The evolution of a soundsystem.
“Chillin in Ghana”… check GHANA MUSIC - My Mankessim Impressions, a Project of the AFRICA YOUTH SPACE Media Club of Mankessim.
By drumghana
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Made In Queens is a short film about a group of imaginative tinkerers from Trinidad were working late into the nights creating something nobody had ever seen before: enormous stereo systems jury rigged onto ordinary bmx bikes.
Travelling together, each behind the handlebars of his or her own massive homemade creation, they treat the neighborhood to an outrageous impromptu music and dance party on wheels. Directed by Randall Stevens, Made In Queens is a documentary film celebrating America’s first stereobike crew.
http://madeinqueensfilm.com/
The Ugandan Skateboard Union is a youth orientated upliftment program based in Kitintale, Kampala District in Uganda. Big up.
On a recent goodwill trip to the Victoria Falls and mighty Zambezi, an aide to the King had to make an emergency call after his SatPhone went overboard during a leisurely canoe trip downstream. These guys helped him out.
The Groom of the Robes has let us know that the first three designs are in the mill. Keep an eye out for ‘City of Gold’, ‘Haarstyle’ and ‘The King’s Car’ – all designed by friendly locals. Coming soon to an online store near you.
If you’re swanning around the vicinity of Wembley Square in your filthy Jeep, let the King’s preferred car valet service sort you out.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
African Salad is not a new book, but is definitely worth bumping your under utilised Jamie off the kitchen shelf.
Not that you will be cooking too many of these dishes, it’s pages are filled with a salad of South Africans at home, honestly portrayed without any trace of a patronising onlooker. Each person stands proudly in front of their shack, hut, cottage or mansion and with a smile offers a glimpse of their day to day life in their intimate surroundings.
The photographs celebrate a South Africa of today and one of years ago, where saturday afternoon and sunday morning visits to friends, aunts and grannies were being played out.
Published by dayone. Photographs Stan Engelbrecht. Text Tamsen de Beer.
Link to site.
A look at two artists that have put a smile on our dial.
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Johan Fanozi ‘Chickenman’ Mkhize began making art objects to sell on the street after being laid off work at a dairy farm.
He began with a moving dance sculpture while his road signs could found nearby along the kerb. It was these ‘road signs’ with their witty observations and odd typesetting, that captured the public’s imagination, and soon Chickenman signs were being snapped up by art and objet collectors.
More on Chickenman here and here.
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You may have choked on your blini at Greenmarket Square seeing this man with his giant headdress made of eggs and artifacts.
“The guy with all the eggs on his head” is Gregory Da Silva, aka the ‘Egg Man’ or ‘Ei man’, a walking work of art and fast becoming a mobile ‘tourist spot’.
His headdress weighs up to twenty five kilograms and, initially, it was so bizarre, the bemused City Police detained him in a vehicle and called their superiors for advice. Naturally, he was free to go and is now very popular with tourists, posing in hundreds of photos during season and has also been hired to receive guests at hotels and airports!
More on the Egg Man here and here.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
After William Kamkwamba shot to fame with his windmill (TED, Afrigadget), we loosely connected African ingenuity with a few more things that spin around.
From Dreaming
Self taught artist Sibusiso Mbhele who was so thrilled to see a plane circling above the mountains in his native Kwazulu Natal that he went home determined to build one out of oil drums, wire and scrap. He earned his living creating scrap metal sculptures of planes, cars, and bicycles, and, after making the headlines in the local newspapers, Mbhele’s neighbors, jealous of his recognition and success, destroyed his creations and his beloved life-sized, hand-built ‘fish helicopter’ which he had called home.
Sibusiso Mbhele and His Fish Helicopter by Koto Bolofo is published by Power House books.
Book review by Wayne Ford, eye magazine.
To Doing
24 year old Mubarak Muhammad Abdullahi has built his own helicopter using scrap metal and a second-hand engine from a Honda Civic. The four seater aircraft is fitted with seats from an old Toyota saloon car and some of its other parts come from the shreds of a Boeing 747 which crashed near Kano some years ago.
It was first reported on Yahoo News, but the link has gone off the radar, try here.
To getting paid
Jelani Aliyu, who hails from Sokoto, Nigeria, is currently General Motors’ lead exterior designer and designer of the Chevy Volt concept car. After schooling and studying in Nigeria, he was accepted to the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, to study Automobile Design, and, the rest, they say, will be history.
Editorial on Jelani Aliyu.
Chevy Volt site.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
In a quest to reduce the bulkiness of the country’s currency, The Bank of Ghana embarked on a redenomination exercise that converted 100 cedis to 1 Ghana pesewa and 10,000 cedis to 1 Ghana cedi.
The present cedi is equal to 10,000 old cedi and remonetisation saw four zeros lopped off the value. Yet, on the street, the nostalgia still lives on with traders, fish sellers and bus conductors still quoting prices in the old currency.
Link to Voices of Africa article.
So be aware when catching a taxi to your favourite haunt and the driver says your fare is 15,000 cedis…