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The Strange Love Affair Between America and the Afrobeat Superstar
It’s been a long, slow dance between the United States and Fela Anikulapo Kuti, one that started 40 years ago when the Nigerian musician first toured America and is finally picking up tempo today, with the Broadway show Fela! opening to raves this week and a movie biopic reportedly in the works. That the Afrobeat…
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A New Way to See Old Congo
At the turn of the 20th century, a visitor to the Congo might witness all kinds of horrors: Chained prisoners, executions (real and staged), long lines of porters, soldiers “pacifying” villages, ivory traders, rubber collectors, concubines and missionary sermons. At the time, it was considered nothing to be ashamed of. Just another day in the…
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Trapped in the 'Heart of Darkness'
In late 1874, Henry Morton Stanley—he of the pith helmet and “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”—set off west from Zanzibar with 356 porters, guides and camp followers, determined to fill in many of the lingering gaps in the map of Africa. Exactly 999 days and about 5,000 harrowing miles later, he reached the Atlantic, having lost all…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
