The business of journalism as we know is in trouble and there's a scramble for a "new journalism model,” with VICE.com held up as the latest prototype (see here, here and here). I am not so sure VICE is the new journalism--it's partnership with "old media" (CNN, HBO) is old fashioned, it mostly produces sponsored content (nothing new there), owns an advertising agency and makes nice with Rupert Murdoch. Of course, VICE’s style represents something fresh. With its diversity of topics and irreverence, it is a vast improvement on the talking heads of cable news. But, there is also much to dislike about Vice.

There are other film critics who are intellectual–like Stuart Klawans at The Nation, Armond White (he was good once) and Stanley Kaufmann at The New Republic–but they lacked Ebert’s accessibility and heart. (Ebert, by the way, had an acute sense of the racial political economy in US cinema, as Richard Prince blogged at The Root). Ebert, who traveled to Apartheid South Africa as a young man, also reviewed a lot of African films.

I haven't done this type of music break (i.e. all jazz) in a while. But before counting down some good music (basically stuff I've been listening to lately), first let me promote an event: Later this month, April 20th, the University of York in the UK, hosts a one-day "discussion" on "South African Jazz Cultures." All the details are at the link, including the program which includes contributions from the musicians Emmanuel Abdul-Rahim, Darius Brubeck (son of Dave, who teaches music in Kwazulu-Natal), and famed drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo. Moholo-Moholo and Abdul-Rahim will talk about working with Johnny Dyani. Also on the program is film maker Aryan Kaganof, researcher Brett Pyper and Matt Temple of Matsuli Music. Hopefully they put the whole thing online for those who can't be there. Now for this week's Jazz Breaks. A few weeks ago, Brooklyn-based piano player and lawyer Steve Jenkins introduced me to the music of another pianist, Jon Batiste. Louisiana-born, New York City-based Batiste, from a prominent musical family, who released his first record at 17 (Christian Scott is also on the album), is already a fixture on the American jazz scene (he is also an art director at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem) and takes over New York City streets with his band New Orleans style, so I was surprised that I had not heard about him or his music. I guess I've been too busy raising children. Anyway, it turns out he starred in the TV drama Treme (about New Orleans) and had an outsized, but small, role as a church organist in Red Hook Summer. Since then I have been catching up. Just google him. Here's an interview with him from 2012.  He also plays the melodica, both a mouth-blown reed instrument and a keyboard. Here Jon plays piano and sings accompanied by his band, The Stay Human Band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Imhau2AmVo Another piano player I've come to like is Guillermo Klein, who fuses the music of his native Argentina with contemporary jazz. He lives largely in Spain where he teaches jazz. Here's a sample with his band, Los Guachos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDYS5e7fD3E Here's 8 minutes of playing from experimental composer and conductor Adam Rudolph and Go:Organic Orchestra (yes, this is way more experimental) recorded in Brooklyn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAFkRyOfSEE Singer Madeleine Peyroux has a new album of standards; buy it here or just listen to it on soundcloud. Here's the new video for one of the songs, the Buddy Holly song "Changing all these changes." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HECibuK36n8 Then there's Secret Society, a 18-piece big-band brass band, led by composer Darcy James Argue (they also have a new album). Here's an earlier sample of their sound: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK_2xrvUckU The American guitarist Marc Ribot. Nice, recent review of his playing in The Financial Times. To get a sense of his sound, listen to him performing live last year with his trio on New Jersey public radio (for a 70-minute set!). Then there's the jazz inflected sounds of Moonchild, a South African band to watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnbFaxL9X3E Finally, Reginald Bowers is a sax player from Riverlea, a working class coloured township in Johannesburg. He is not famous. He studied music. Point is, I just love Reginald's ambition (he wants to start a jazz school and premiere a Riverlea Jazz Band). The short film was made by Twenty Four Frames, which combines health politics with media. You can also follow them on Twitter. http://vimeo.com/56317746

