News Brief
Antoinette Isama
Aug. 30, 2018 09:03AM EST

Blitz the Ambassador's 'The Burial of Kojo' Will Make Its World Premiere at the Urbanworld Film Festival

This is the musician's first go at bringing complex and beautiful stories about Ghanaian life to the big screen.

After much anticipation, Ghanaian musician Blitz the Ambassador's debut feature film will hit the big screen this September.

The Burial of Kojo will make its world premiere on September 21 as part of the World Cinema Narrative Features program at the 2018 Urbanworld Film Festival, Variety reports.

Blitz also added when making the announcement on Twitter that a Q&A will follow after the screening.

The film tells the story of two brothers—Kwabena and Kojo. Kwabena seeks revenge on his brother after Kojo kills Kwabena's bride in a car accident on the day of their wedding. Kwabena then knocks Kojo unconscious; throwing him in a mineshaft to die. Kojo's wife and Detective Koomson race against the clock to find Kojo before it's too late.

The Burial of Kojo is also inspired by the illegal small-scale gold mining industry in Ghana, often refrerred to as galamsey.

"Instead of centering the issues, I centered the people, which is seldom done when Hollywood makes films about Africa," he tells OkayAfrica back in October 2017. "Our objective was to capture the beauty, even when the circumstances weren't beautiful."

We touched base with Blitz as he neared the end of his Kickstarter campaign and began post-production of the film thanks to the funds raised. To read further on The Burial of Kojo, click here.

Music

Listen to Femi Kuti's New Song 'As We Struggle Everyday'

Femi explains: "'As We Struggle Everyday' is about how hard people work everyday to make ends meet and still go to vote corrupt politicians into power who are meant to be in jail."

Femi Kuti shares his new single, "As We Struggle Everyday," the latest drop from the upcoming double album Legacy +, a joint endeavor with his son Made Kuti.

"As We Struggle Everyday" is a politically-charged afrobeat tune about people having the voting power to hold their 'leaders' accountable, but often failing to do so. Throughout the song, Femi sings "As we struggle everyday We try to find a better way See these leaders wey suppose jail Na him my people dem dey hail."

Femi explains: "'As We Struggle Everyday' is about how hard people work everyday to make ends meet and still go to vote corrupt politicians into power who are meant to be in jail."

Legacy +, which is due out February 5 from Partisan Records, includes a full album by Femi titled Stop The Hate and an album by his son, Made, titled For(e)ward. The pair have previously shared the singles "Pà Pá Pà" and "Your Enemy" off the upcoming release.

Listen to Femi Kuti's "As We Struggle Everyday" below.

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Music

The Sounds of Somali Supergroup 4 Mars

A seminal anthology of 4 Mars, a 40-member Somali supergroup formed in 1977, is coming out via Ostinato Records.

In 2019, Ostinato Records became the first label granted access to the grand Archives of Radiodiffusion-Télévision de Djibouti (RTD), a vault of secrets and stories from East Africa. Below, Ostinato Records founder Vik Sohonie writes about their new release, Djibouti Archives Vol. 1: Super Somali Sounds from the Gulf of Tadjoura.

In 1977, on the eve of independence of the Republic of Djibouti, a small country on the Red Sea in East Africa, a densely packed archive was pieced together in a quiet corner of the national radio. Over the years, it became a premier but largely unknown African archive housing thousands of master reels and cassettes of the finest East African sounds.

It has endured fires and theft of invaluable recordings. Those scars linger on the delicate films of quarter-inch reels and cassette tapes. It remains one of the most expansive, well-maintained archives in Africa—but also one of the most restrictive. For decades, the archive remained off-limits to foreign entities of any kind.

In 2019, after negotiations spanning many years, Ostinato Records became the first label granted access to the grand Archives of Radiodiffusion-Télévision de Djibouti (RTD), a vault of secrets and stories—from East Africa, Somalia, Ethiopia, and of course Djibouti itself.

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Popular

21 Amapiano Songs By Artists From Outside South Africa To Stream Right Now

21 amapiano songs from Nigeria, the UK, Mozambique, Namibia, Kenya and Tanzania to stream right now.

By now, it's an open secret that amapiano is being produced outside of South Africa where it originates. Nigerian producers and artists, mostly, have embraced the sound and are creating and releasing their own interpretations of amapiano and amapiano-inspired songs.

The songs have resulted in cross-cultural sounds and collaborations that, in their own way, serve to unite, celebrate and foster an exchange of the electrifying music scenes that exist throughout the continent. As a result, these fusions have seen a number people casually refer to them as "Afropiano, Afro-amapiano etc" or "gengepiano" (gengetone with amapiano).

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President Joe Biden Ends Trump's Muslim Travel Ban

President Joe Biden has done away with the 2017 Muslim travel ban enforced by the former Trump administration. The travel ban included several African and Middle Eastern countries.