

One of the criticisms about the film was that the male characters had no redeeming qualities. Michael O’sullivan’s review in the Washington Post pretty much described For Colored Girls as male-bashing galore ‘It paints a bleak picture of masculinity as the domain of liars and thieves, paranoid alcoholics, unemployed moochers, adulterers, sex addicts and paedophiles,’ or as Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times put it ‘the men are varying degrees of monstrous.’ But Honeycutt contends that Perry sees the women as equally responsible as they ‘often collaborate in their own victimhood’.

This isn’t a lift-your-spirit-feel-good film. It is a close look at traumatic experiences of women where men are the catalyst for pain, loss, betrayal, anger and disappointment. For Colored Girls will polarise UK audiences and you’ll either love it or hate it, there really is no middle ground here. Perry’s latest endeavour isn’t perfect and could benefit from a more experienced director and a well-developed script, but—if given a chance—For Colored Girls might surprise you in a good way or maybe not. The only way to know for sure is to see it and draw your own conclusion.

For Colored Girls opens in the UK on the 10th of December.

Win the official poster!

Directed by Tyler Perry
With: Janet Jackson, Loretta Devine, Michael Ealy, Kimberly Elise, Omari Hardwick, Hill Harper, Thandie Newton, Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose, Tessa Thompson, Kerry Washington, Whoopi Goldberg and Macy Gray.

Interview with Nigerian author Chika Unigwe

Would you wander around the red light district of Antwerp in a miniskirt and boots in the name of research? I thought not. I doubt I’d be brave enough to but that’s exactly what Chika Unigwe the Nigeria-born author of On Black Sisters’ Street did. We caught up with her to quiz her on her book and writing.

Catch a Vibe: Is writing something you always wanted to do? How did you get started?
Chika Unigwe: It is something I always wanted to do. I never imagined doing or being anything else. I wrote from a very young age, mostly poetry and short stories. When I moved to Belgium, I was a bit overwhelmed with everything and found I couldn’t write poetry anymore as poetry for me is very intimate, and couldn’t do it with the way I felt at the time. That’s when I moved onto fiction writing.

What challenges did you face?
Very practical ones, the first was I had no network of writing friends to start off and secondly realised to get noticed here (Belgium) I would have to start out writing in a language other than English. The first story that got me noticed was written in Dutch for a competition and my first novel The Phoenix was written in Dutch.

What inspired you to tackle the subject of prostitution as you have in On Black Sisters’ Street?
Coming from a very conservative Catholic home/background, moving to Belgium was a cultural shock for me as sex here is very visible. When you take the train you can actually see the women in their display cases. I soon realised many of the young women engaged in prostitution were actually Nigerian and that made me wonder what would make them travel so far to come and work in the sex industry here. I started off writing short stories about Nigerian prostitutes in Antwerp, but the more I wrote the more questions I had. I really wanted to know what their true stories were. I then started on Black Sisters’ Street.

How did you go about conducting research for the book?
One of the earliest criticisms I got from my writer friends on the book was that the girls were not very authentic. One of my friends challenged me to go down and speak to the girls myself as she felt the story would benefit from that. I did, donning on a mini skirt and boots. Initially they didn’t believe I was a writer because in their reality if you are black, a Nigerian and a woman you couldn’t be anything other than be a prostitute. One of the women I approached and told I was writing a story and the characters were prostitutes laughed in my face. She didn’t believe me and proceeded to ask how long I had been in the country.  I managed to get through in the end.

What reactions have you had from the book?
There is a certain level of gratitude from sex workers. A few weeks ago I was a keynote speaker at a conference for human trafficking in Holland where people thanked me for highlighting some of the issues.  From a certain group of people it’s gratitude for giving the women a voice and from others like some Belgians it’s wow! Thanks for opening our eyes to what goes on right under our noses. They had no idea!

Has writing the book changed your perception of those caught up in that world?
It has changed me in several ways. Before I did my research I saw the world in black and white but life is a lot more complicated than that.  I realized that circumstances make people take what we (and perhaps they) might consider wrong decisions. I learnt that for some shame is a huge luxury and not something you think about when everything is going your way. One of the girls asked: “if your father was dying and you couldn’t afford the medication and the only way was to sell your body would you do it?. Even though it’s a very conscious decision that they made I don’t think it’s a decision they made lightly and not from a whole list of choices they had. It made me a lot more grateful for the opportunities I have had.