The New York Times, in its infinite wisdom (it comes with being The New York Times), decided that one of the paper's reporters, one Brooks Barnes, should write what amounts to a fluff piece (it's not actual reporting) splintered with quotes in the "Fashion & Style" section about actor Ben Affleck's supposed maturity and all-round goodness. Affleck, who we like to refer to as Life President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is held up as "Hollywood’s New Role Model" and as the "new Hollywood paradigm for masculinity." His qualifications are being a husband, parent, and, yes ... "eastern Congo philanthropist." So the DRC is a prop for "the way to be cool now" in Hollywood. I know someone's going to tell me this is all good fun. Thank you Brooks Barnes. Link.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the New York African Film Festival. The Festival--from April 3rd to the 9th at Lincoln Center--is still the longest running, and probably most significant, African film festival in North America. (I've helped out on the festival in the past, so I'm biased.) It is worth remembering what the festival's executive director and founder and executive director, Mahen Bonetti, has achieved. In a 2004 interview--around the time I first met Mahen--with the UN Chronicle, she said that before she started the festival, "there were very few opportunities for American audiences to see African cinema."  There were lots of  images of Africa circulating in the media at that time, but  they were mostly negative and decontextualized. And as she wrote much later: "Those of us over the age of thirty probably remember well, the images of famine in Ethiopia that had become so pervasive in the news media. Africa, in the US at least, seemed to be known only for famine, war, AIDS--an unreasonably skewed reputation, which sadly, we still struggle to counteract." There are now tons of African-themed film festivals in North America and Western Europe, but they all this owe this festival a debt of gratitude. To assess the impact of her work, in 2o10 Mahen was awarded France's Order of Arts and Letters (Ordre des Arts et des Letteres). NYAFF now runs programs all year round, including a traveling series and school programs, but the festival is still the highlight on the African film calendar. Props to Mahen and her team for keep doing this. So what's on offer this year? [caption id="attachment_65067" align="aligncenter" width="549"] Still from "Death for Sale"[/caption] As usual, the festival features a mix of classics ("Guelwaar" from the Father of African Cinema Ousmane Sembène as well as "TGV" by Moussa Touré) along with films by a new wave of African directors ("Death for Sale," "Burn it up Djassa," "Nairobi Half Life" and the short "Boneshaker" by Frances Bodomo).

The festival provides audiences with insight into the future of African film by spotlighting the filmmakers making waves on the Continent today. Hot new directors Lonesome Solo and David Tosh Gitonga bring a gritty and realistic view of street life in Africa’s urban areas to their respective tales "Burn It Up Djassa" and "Nairobi Half Life." Faouizi Bensaïdi’s crime drama, Death for Sale, follows three friends as they embark upon a jewelry heist in a Moroccan port city to escape a hopeless future.

This year's festival will also feature the US premiere of "Dolce Vita Africana," a documentary about legendary Malian photographer Malick Sidibe. According to the PR, "the film depicts the life and work of the man whose iconic black-and-white images from the late 1950s through 1970s captured the carefree spirit of his generation asserting their freedom after independence." The festival will also feature the historical drama, "Toussaint Louverture," about the African slave revolt in Haiti for independence from France in the late 18th century--the first and only successful slave revolt in the Americas. As we know Haiti's been made to pay for it ever since. (The program includes another Haiti-themed film, "Stones in the Sun"--still just below--about Haitian immigrants in New York City.)

Other new films on the program include "Land Rush" (foreign investors buying up African land), "Fueling Poverty" (the failings of the oil industry in Nigeria) and "Virgin Margarida," on the the stories of women who endured the Mozambican "re-education camps" in the 1970s. Images from the tumblr project, Everyday Africa, will be exhibited at the Roy Furman Gallery next to the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Century from opening night through April 25t. The project started by photographer Peter DiCampo and writer Austin Merrill are "of contemporary African life taken by smartphones from various photographers." All screenings will take place in the Walter Reade Theater on 165 West 65th Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam and Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam). Tickets for New York African Film Festival screenings go on sale March 7, 2013 at the Film Society’s box offices and online. Single screening tickets are $13; $9 for students and seniors (62+); and $8 for Film Society members.

