We’ve been quiet for a while, but we’re slowly getting back into the swing of things and getting our blog mojo back. It may take a while though, but we’ll get there. We’re also getting soft bellies (the blog’s been around for a while now). But here’s my first Weekend Special of the Fall. It may be a bit football-heavy up top, but read till the end. Hope there’s still time to read it before the week starts.

First up, afrographique, the people who can turn any piece of information about the continent into an infographic, has one depicting the home and away kit colors of the top 20 African national soccer teams as ranked by FIFA … well ranked by Coco Cola. [via shazeeed]

To continue with football: Egypt’s football federation hired an American as their new national team coach. This is a first for an African team. An American coach.  The lucky man who has to contend with football mania in Egypt is Bob Bradley, until recently coach of the US national team. (To get a sense of the football mania Bradley has signed himself up for, type “Bob Bradley” and “Egypt” into Youtube’s search engine.)  Anyway, this can only enhance the reputation of American football, err soccer. [ESPN]

More football. Remember this name: Paul Pogba. Currently in Manchester United’s youth team where’s he’s being coached by former player Paul Scoles. Born in France, Pogba briefly played for Guinea, the country of his parents, but has since changed allegiances to France. The boy’s a bit special, as they would say.

More sports. Watch Kenyan marathon runner Patrick Makau winning the Berlin Marathon last week and signaling the end of the brilliant career of Ethiopian Haile Gebrseselassie. Makau almost misses the finish line in the process

The US national team has featured a number of players of African descent. (We’d also like to see more players of Latin American descent.) But DC United goalkeeper Bill Hamid will probably be the first African player from a Muslim background. Bill’s family migrated from Sierra Leone. Hamid, by the way, is the son of Sully Hamid, a former professional footballer himself. (Sully Hamid played fro Queen’s Park Rangers in England.) Bill’s been in the news since he started playing professionally–example from Sporting News last week (nothing about his family background though), where he got sent off last month and further back, last year, when he made his debut for DC United.

And since we’re on the topic of African migrants to the US: In his review (last week) of a new book by the American journalist Toure (yes, he uses one name) about what it means to be black in America since Barack Obama became US President, Harvard professor Orlando Patterson notes that in its 251 pages “… there is no consideration of the ways immigrant blacks and mixed-race people are contributing to post-black hetero­geneity.”  Which reminds me of the statistics put out over the summer by the Migration Policy Institute that “from 1980 to 2009, the African-born population in the United States grew from just under 200,000 to almost 1.5 million.” Here‘s a link to that report.

In his new book, Pascal Bhokar Thiam, a musician and professor at the University of San Francisco, refers to the United States as “the most Africanized nation in the Western world.” From Timbuktu to the Mississippi Delta: How West African Standards Shaped the Music of the Delta Blues also makes a claim about “the real birthplace of jazz.” It is not New Orleans. Listen here from the 14 minute mark. (We’ll try and get the book and review it here.)

Brian Shimkovitz, the founder of the blog Awesome Tapes From Africa, gets interviewed by The Village Voice. His claim to fame is that he uploads the contents of obscure West African pop music onto his blog. Out of this, he has build a career as a DJ (to places like Latvia and this weekend in Brooklyn) and will soon debut as a label owner. More power to him. The first release of his re-issue label will be Nâ Hawa Doumbia’s 1982 album La Grande Cantatrice Malienne, Vol. 3).

Will hip hop make a difference in Zimbabwe? The BBC World Service reports from a hip hop festival in the capital Harare.

Another question: “What can we learn about contemporary culture from watching dayglo-clad teenagers dancing geekily in front of their computers in such disparate sites as Brooklyn, Buenos Aires, Johannesburg, and Mexico City?” Like the group of Nigerian teenagers in skinny jeans in the latter part of this post? Wayne Marshall (blogger, rapper, DJ and academic) breaks down what this all means.  Here.

The New York Times finally discovers the relationship between rap music and political opposition in Senegal. And no, Akon was not mentioned in the piece.

Zambia has a new President, Michael Sata. He won after three days of vote counting and only once the incumbent conceded. Remember the last elections in Ghana? It had the same kind of stand-off and outcome. So this is a good sign. I mean the way we handle elections.  As for Sata, is a populist–he made promises to deal with inequality in Zambia and has strong criticisms of Chinese businesses in Zambia (for some his comments on the Chinese borders xenophobia)–so interesting times ahead for Zambians.

We’ve featured a short, cryptic post on the continuing protests by young Angolans against Life President Jose Eduardo dos Santos’ kleptocratic regime. Now The Guardian has published an excellent take on developments there [H/T: Marissa Moorman] by Rafael Marques de Morais, one of the best journalists in that oil state and the man behind the anti-corruption website makaangola.org (it also has an English version if you wondering). Here’s a sample from The Guardian piece:

What has made these protests so significant is not so much the courage of such a few, but the sheer incapacity of the regime to remain calm and composed when a few shout for the president to step down. It is the ruling MPLA party’s violent reaction that makes the protest internationally newsworthy and a catalyst for solidarity among people.

The end of the Gaddafi regime (no one knows where he is, but he is definitely not in power) means Libya’s role in African politics will change. William Wallis, an old Africa hand (this is what they call these people) at the Financial Times, wrote in the paper this week, that the new government won’t continue the large monetary gifts to African leaders and support for various rebel groups, but will look “… to the Arab world and north to Europe.” As for how African states are responding, Wallis notes that Nigeria became the first country to break with support for Gaddafi or ambivalence towards the rebels. In the process, Nigeria upstaged South African, the “rival [continental] heavyweight” when it recognized the new government. The South Africans, like they did with Cote d’Ivoire and Zimbabwe, made the case for the incumbent. Wallis also writes that Gaddafi’s end has other implications too, especially in the Sahel.

Meanwhile, the late Joseph Schumpeter has some disciples in South Africa. Ghanaian Fred Swaniker wants his African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg to churn out 6,000 leaders in the next 50 years. [Financial Times again]

You may not know about them yet, but Turkey’s secretive Gulen Movement–a mix of conservative Islam, Turkish nationalism (minus Ataturk), free market capitalist ideology and close ties to Turkey’s ruling party–is growing in influence on the African continent. (I’ve had my own brief run-in with them on a short visit to Turkey.) Le Monde Diplomatique (the English edition) has published a few pieces about them, including of their activities in Africa. The best piece on Gulen’s ambitions is by my friend Suzy Hansen.  You should also read Stephen Kinzer’s recent review essay in The New York Review of Books.