Nice work by Tanzanian crew X Plastaz, with some help of Fid Q, Bamba Nazar and J4. The video comes with subtitles, and the lyrics speak for themselves. Curious how many recent tracks carry an explicit ‘Africa’ in the title.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkDVUVosSgA From somewhere in American suburbia, the very frank, at times trite The Ten Minute Fix, a Youtube “talk show” series with an East African bias. Here’s the raison d’etre: “This idea was born from the sheer fact that we have professionals around us, we have good equipment around us but most importantly we just […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKOwDQcPwbs Selling desperate people false hope, especially AIDS patients, are common on the African continent–well documented in my native country, South Africa–now there’s this “faith healer” in Tanzania who has people in East Africa traveling thousands of miles for a homebrewed drink that he claims can cure AIDS, cancer, diabetes, and other “incurable diseases.” There’s […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikxZvvETnPE Not sure what to make of the video. The video was filmed “in Africa.” Kage Sparks, who calls himself “the African Street Ambassador,” and whose family hails from Kenya and Tanzania, has his “tribe riding for me.”

The 1985 Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick “Commando” is narrated–“shot for shot”–by a 9-year old Tanzanian boy. (The video is is part of a campaign by a US-based NGO; forget the politics, just indulge in the joy of children). Via Boing Boing

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGiLEEX5OuQ&feature=player_embedded&w=500&h=307&rel=] Rakesh Rajani, the head of Tanzanian “citizen-centered initiative”, Twaweza, on the “five key networks that need to be considered and collaborated with in development efforts.” According to the World Bank Blog Rajani’s insights are based on “years of experience working in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.” H/T: Zein Rahemtulla

For all the gross, lurid news stories or the films you see about fatal  violence against, and neglect of people suffering from albinism in East Africa, this one about Tanzanians electing an albino, Salum Khalfani Barwani, to Parliament, is good news.  Barwani, an opposition MP, will represent a rural constituency.  (BTW, a well-known rapper, Sugu, […]