Guest Post by Abdourahman Waberi, Ali Deberkale and Dimitri Verdonck On the eve of the legislative election of February 22, 2013, in the Republic of Djibouti, Hafez Mohamed Hassan, a 14-year-old schoolboy, was shot dead by the secret service of President Ismaël Omar Guelleh’s regime while he was taking part in a demonstration organized by a group of teenagers protesting the lack of sports facilities in their region of Obock. This is what happens when Djibouti is preparing for an election: Bullets and blood are meted out for those who demand free, transparent, and fair elections. The regime has had a monopoly on local media for the past 36 years, and the French media could not be bothered to deal with the undeniable question of repression in its former colony where France, in fact, retains its largest foreign military base. For more than 10 years, and particularly at the dawn of each election, political opposition members, unionists, teachers, human rights activists and regular citizens in Djibouti have suffered brutal repression at the hands of the police and Djiboutian intelligence. During the presidential election of April 2011, the toll of this repression was the heaviest in the country’s history: Several dozen young protesters were killed, with hundreds arrested and detained for months. Former European Commissioner Louis Michel, who was in the region at the time, urged the European Union to condemn the repression. The legislative election was just held in Djibouti. For the first time in ten years, six opposition parties joined in an unprecedented coalition, the Union of National Salvation (UNS). In honor of the occasion, Daher Ahmed Farah, president of the Movement for Democratic Renewal and Development and a very active coalition spokesman decided to end a nine-year forced exile in Belgium, risking arrest and imprisonment by Djiboutian authorities that, quite rightly, fear the hope he represents for a population kept down by the dictatorship. During the electoral campaign season, the population overwhelmingly took to the streets of the capital and other cities to demand change. The situation in itself is quite remarkable, and already constitutes a small revolution. Given the magnitude of civilian mobilization, regime provocations multiplied, leading to numerous arrests and the banning of several public gatherings. However, the intimidation was nothing compared to what happened in previous elections, the last of which saw hundreds jailed in an effort to quash resistance. Just as the French media failed then to denounce the scandalous imprisonment of opposition demonstrators, today it did not highlight the regime’s unexpected position; one can legitimately wonder whether the regime is about to strike harder, upon the release of fraudulent election results, and if there is a risk of plunging the country into a scenario like Syria. The day after the election, unanimously mimicking the AFP broadcast, some media unquestioningly reported the figures put forward by the regime and noted that the elections were conducted peacefully. Others, with a dash of paternalism, highlighted the maturity of the Djiboutian population. To complete the picture, they could even have added that the temperature was 104 Fahrenheit and the wind was light... With a little luck, then, some readers of French media know that elections just took place in Djibouti. Among them, some are still wondering what is at stake in this historical election. As for the viewers of TF1, France 2 and Canal+, they wouldn’t have heard of the election in Djibouti. None would have learned that the day after the election, the Djiboutian regime resorted to its old habits again, arresting demonstrators en masse, detaining those most in the way (some 300 people, including 37 women and a child, at the time of writing this) and trying, by any means necessary, to silence the voices of political opposition leaders under house arrest and any news of the unprecedented popular protests. Above all, when it is most needed (now!), no one seems have bothered to analyze the post-election situation of a country that’s seems off the map, alive only in the thoughts only a handful of divers attracted by the seabed and a few soldiers remembering women they slept with in our port city. The European Union is the largest provider of funds to Djibouti, where it has decided to strengthen its presence. Like Japan and the United States, France pays 30 million Euros annually to the regime for the lease of its military base in conjunction with the bilateral and multilateral aid it provides to Djibouti. Meanwhile, embezzling of public funds is so commonplace in Djibouti that the World Health Organization was forced, a few months ago, to suspend aid allocated to combatting HIV/AIDS. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people continue to live in deplorable conditions, dying of AIDS and cholera. Half of the population lives without shelter as nine out of ten people are homeless in the rest of the country. Water is scarce due to a lack of distribution. Sanitary conditions are disastrous. Unemployment keeps rising. Corruption is widespread. Ultimately, humanity has disappeared at the hands of a dictator and his insatiable lust for power and money. The maintenance of French authority in Djibouti requires an intensification of France’s attention to human rights and democracy. Similarly, there must be a requirement that no 14-year-old schoolboy is killed, no mother raped, no father tortured, no brother executed, that his sister is free to vote, and that the will of the people is valued when expressed with such conviction and clarity as it has been these past few days in Djibouti. Furthermore, it is time for France to understand that in the difficult regional context of the Horn of Africa, the present regime in Djibouti no longer offers a guarantee of stability. On the contrary, the regime is now a serious threat to the stability not only of the country and the region, but also the security of foreign assets. Djiboutian President Ismaël Omar Guelleh, who had wanted to invite one of his closest friends, Sudanese President (and fugitive from the International Criminal Court) Omar El Bashir to the country during his third inauguration in April 2011, has reached the end of his run. Having neither the stature nor the culture of Abdoulaye Wade, the former Senegalese president, who stepped down peacefully after his electoral defeat last spring, it is feared that the Djiboutian President considers Djibouti his personal property and will cling to it at all costs. There are real risks of seeing the regime kill, torture and harshly repress peaceful demonstrators in the coming days. * This article was originally published in French on La Règle du Jeu. It first appeared in English at Warscapes and was translated from French to English by Nathalie Fouyer.

