crucial

I’ve been following quite a few African bloggers lately. That’s because I’m going to Africa, I’m tuning in and I want to meet real people, not just people who’s profession it is to hang out with tourists. Kenya/Uganda is the plan so far.  Kenya is touristic which I hope to mostly avoid (though I might just climb Mount Kenya).  I’ve been told Uganda is really friendly.  A well travelled guy told me its his favorite country in Africa.

Predictably the afriblogosphere concentrates often on internet tech (http://www.techmasai.com/) and politics with a mix of music (http://moproblems.wordpress.com/). I’m looking for more literary peoples. Tips appreciated, drop them in the comments.

Potash is intelligent and obscene: a mixture I aspire to myself. The post below will catch your attention (and he does carefully hit those attention buttons), but he’s usually more of a poetical, erudite motherfucker.

Today’s short story [note the use of “the other day Potash is saying that…” ] (http://potashke.blogspot.com/2010/03/pobo-4.html):

IX. Do You Write (or Read)?

I wish I could say, yes, I write checks. Like P. Diddy. But me… me I am a cash guy. Hihihi… if I wrote you a cheque you best treat it with the same dharau you reserve for your M.P’s cheques. The big difference between that M.P and me, really, is that I am a businessman servicing a need while he is a make believe civil servant who robs the needy.

Honestly, who sleeps better, the guy that stole the poor man’s unga or the guy that sold some bangi? To a bunch of American exchange students for crying out loud. Yaani, to a bunch of mzungus who come here, get arse, get ghanja and get out. Go home and get therapy… N.M, in his Mongo-speak would say, ‘no Africans were harmed in Dinda’s ghanja plantation. 

I am not a slave driver, that is the fucking muhindis…Me I am the good guy.

The other day Potash is saying ati I am like a Mombasa beach hotel, I do not like doing business with Africans, what the hell does he know about business. Who has got some ethics here but me? Me, I do not sell drugs to people who don’t have health insurance. How does that make me a bad guy? 

Busia Gold is a fair trade product. 

Let us save the rest of the bull for those who know nothing about being a business man out here in Africa. Business, I mean, not biashara biashara…kuhustle, kuuza nyanya marikiti.

Me, I have been on the Highway, some chick shooting off my dingila and two Johnnies sitting at the back looking like Big Ben and his twin. Tucked away, at least for now, are their British Army issue pistols. 

The Johnnies are driving a hard bargain on a stone of Busia Gold. They are acting like this is 1954 and it is their place to tell an African what to do including what to charge for his crop. They acting like mzungus after they have been in Kenya long enough to say ‘Tusker baridi.’ You know how they play: Oh, my cab guy can get me more than that for five hundred bob… sijui my colleague is with some NGO in Ethiopia and he is bringing me Shashamane. Well, you know what I say to that shit, ‘my stone is 20 large, that is why I am pushing a VX and not driving you around in a taxi.’ 

So I am saying to the Johnnies, ‘I am told the weed in Europe kicks arse something, but how good is it to you when you are planting landmines and chasing Samburu arse in Kenya?’

Between them Brit falas they have like five thousand Kenya Shillings. But they have British Pounds too. So I hit them and more- like twenty Kenya Shillings on every Pound. 

Soon they are handing me Pounds and Shillings. And I have to count them, do the math and fold them. The Malaya wants me to smack her in the arse but I think it is silly and feel inclined to tell her to stop using me in her sales pitch to the bloody Johnnies. I want to tell her to get her mind back to Kenya where she lies on her back and I hit it- simple! I smack her arse, anyway, coz it feels good to do it with a fistful of money. Do it like a Jay Z no one has heard of yet. 

Long of the short is that if you be playing on anaa level, you’ve got to know your money. Live it. Feel it.

Bitch slapping the critics in 2007:

I have been called a fraud. A child of privilege trying to pass himself as the voice of the scions of the Proletariat- the herald of Nairobi’s dispossessed majority. A product of Kenya’s most elite academies- the best schools in the Republic- claiming to be an alumnus of the Streets; a self made pseudo-intellectual. That and many other things that remain the inconsequential opinion of The Few who suddenly finding me holding my own in their circles desire to drag me into the exclusive folds of their glorified embrace. They endeavour to claim me as one of their own but first, as they say, I have to drop my bullshit stance and face up to the stark realities of my yuppiness.

How do I make them understand that I come as a package; that what I bring with me is not mere baggage but the sum total of my heritage?

Yet in other circles, the circles of the Insignificant Others where I cut my teeth, my name is no longer praised but spat out like last night’s tuksin. “Behold,” they chide, Potash the sell-out riding shotgun in the cream SUV and the exotic bitch not seeing her stick shift for that self publicising dick. But the dick cannot see beyond the bottle of Jack Daniels.” Maskini hapati…, they murmur to each other punctuating their snide vitriol with gut wrenching gulps of Napshizzle …na akipata… si unamuona!

My NY fam here being interviewed for XLR8R:

The Book of Eli – Spoiler Alert ! oh shit he’s a Muslim !  No, actually this is about Denzel carrying the Bible around and everybody tries to kill him for it (because its a potential instrument of control). It has a hollywood desert art film vibe (which I can totally get with).  Very black and white, like Stranger than Paradise.  (tho my russian camcorder rip accentuates this).  Denzel Washington is awesome (martial arts, chaste, a sober survivalist) and everybody else follows his lead.  That chick from that 70s show is still hawt and obviously was just playing dumb on aforementioned show.

