Tag: African artists in America

Culture

Laolu Senbanjo: Broklyn based- Nigerian visual artist paints Serena Williams for the cover of Essence Magazine
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Laolu Senbanjo is a brooklyn-based Nigerian body artist who has done so many works that speak for themselves. He painted fBeyoncé for her album, Lemonade. His latest work is with the American tennis super star, Serena Williams, on the cover of the September issue of Essence.

In the magazine’s cover, the tennis player rocks the daring body art of the Nigerian visual artist in a way that gives her a daring look.

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Culture

Kehinde Wiley’s Black Rock Senegal Residency Announced 16 Artists Selected for Inaugural Year
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by VICTORIA L. VALENTINE

BLACK ROCK SENEGAL announced the first group of artists selected for the residency program established by Kehinde Wiley. Located in Dakar, Black Rock is hosting an international slate of 16 artists working in a variety of disciplines, including painting, sculpture, photography, film, and one writer, from August 2019 and April 2020. The news was released today by Stephen Friedman, Wiley’s London gallery.

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Uncategorized

Hip-hop stars Akon and Enow join forces to promote power projects in Africa
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By PK Semler

Aliaune “Akon” Thiam and Stanley Enow –the Senegalese-American and Cameroonian hip-hop stars – are joining forces to promote major African energy projects such as a 350 MW hydroelectric power plant in the strategically vital West-Central African nation of Cameroon.

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8 year old Nicholas Buamah is a bestselling author on Amazon and he was Ghana’s Ambassador to USA for a day
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By Nathaniel Crabbe

Eight year old Ghanaian, Nicholas Buamah, author of the book ”Kayla & Kyle The Walking Dictionaries: Election Day”, paid a courtesy visit to Ghana’s Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency (H.E) Dr. Barfour Adjei Barwuah, which saw the budding author become an ambassador for a few minutes.

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Culture

Egyptian-born artist opens art gallery in America
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By Ryan Kneller

For decades, Phillipsburg artist Mohamed Bayoumi Mansour followed in the footsteps of his older brother, Ali Bayoumi. Bayoumi, a professor of architecture and prominent Egyptian artist, inspired Mansour to nurture his creativity and pursue his own career in the arts.

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Ngugi Wa Thiong’o registers for Huduma Namba in Los Angeles
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By Jeremiah Wakaya

As the Kenyan government commences registration of Kenyans in Diaspora, renowned Kenyan scholar Professor Ngugi wa Thiong’o has been registered at the Kenyan consulate in Los Angeles, USA.

Thiong’o was registered on  the National Integrated Identity Management System (NIIMS) together with his wife, Njeri wa Ngugi.

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He Fled Violence in Nigeria. Now He’s Trying to Make It as an Artist in Dallas
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By Tyler Hicks

As night descends on the wooded hills surrounding his home, visual artist Jeremiah Onifadé gets to work. While his garage studio is his usual stomping grounds, tonight Onifadé is working in the kitchen of his two-story house in a middle-class neighborhood near Grand Prairie. A glass table facing a sliding glass door looks out on Onifadé’s backyard, and to a scattering of trees beyond.

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Book review

‘Call me American’ Portland resident who escaped war-torn Somalia shares story
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Abdi Nor Iftin will discuss his new memoir, “Call Me American,” Tuesday, June 4, at 5:30 p.m. at the Southwest Harbor Public Library.

Iftin lives in Portland where he works as an interpreter for other Somalis in Maine. He was recently accepted to the University of Southern Maine, where he plans to study political science.

“Call Me American” is the true story of Iftin’s survival of in war-ravaged Mogadishu, Somalia, and his journey to America.

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Theater

In Language Rooms, an Egyptian American interrogator struggles to prove his loyalty to the U.S.A.
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By Kerry Reid

Egyptian American playwright Yussef El Guindi is mostly known to Chicago audiences from several productions with Silk Road Rising, including the world premiere of his 2005 comedy Ten Acrobats in an Amazing Leap of Faith, about an Egyptian immigrant family wrestling with assimilation in America. 

Back of the Throat, in which an Arab American man in post-9/11 America faces down government agents who take over his home in an increasingly hostile “investigation,” followed a few months later.

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

Wangechi Mutu-Keep Moving, Keep Making Art
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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

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

Trevor Noah’s inside joke at the Oscars was more than just a laughing matter
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By Chrizelda Kekana
Over the past week someone said, “Trevor Noah went on one of the biggest stages in America and told an inside joke only South Africans would immediately understand.

In case you missed it, what had happened was:

Trevor took to the Oscar’s stage to present Black Panther as one of the Best Picture nominees and dropped one of the most legendary jokes he’s ever shared.

“Growing up as a young boy in Wakanda, I would see T’Challa flying over our village, and he would remind me of a great Xhosa phrase. He says ‘abelungu abayazi ndiyaxoka’ – which means, ‘In times like these, we are stronger when we fight together than when we try to fight apart’,” Trevor said to loud applause from Hollywood’s crème de la crème.

Meanwhile, here at home, we were rolling on the ground with laughter because what Trevor’s isiXhosa quote actually translated to was ‘White people don’t know I’m lying’.

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