Are you planning on pursuing this subject line?
No that’s completely done now I have moved onto other things now.

Who are your literary influences/who do you enjoy reading?
I constantly have different people influencing me but if I think right back to when I really wanted to be a writer it was because of Flora Nwapa. Her daughter and I were classmates in primary school and she used to come to class with all these wonderful books which she had written  herself which I thought was so cool. I remember during career days at school, being a writer was never one given to us as one of the options. Flora Nwapa was my earliest influence and my idol. As a teenager I also discovered Buchi Emecheta. I am currently reading A Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk  and Too much Happiness by Alice Munro. A book I always reread is Beyond the Devil’s Teeth by Tahir Shah. It is a travelogue and is amazing. I have just ordered all the rest of his books.

What advice have you got for budding writers?
Not to take criticism of their work personally, surround yourself with people who give honest and constructive criticism.

What next for you?
I have completed a novel (The Sin Eater) set in Nigeria which will be published in 2012 by Jonathan Cape. I am currently working on a historical novel as well as a collection of short stories.

Mary J. Blige at The O2: Gig Review

Mary J Blige, the award winning queen of hip hop soul, is something else. Renowned for her gritty, raw voice and songs marinated in pain and whipped up on survival she proved again why she deserves to keep her crown on the London stop of her ‘Music Saved My Life’ tour.

There is just something about Mary – her fans have always found her charismatic because she epitomizes the triumph of hope over despair after suffering drug abuse and abusive relationships.  But now she’s calmed down – her marriage to Kendu Isaacs has grounded her and brought the stability and happiness she has been desperately looking for. Blige’s career has spanned 18 years and she has dropped nine albums with an impressive backlog to share with her live audiences.

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ARISE Magazine: An African Publication for a Global Audience

Billing itself as ‘a celebration of African achievement in fashion, music, culture and polity’ and ‘an unashamedly positive portrayal of Africa and its contribution to contemporary society across the world’, ARISE Magazine launched in newsstands back in early 2009, and since then has won awards commending it as a leading international publication.

So what does it offer to its African as well as global audiences? Catch a Vibe spoke to Editor Helen Jennings on what marks ARISE out from other African fashion magazines and why it aims to break racial boundaries.

It was certainly an ambitious and promising publication to launch and many wondered just how long it would be able to last in a tough global market. Ten issues later and it’s still there with plenty yet to explore, having already tackled issues such as black billionaires, Obama’s Africa, the African diaspora around the world, Afro-punk in South Africa, 50 years of independence and the FIFA World Cup 2010. As Helen points out: “ I feel that we’re doing something meaningful with ARISE that goes beyond having a pretty magazine to put on your coffee table. So as Africa realises its potential, so will ARISE.”

In a crowded media market, both online and in print, where does ARISE position itself and what is it doing to mark itself out?  How is it answering to what the mainstream media is ignoring? “ARISE is the first international high-end publication to shine a light on all the good things happening on the continent and in the diaspora,” states Helen. “Africa has much to celebrate, contrary to what much of the international media would have you believe, and so ARISE is shouting about it. This marks us out from any other publication on the market.”

ARISE is one of a number of emerging African publications, which are ambitious and passionate about reaching out to and reflecting the current audience and cultures in Africa. Helen goes further: “I applaud what True Love and African Woman are trying to do for East African fashion and publishing. I was in Nairobi last week where I met some staff and they’re passionate about what they’re doing. A new magazine called Up has just launched there too, aiming at a young, urban audience – it looks promising. I also like Canoe in Ghana – a very stylish publication.”

So it is a positive sign, seeing an African audience and diaspora create and support a growing and diverse range of publications to showcase African culture and fashion from their point of view and experiences – and not through the eye of the mainstream western media. In that context, it’s been questioned how a white editor can be justified. Helen answers to that criticism: “Any magazine that aims itself specifically at a readership based on race is creating boundaries for itself. I’m not saying racism doesn’t exist in the media or popular culture – there has been much debate about the lack of black models in mainstream magazines for example – but it shouldn’t be a case of divide and conquer. What sets ARISE apart from titles such as Essence, Ebony, Pride et al, is that it’s not trying to be specifically a black title or talk to just one audience or gender. We’re a global title meant for anyone who is engaged with Africa’s ascension. The world is shrinking and Africa is rising – you don’t have to be black to read ARISE – or work for the magazine either!”