Apart from seeing our logo superimposed on a building in downtown Johannesburg, this is a good way to celebrate AIAC TV's return to Youtube. We (well Dylan Valley) attended STR.CRD in Johannesburg last year. STR.CRD is South Africa's leading (and maybe only) street culture festival and expo. Dylan sat down with Kenyan "geek afro pop" supergroup Just a Band and chatted to them about playing in South Africa, engaging Kenyan politics (this is quite timely given today's vote back in their homeland) and their plans for their new album. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCILm_KsR0w

One of my current favorite bands--haven't seen them play live yet; they're out West--is Bell Atlas. That the lead singer Sandra Lawson is a distant relative of late Nigerian legend Rex Lawson (he is a distant cousin of her mother) and of another highlife legend, Erasmus Jenewari, may be part of it. But Sandra's talent speaks for itself. The other band members are Derek Barber, Geneva Harrison and Doug Stuart. Things are moving fast for them. They've been releasing new songs online for a bit now and have a new album coming out on Bandcamp on March 11. Meanwhile, here's a sample of their sound, self-described as an "Afro-Indie-Soul sound ... incorporating an eclectic range of influences including Highlife, Hip-Hop, Samba, R&B, Post Rock, and Indie Pop": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuI_a75NZJ8 Another video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvNr6AMYOZw And a soundcloud of their latest, and second, single from their debut EP, "Loving You Down." It's about "the weight of attachment that is involved in a relationship. It's about a woman near the end of her life, revisiting some painful memories and deciding to re-craft the telling of her life story": [soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/79397145" params="color=ff6600&auto_play=false&show_artwork=true" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /] * Photo Credit: Bells Atlas