The Road – way less fun, way more depressing, but this shows more realistically what you could expect from psychologically damaged people in a post-apocalyptic world.  At first I thought that The Son (born post-apocalypse) had too normal of an American accent considering he’s only known The Father in his entire life.  He should be more feral, or more wild and confident.  But he’s damaged (the Father keeps him in fear and mistrust), and as it goes on he shows his very complicated state.  This apocalypse holds little hope for an afterwards.  You really think after the film is done: ok, they survived, but for how long ? With all the pianos, the moralistic tone (“we would never eat people, would we ?”) and lack of rape scenes, this is almost PG and moralistic, considering its a post-apoc cannibal flick.  Doesn’t that say a lot about our weird society that I can sum it up that way ?  Our value system is so deranged.

Right now I’m going to watch: Music is the Weapon . Fela Kuti doc !!!! Already looks great.

Dub Gabriel feat. U Roy- Luv n’ Liv ep-Out 3/9/10  by  DESTROY ALL CONCEPTS

Luv ‘n Liv – Dub Gabriel featuring U-Roy (DAC 009)

Straight outta Kingston Jamaica via San Francisco and beyond, Luv ‘n Liv is the first single to drop from Dub Gabriel’s upcoming 4th studio album, The Cut Up. Featuring the mighty Dread in a Babylon, U-Roy (The Originator), Luv ‘n Liv lays testament to all that can be when you put a reggae legend in the same room as one of America’s leading producers of nu-dub.

With the original hook-up coming through none other than Scientist himself, U-Roy & Dub Gabriel went deep in Mark Pistel’s (Hercules & The Love Affair/Meat Beat Manifesto) Room 5 studio and emerged with Luv ‘n Liv. To round things out, DG enlisted David J of Bauhaus and Love & Rockets to hold down the bass, and Ysanne Spevack on strings who was fresh from her recent work with the Smashing Pumpkins. The outcome is pretty epic if we say so ourselves.

Bridging the living roots of dub to the future-present world of dubstep, DG also brought in some of the hottest producers in the game to remix the track, including Ming (Ming & FS), Subatomic Sound System (following up on his highly successful remix for Lee “Scratch” Perry), Lloop (The Agriculture Records) and Timeblind (Tigerbeat 6). Finally, for all those who crave a good dosage of roots, Dub Gabriel brings things back down to earth with a soulful version of Luv ‘n Liv backed by none other than Yellowman’s original Sagittarius Band. Respect!

Most everybody on the internets seems to be raving about how great Avatar is. I agree. A splendid moviegoing experience. Except for the plot and the script. And the racial pre-suppositions (us vs. them). And the self-congratulatory viewpoint of a liberal white audience condemning an obvious and uncomplicated evil.

The real world is not simple. People tend to choose an enemy and blame that enemy. Corporate Capitalist Empire or Global Jihad ? Neither thank you.

In some cases the enemy is obvious. That’s why film makers go back to the Nazis over and over again. Safe target. I thought Inglorious Basterds had the political intelligence of a 3 year old, but then again Quentin Tarantino protrays the Jews as psychopathic (but justified) basterds and the Germans are in general stylish, polite and they keep their word. But there is only one side you can root for. In a way this is funny, but I’m not sure if I want to give Tarentino credit for it. OK, I’ll cut him some slack.

Anyway, in case you haven’t seen Avatar, its about a white (American!) dude that goes native and becomes their most awesome leader and achieves an improbable, lo-tech victory (but with soul power! and the animals help them!). Awesome battle sequence ! Good vs. Evil, get it ?

In the real world you live in a complicated global capital network that sometimes deliberately but mostly inadvertiantly leverages injustices so that your locality can exist with the wealth and convienience it enjoys. You cannot opt out. You can’t just choose the right items on the Health Food store shelf.

You can use your influence to convince specific companies to change behavior and you can make the best decision when you personally have a decision to make. Don’t just say “fuck it”.

That’s the resources issue. The other issue is racial and cultural understanding. Most of the people who see Avatar will not be White Americans. But we get it, its supposed to be a character you can relate to.

Here’s an amazing film I watched the other day. Available, for the moment, in HQ in full on YouTube. Nirgendwo in Afrika (Nowhere in Africa, 2001 German/Swahili/English) is a true story, the auto-biography of a young Jewish girl who fled Nazi Germany in 1938 with her family and went to Kenya to manage a farm.

Regina, the girl, takes to it immediately. She learns Kiswahili, makes friends easily and has the genuine wonderment of a child. Her mother is in denial about what is happening in Germany. “We were as German as anybody, we weren’t religious Jews”. She has lived an upper middle class life. In Nairobi there is colonial splendour, but the family is poor and rural life is hard.

She think’s she is tolerant. In an argument her husband tells her that the way she speaks to their cook and closest friend Owuor reminds him of “certain people in Germany that I don’t think you wish to be compared to”.

Its primarily her that grows throughout the film.

Other parts I liked: Owuor is very big hearted and wise, but he’s real. Its a classic “native” role but its not simplistic. On the second farm there is a new helper and he has a gruff suspicous look. He says he’s lived on the farm for 40 years and demands to be hired. It takes a while to get his trust. In one small scene he says that if somebody steals your cow then you can just forget about it. The cow will be eaten and then it’s gone. If somebody steals your land then its still there. You have to look at it every day of your life.

Real characters with real relationships. As the viewer you really put yourself into what they are going through.

Click to pop it up, watch it on YouTube in HQ.