If race isn’t the boundary, what inspired a UK-based white journalist to join a glossy African fashion bible? Helen has worked her way through various fashion and culture publications from around the globe: “ I’ve explored culture from all over the world in my career and contributed to a number of titles in the USA, England and Australia. So when I was asked to launch and edit ARISE I jumped at the chance. It’s my dream job. Since the launch, I have traveled extensively across Africa and become immersed in its contemporary culture.”

ARISE is owned by Nigerian media mogul Nduka Obaigbena, who also owns the successful daily Thisday, and is reputed with helping to transform the image of Nigeria on the international scene. As Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria offers a huge potential consumer market as well as heavy economic and cultural influence on the continent and beyond. Nigeria is a key market and a crucial factor in the ARISE’s success. Helen points out: “Nigerians were the first to embrace the magazine as their own. Whether it’s Nigeria’s burgeoning fashion scene, its bankable pop stars, or its oil and energy industries, there’s always something to say about the country and its people.”

How has the core, immediate target audience – both in Africa and abroad reacted? Has it embraced ARISE and for the right reasons? “We’ve had an overwhelmingly positive response so far,” states Helen. “The magazine has hit on a need for an up-market, intelligent magazine about Africa that doesn’t patronize its readers, compromise on quality or exclude anyone from picking it up.”

In a global market overpopulated with niche publications, is there room for something like ARISE? Helen emphasizes what her publication offers: “We’ve received messages from readers in Nigeria, across Africa and beyond, all saying how happy they are that there’s finally a magazine that speaks to them. It’s not just as yet another glossy magazine, it’s Africa’s very own glossy magazine helping to put African achievements centre stage. ARISE still had to work hard to find its place in the market: “The main challenge at first was that people didn’t know where to place the magazine because it’s such a unique proposition,” admits Helen, “but each issue speaks for itself and we’re now sold in major outlets on four continents.”

She continues: “The opportunities and successes have been manifold: our interview with Grace Jones, who prowled the catwalk at the debut ARISE show at New York Fashion Week, our cover shoot with Alicia Keys (ARISE was sponsor of her Keep A Child Alive Black Ball in 2009), our feature with Morgan Tsvangirai (Prime Minister of Zimbabwe) and our epic World Cup gatefold fashion shoot with six models, including Oluchi and Alek Wek.”

What will it take for such a magazine to last? Inclusiveness, answers Helen Jennings: “ARISE believes in inclusiveness – there’s little in the magazine that couldn’t be in a more mainstream title. As more African economies and democracies grow, so too will its creative industries and in turn output from Africa will catch the mainstream eye. It’s only a matter of time.”

The next issue of ARISE comes out in December.

arisemagazine.net

Fela! The Musical: Review

This was no idle wait. The unmistakeable sound of drums, the sax and Afrobeat music filled the air and I simply couldn’t resist the urge to move my body to the beat. A few dancers appeared on stage wriggling away and seeking unwitting members of the audience to drag onto the stage. They succeeded and proceeded to give them an impromptu lesson in African dance.  What was I waiting for you ask? It was for the show Fela! to commence at the National Theatre in London. As it turned out, that inability to resist the urge to move to the beat was something I was plagued with throughout the duration of the show.

Book your tickets to see Fela! at the National Theatre in London

The performance kicks off with a burst of light, colour and very energetic nimble dancers in traditional African garb dancing and singing the chorus of “Everything Scatter Scatter”.  Sahr Ngaujah who plays Fela Kuti makes his appearance from in amidst the audience with his arms raised above his head and gives a very compelling rendition of the song. “Everybody say yeah! yeah!“ he shouts while welcoming us all to the Shrine (Felas’s club in Lagos where he performed) which the stage has been set as.