The main takeaway from #Kony2012 is that it will probably retain some salience—despite the widespread criticism against the film and its makers—for how most people, including some Africans, will engage with Sub-Saharan African issues for the time being. However, more promising for media are the implications of #OccupyNigeria, a series of protests that brought that country to a standstill for the first two weeks of January 2012 following an announcement by President Jonathan that he would scrap a fuel subsidy that most Nigerians considered their birthright. Hundreds of thousands of Nigerians streamed onto the street to join marches and rallies. The national strike was only suspended after the Government, following a deal brokered with trade unions, partially restored the subsidy. By most estimates #OccupyNigeria was the largest and most sustained short-term protest movement in any Sub-Saharan African country in a long while. Media coverage of Nigeria during #OccupyNigeria mostly focused on alleged violence associated with protesters or linked the protests to the violence of Boko Haram, which stepped up its attacks during the strike. Certain “expert” voices in the West supported the government of Jonathan, especially his finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. They would quickly face the backlash of Nigerian protesters. Cases in point: Jeffrey Sachs and Ethan Zuckerman. The latter to his credit, backtracked from his initial thoughts. Much of that pressure came from activists on social media; crucially in the Nigerian Diaspora. The latter also took their protests to the streets. Online activists targeted celebrities (Nollywood actors and popular singers like D’Banj) who were forced to declare their allegiance with the strike. Yet the real focus of the anger was directed towards Nigeria’s political class, especially President Jonathan and finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who were both lampooned and scoffed online. Two websites stood out: the Nigeria-based Chop Cassava (which produces video reports) and Sahara Reporters based in New York City. Of these, Sahara Reporters has had a larger impact. Sahara Reporters has become a media force inside Nigeria largely because it is not in Nigeria. The website’s base in New York City places Sahara Reporters “beyond the reach of the politicians and corporations that the site often reports on.” What appeals to its readers and audience is the nature of the stories they report. As Mohamed Keita of the Committee to Protest Journalists told Al Jazeera English, Sahara Reporters provides, “eye witness accounts, just raw information about sensitive issues that the press in Nigeria is too afraid to publish or report.” These include, extensive coverage of a huge oil spill in the Niger Delta; revealing the corruption of a state governor who was eventually tried in a British court; and events around the illness, absence from Nigeria and eventual death of President Umaru Yar’Adua in May 2010. Ordinary Nigerians have warmed to Sahara Reporters’ reporting and support it publicly. It has also attracted the attentions of those in power. In some instances, Jonathan’s office has released media statements directly addressed to the site. In one celebrated case, Sahara Reporters’ story of 32 aides accompanying Nigeria’s first lady on an official trip to an African Union summit in Ethiopia, resulted in the presidential spokesperson releasing a press statement aimed specifically at Sahara Reporters. Some concerns have been raised about sensationalism in Sahara Reporters’ style of reporting and writing. However, the conspiratorial and mocking tone of Sahara Reporters’ coverage should not be surprising. The sensationalism or the partiality to sensational stories is simply a symptom of a current Nigerian reality: that people know that they are getting screwed by the political system, and that there is a “real” beyond what is visible, dominant or apparent. What makes Sahara Reporters’ reporting “global” is not just the fact that it is transnational, but also the flow and counter-flow of information between New York City, Lagos and elsewhere in Nigeria. There’s also the reciprocity between Sahara Reporters’ editors, its audience, contributors, sources as well as its targets. Read the rest here on the SSRC's site.

