Day: April 21, 2019

People

She Fled Rwanda To Survive — But Does Not Like The Words ‘Refugee’ Or ‘Genocide’

By Diane Cole

Twenty-five years ago this month, more than 800,000 Rwandans, mostly Tutsi, were slaughtered over the course of 100 days by members of the country’s Hutu majority.

Among those who lived through the terror is Clemantine Wamariya. Her memoir, The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War And What Comes After, recounts in wrenching detail her six-year trek in search of refuge from her country’s killing fields. Co-authored with Elizabeth Weil, the book was published to acclaim in 2018 and is now out in paperback.

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Festivals, Music

Mr. Eazi and Burna Boy highlight the rise of afrobeats at Coachella

By Makeda Easter

This has been a particularly global year for the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. The lineup also includes Nigerian stars Mr. Eazi and Burna Boy, two artists representing afrobeats, a genre that’s steadily gaining traction in the U.S. and beyond.

It’s not the first year that Coachella has hosted Nigerian artists. The 2012 performance of Seun Kuti & Egypt 80, featuring Fela Kuti’s youngest son and band, is just one example of the handful of the country’s artists who have played the Indio festival. And 2018 was expected to be a big moment for afrobeats at Coachella when Wizkid was booked, but he missed the gig due to visa issues.

Continue reading “Mr. Eazi and Burna Boy highlight the rise of afrobeats at Coachella” →
Culture, People

Wangechi Mutu-Keep Moving, Keep Making Art

Text by Ananda Pellerin

Hugely prolific multidisciplinary artist Wangechi Mutucame first to the UK as a teenager from Nairobi, before moving to the US where she studied art at Parsons and Cooper Union and completed an MFA in sculpture at Yale. Now working between New York and her home city – Mutu – known for her fantastical drawings, collages, sculptures, installations, performances and film work, regularly returns to themes related to the female body, communication, migration and the human experience.

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Culture, People

Kenyan-born Wangechi Mutu will make works for New York’s Metropolitan Museum

By Victoria Valentine

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART in New York recently announced new artist commissions.

The Met plans a series of contemporary art installations at its Fifth Avenue flagship. For one of the projects, Wangechi Mutu is creating sculptures that will be installed in the niches in the museum’s Fifth Avenue facade.

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