Demob Happy

Walking Woman, Mindelo, Sao Vicente Sorry for the extended absence from the blogosphere. My wife gave birth to a beautiful baby girl one week ago, so naturally I’ve been a bit preoccupied. In the meantime, some more photos, again from Cape Verde, but this time the riotous colours of Mindelo, Sao Vicente. A former portuguese [...]

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Red Car, Calhau, Sao Vicente Another photo from my travels in Cape Verde last year. Sao Vicente is a windswept volcanic island with an anomalously vibrant city in Mindelho. On the other side of the island, Calhau was described to me as a weekend getaway for richer residents of Mindelo, but seemed a pretty desolate [...]

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You’re Welcome 7.5/10 FIRST PUBLISHED AT THE LINE OF BEST FIT Extra Golden are a combination of Keynan and American musicians who marry political consciousness to a vibrant, funky take on rock informed by the Nairobi-born Benga style. According to the band’s MySpace, the member’s share a belief that “tight quarters = tight grooves”, and [...]

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’4AM At Toumani’s’ 8/10 Damon Albarn’s Mali Music project is an overlooked album of beautiful mood and texture that barely belongs to the hideous ‘category’ of world music. This is very much a subjectivised, western account of African moods and musicianship, taken largely from muddled field recordings and mixed down in London. Mostly the range [...]

Spoons - Mali Music [ 5:19 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Out of Africa 6/10 This adaptation of Giles Foden’s book is a fairly conventional thriller set in a historical context. Forest Whittaker is undeniably brilliant as the ogreous Idi Amin; in all his explosive, unpredicatable idiosyncrasies. Like Uganda’s people, James McEvoy’s flippant young doctor is swept up by the African dictator’s powerful charisma and becomes [...]

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Flowering talent 7/10 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a precocious talent. Purple Hibiscus is a tale of sexual and politcal awakening in contemporary Nigeria. Its narrator, Kambili – like her country itself – is undergoing a huge transformation as she breaks away from her abusive, puritanical father, a wealthy philanthropist in the community but a violent [...]

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