Guest Post by Melinda Fantou

The road that leads to Bredasdorp, a small town about 180 km from Cape Town, meanders through barren fields shaved of the wheat they once nursed to maturity. The sheep sidle through protruding stalks, stomaching the lack of greener pastures. The resilient blue gums – the only trees that seem, ironically, to break the dullness of the Cape Agulhas region - lay their leaves to roast in the harsh sun. A “Beware of Children” sign stands at the entrance of Bredasdorp with its 15,000 inhabitants. That Sunday afternoon, the streets are empty, as is often the case in small South African rural towns. Shops and museums are closed. Some of the restaurants are still serving lunch and a few people eat quietly at a cosy terrace, contemplating space and time. Five hundred metres away from the main street, past the tall cement silos full of the grain harvested this season, a memorial service for Anene Booysen is underway at the community hall named for Nelson Mandela. In Bastiaan Street, opposite the hall, people are watching the beginning of the service from the gardens of their RDP government houses. Leaning against their fences, they look at other Bredasdorp residents sitting under the white tent erected next to the hall for the occasion. Women mostly, from the community. Outside the hall, a woman surrounded by teenagers is interviewed by the local TV. The fast flow of her response to the journalist attests to her anger: “We are human beings, stop raping us, we deserve to be safe!” Angry but calm. Under the tent, about 500 people are also waiting quietly for the service to start. Women sit patiently under their colourful hats, some raise perfectly crafted posters asking to “stop the violence and abuse against women.” Children run between the rows of seats, two of them get smacked for pushing an old lady. Bredasdorp’s ANC mayor, Richard Mitchell, takes the stage: “The world now knows where lies Bredasdorp on the African map. And the incident, where Anene was murdered, is the cause for the interest of the world in Bredasdorp.” Inside the hall is Corlia Olivier, Anene’s foster mother, sitting next to her mother and brother. She listens, composed. A woman stands at the back of the crowd and whispers: “This must end. My daughter was raped, my granddaughter was also raped when she was 4 months old. My daughter-in-law was raped. How do you cope with this? My brother didn’t when his wife was raped. He committed suicide. Sorry to lay all this on you but we must speak out!” “And I want to start with our members from national parliament, continues Mayor Mitchell. Members from provincial parliament who are present today, mayors from surrounding municipalities, councillors, and even a delegation for the commission for gender equality. Representatives from the unions - Cosatu, also representatives of the SACP - the communist party, the ANC Women’s League, the ANCYL. Members of the NEC of the ANC, members from the opposition party - the DA, and then we also have the veteran association Umkhonto weSizwe and as I said all other protocols observed, ladies and gentlemen, and… and mostly our communities.” A woman carrying a baby tries to enter the hall from the side door. A veteran of Umkhonto weSizwe (the ANC’s now-disbanded armed wing), dressed in military kaki uniform, brushes her off. She looks at him, offended, while a man wearing a shirt with a machine gun drawn on the back and displaying the “Umshini wam” (bring me my machine gun) slogan made famous by the country’s president, Jacob Zuma, is left to stand in the doorway. “Many politicians have requested to give a message during this memorial, we will allow 3 minutes for each of them”, warns the master of ceremonies. Simphiwe Thobela, a local ANC Youth League representative, walks to the microphone after a short speech by a local member of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and starts his diatribe against rape : “Mayors, ANC members, comrades, I won't be long but I'm gonna steal a minute from Cosatu because they didn't use their three minutes”: -Viva ANC! -Viva -Viva Women’s league! -Viva -Amandla! -Awethu For two hours, the SAPC, the ANC Women’s League, the DA, Cosatu and other official representatives take the microphone, one after the other. Between speeches that quickly denounce the rape crisis, political stumping slips in. An agitated man wearing an ANC shirt and a Che Guevara beret walks up the aisles asking the sleepy crowd to clap their hands for a song is about to start. The “Power of your Love” eventually gets the crowd going. The agitated man looks more content, and walks to a group of singing women wearing ANC t-shirts. With a broad grin, he hugs his comrades and photographs them. Some still-clapping residents look on, puzzled. It is now Cosatu General secretary Tony Ehrenreich's turn to speak. Ahead of the event, he had warned that “this crisis is much bigger than our political division.” After greeting Anene's family, he goes on: “I come here as Cosatu, it is a crisis we need to respond to as an organisation.” In the front row of the crowd, sitting under the tent, a man and a woman stand up and raise their fists to punctuate the political punch lines.“Enough is enough” - “an injury to one is an injury to all” - “We must get involved, we must tell the abusers that no longer will they abuse our communities.” Lynne Brown, former ANC Premier of the Western Cape, calls out to the crowd: “The boys who have been arrested – they’re not anyone else’s child. They’re your child and my child. Remember that we will be gone tonight, in fact this afternoon, and you will stay here alone.” After hugging Anene’s mother, the Western Cape ANC provincial leader Marius Fransman closes the political monologue : “Dan Plato (DA politician and now Minister for Community Safety in the Western Cape) is a criminal, he used taxpayers’ money to throw a party for gangsters. You can’t give money to gangsters and think it would solve the problem.” So this is how the people of Bredasdorp gathered on a quiet Sunday afternoon to remember the life and times of AneneBooysen. Anene’s mother and her family were there. Her neighbours were there. The people of Bredasdorp who knew her and grieve her today were there. They alone know who AneneBooysen was. They alone know what her aspirations were. But political agendas walled them up in silence. They have been told what their problems are – “drugs and alcohol are to be blamed”. They were made to listen to the ANC NEC, the Women’s League, the ANCYL, the Communist Party, the DA. The councillors and the delegations. The Amandlas and vivas. All other protocols observed in the memory of Anene Booysen. Finally, the politicians dropped a memorandum at the local police station, packed up and left. Lynne Brown probably didn’t realise how right she was: the community of Bredasdorp did sleep alone that night. * Mélinda Fantou is a photojournalist based in Cape Town.