The show then proceeds to chart Fela’s life and influences through a mixture of narrative, visual displays on the screen, song and dance. It begins with Kuti’s early years in Nigeria, touching on the local tradition of consulting with oracles and his earliest musical influence highlife music. It then moves on to the period Fela spent in England, which is where he first set up his band then titled Koola Lobitos. The show carries on to chart his return to Nigeria and the influence his activist mother (Melanie Marshall) had on his life. A stint in America follows soon after, where Fela meets Sandra Isadore (Paulette Ivory) who introduces him to the Black Power movement. Finally the story takes us back to Nigeria where it culminates with an exceptional visual feast in a scene where the singer consults with his mum via the oracles.

Regretfully, some of the songs appeared to have been watered down, with the wordings changed from pidgin to conventional English, and anyone not familiar with Nigerian traditions could easily become a bit confused over some scenes in the show – in particular the part where the Afrobeat singer confers with his mum’s spirit. But these are minor quibbles that didn’t seem to deter the audience from thoroughly enjoying the musical.

Sahr Ngaujah the lead actor is wonderful as Fela; effortlessly interacting with the audience and adding another dimension to his portrayal of the late singer. We were also enthralled by the dancers,  on the stage but also placed all around the theatre, and who moved in energetic and inspired movements in a sumptuous choreography created by Bill T Jones. Their joy was infectious and I came out of the theatre with the sudden urge to want to take a dance class or two.

This is a show you will want to watch again and again and again.

Fela! at the National Theatre until 23 January 2011

Theatre Review: blue/orange

Penhall’s play is a skillfully informed drama which places cultural and ethnic background at the heart of the mental health debate. On one hand is the assumption that all patients are treated and diagnosed equally while on the other is the opinion that diagnosis should be tailored to factor in racial circumstances as the differences between the races can often lead to misdiagnosis. Penhall highlights this debate brilliantly using the characters of Hilary and Emily who despite their professional convictions you never really trust. Is Hilary only using Juliet as a pawn in her path to professorship? And does Emily actually care about a patient she soon takes to verbally abusing?

Director Femi Elufowoju, Jr has extracted fantastic performances from his stellar cast of three. Ayesha Antoine does an excellent job as Juliet, walking the line between schizophrenia and personality disorder so well you are never certain who she really is. Helen Schlesinger really convinces as the initially exuberant but later cunning and calculating Dr Hilary who brings about her ulterior motives with an added measure of class and elegance and Esther Hall (the lady from the BT adverts) brings the seemly ethical Esther to life with a real tangible naivety; to the point you’re not sure if she can really be trusted.

Having been played by a number of male actors over the years it’s a wonder blue/orange hasn’t previously been performed with an all female cast. The characters lend themselves well to either gender with the subject and plot actually being enhanced being acted by women. If this is result when women take over – it should definitely happen more often.

blue/orange
By Joe Penhall
Directed by Femi Elufowoju, Jr
Arcola Theatre: 27th October – 20th November 2010. Info & Tickets
Cast: Ayesha Antoine, Esther Hall and Helen Schlesinger

What’s On Stage 2011 Awards: Vote for your favourite play!

Theatre award season is now upon us and I have to admit that I was a little frustrated to see that although more black productions than normal have been recognised so far, the nominations have mainly been in the category of Best Play alone,  not in Best Design, Best Director etc. Ruined and Sucker Punch have been nominated for Best Play at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards, and both Adrian Lester and the phenomenal Jenny Jules have been longlisted for Best Actor and Best Actress respectively.

Little can be done about industry awards, but when it comes to those that can be decided upon by the public, theatregoers must vote! Not just so that our voices can be heard and our votes counted, but so that non-white, non-’mainstream’ projects are valued and honoured. Theatre is a reflection of our society as it is, has been, and could be in the future. It cannot be left to an elite few to judge the plays that have captured our hearts and delighted us, or the productions that have forced us to take a hard look at who we are.

The What’s on Stage 2011 Awards cover all professional London productions between 1 December 2009 and 30 November 2010. There are several categories you can vote for – Best Actor and Actress (also in a musical), Best Ensemble performance, Best Choreographer, Best Takeover in a role etc. You don’t have to vote for all categories, but if your favourite production was Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, or Ruined, Sus, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Estate Walls or any of the superb plays staged in the last 12 months, then vote now! Let us show that Londoners care more about talent and artistry than we do about empty celebrity and back-patting elitism.

Click here to vote

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