Loomnie

Ok Ishtar, I have got you some. Click here for some Touareg music. And here is a German website with information about Niger. Click on the audi tab and you will get some mp3 files of Nigerien music. I have been listening to the music and I like it… hope you do too.

Now that I am in the music train why don’t I do another post on music?

Ishtar asked if I listen to Nigerien music. The answer, sadly, is no. I am making up for it by blogging about someone from Mali. Actually, I am currently listening to his album ‘Niafunké’ on my computer. You can read more about him here and here. I ‘discovered’ him some three years ago… but then he died last year in March, before I could see him perform. A taste of his music on Youtube.

Anybody knows Bongos Ikwue? I remember listening to him on the radio while growing up…. For those who know him, I hope it makes you feel as nostalgic as I am feeling right now. Found it the same place I found Rolling Dollar’s music. You can explore the site further.

Do you guys know Fatai Rolling Dollar? He is a 79-year old Nigerian musician. He was originally known for his Agidigbo, a Yoruba thumb guitar. He fused sounds from Cuban music, Ghanaian highlife, and traditional Yoruba music on his Agidigbo. He became really popular in the 60s, and he was an inspiration to Ebenezer Obe, Sunny Ade and other musicians of their generation. Sadly, his career died with that of most Highlife musicians. Several reasons have been given for this, one of which is that the militarisation of politics and the lack of security meant that night life was impossible. Highlife was mainly a stage thing; as the people could not be persuaded to come out on Friday nights interests in the music gradually died. Another reason, attributed to Rolling Dollars himself, was the military attack on Fela Kuti’s residence on the 18th of February, 1977. He lived two doors away, and lost his home and his musical instruments. Arguably, it was a combination of these and other reasons that ensured his decline. He spent most of the following years trying to stay alive. At a point, he was a security man at a sports complex.

I saw him perform his ‘Won kere si number wa’ at Ojez nightclub in Lagos in 2003. Jazzhole records recorded and released a record from him in 2003. I remembered him today, googled him and came up with this link where one can listen to his music. I hope you enjoy his music as much as I do.

I am currently listening to Owuro Lojo by Beautiful Nubia. I really like the idea of waking up to a fresh day, not yet soiled, knowing that the day is there to be had, an opportunity to be seized, or not…

I am off to Berlin today. I am going in the company of one of my colleagues and his son. So, in effect, I am going as a ‘proper’ tourist.

By the way, have you guys seen Letters from Iwo Jima? I saw it yesterday and I really liked it. It is a very nice presentation of what on an Island during WWII, from the Japanese side. Clint Eastwood did a good job. You might want to check it out.

I watched Dreamgirls last night, and it was so funny to hear Curtis Taylor, Jr.(Jamie Foxx) tell Deena Jones (Beyoncé) ‘Your voice has no personality, no depth.’ The funny thing is that I never thought much more than that of Beyoncé.

I got a message from a listserve today that the famous writer and film maker is dead. I saw Moolaadé sometime last month, and I found the simplicity of the story very striking. The literary/film-making world will miss him a lot….

Last monday, I did the second part of my German exams. I haven’t got the results yet…. A familiar feeling of emptiness came over me as I walked out of the exam centre. That is what normally happens when I conclude a stressful phase of my life. The past few weeks had been hell: I had been stressed about the exam, and because of that I had not been sleeping more than 4 hours a night. As I finished the exam it felt like a big weight was lifted off me. No, not off my shoulder, but dug out of my belly. It was like something that was there was gone. That something, normally, should be the stress that didn’t allow me sleep, but in this case it wasn’t. I don’t know what name to put to it. I always thought that to have stillness I need to have some noise; this is a confirmation. The stress, the pressure, keep me alert. And once the pressure was not as it was I felt simple emptiness.

The remaining part of last week was spent trying to start to write my research plan. I have written the first four pages. Pretty disjointed, those pages. I am currently reviewing one of the most murky of analytical concepts in the social sciences – Network Analysis. I didn’t know where to start so I have decided to use as a guide, through the whole maze, articles or books that have reviewed the concept. I have found a few of them and I have started doing that. I have the first four pages, and a page and a half of references, to show for it.

I hope to finish a major part of the review this week, so that I can move on to other things next week. French classes start by next month. Time is flying, and I don’t know if I can keep up with it.

Jeff Koinange, CNN’s Africa correspondent was fired by CNN on May 29. Many people have said that it was because it was found that he fabricated a large part of the story on MEND in Nigeria. I am still wondering what he fabricated. Was the display of the hostages also ‘fabircated’? I think that CNN owes us the duty of explaining if this story was actually fabricated, and if so to what extent. I didn’t particular like the story when I saw it because it was a characteristic Jeff Koinange story – lacking in depth and melodramatic, giving one the impression that the journalist, Jeff, is doing it just for the fame. But then, equally lacking in depth was the Frank Nweke rebuttal. I saw that too, and it got me really disgusted. The truth is that there is no way one can defend the mess in the Niger-Delta region, just like we rarely need a fame-seeking, I-won’t-look-beneath-the-surface journalist to tell us about the mess in the region; every right-thinking Nigerian, at least, knows that. And for the rest of the world, we know the ‘they’ll watch the footage while eating dinner, feel bad that people can be treating each other this bad, and then go on to finish the dinner’ line. If this is really the reason he was fired, CNN, we need more information, not just the dismissal of a journalist.

I first got to know first about his dismissal from the NVS. That story itself is a poster for what can go wrong when we let purported patriotism blind us to reason. Anyway, after I saw the story, I looked closer at the Koinange issue and found that a lot had been going on that I had not known about. For one, Koinange has been caught in a date rape mess, involving a kenyan who wrote a book about a murdered Kenyan politician. The woman sent an email to Jim Watson, President of CNN-Worldwide, making a formal complaint against Jeff. The text of the mail can be read here. The woman also went on to create a blog, posting correspondences between the two of them. Really steamy, those emails. You can check them here. I wonder how much this particular part of the story influenced the decision to have him fired.

Just realised that some people have not seen the Niger-Delta story. You can click here for the story, and this is a link to Nweke’s rebuttal.