Articles
Babatunde “Aiyekooto” Akerele in conversation with Ntone Edjabe
Babatunde “Aiyekooto” Akerele leads a Helsinki-based band called Aiyekooto & Afrobeat International.
Nigerian born afrobeat musician, composer, arranger and lead singer Babatunde Akerele aka Aiyekooto (b.1966) moved to Finland in 2005, with the assistance of Finnish colleague, guitar player and recording artist Seppo ”Paarma” Salmi. Back in 2003, in Nigeria, they had released a single together, Falana (mind your own business). It got a positive response and radio play on the local stations. When they settled to live in Helsinki, the band Aiyekooto & Afrobeat International was formed, consisting of top musicians, many having a work history in well-known bands of the local rhythm music scene. The band is co-led by Aiyekooto and Salmi.
During the years, the band has managed to gain credit as a powerful live unit within the audience dedicated to the Finnish scene. As proof for their intense gigs, they were awarded as Band of the Year in the 2007 Funky Awards, which are handed out annually to outstanding Finnish talent. With the album Olurombi, it’s time to conquer bigger audiences.
Olurombi was released in Finland September 2013 (label: Suomen Musiikki) as CD / LP+CD / digital. The single cut was called Yanke (join me in my dance). Sung in Yoruba, this up-tempo call for dance is irresistible, and a prime example of the entire album. Even if the music follows traditions set in Nigeria by the likes of Fela Kuti, Aiyekooto’s music is no pastiche, but the groove has softer undertones and, above all, its own manifestation, not to forget the powerful message.
Category: Articles, Pass Blog, Pass Radio
Leave a comment
Third Space with Sasha Huber
Sasha Huber is a Swiss-Haitian visual artist based in Helsinki who works with performance-based interventions, video, photography, publications, and a compressed-air staple gun – aware of its symbolic significance as a weapon. Her work often draws attention to historic trauma and its ramifications in the present. She is known for her artistic contribution to the long-term project “Demounting Louis Agassiz”, which promotes awareness that the Swiss-born Louis Agassiz (1807-1873) was a proponent of scientific racism, and a pioneering thinker of …
Category: Articles, Pass Blog
Leave a comment
Rereading the African Writers Series – The Otolith Collective with James Currey
Kodwo Eshun of The Otolith Collective/Group (profiled here) and publisher James Currey discuss the Heinemann African Writers Series, George Hallett, Bessie Head, Dambudzo Marechera and routes (with)in the Chimurenga Library. Recorded for Pan African Space Station at The Showroom, London 2015.
Category: Articles, Pass Blog
Tags: African Writers, James Currey, PASS London, The Otolith Collective, The Showroom
Leave a comment
PASS in NY: Marilyn Nance – FESTAC 77
Photographer and visual artist Marilyn Nance has produced exceptional photographs of unique moments in the cultural history of the United States and the African Diaspora, and possesses an archive of images of late 20th century African American life. For PASS at the Performa Hub, Marilyn will join us on Wednesday afternoon to share tales from FESTAC ’77 in Lagos where she was photographer for the North American Zone. A two-time finalist for the W. Eugene Smith Award in Humanistic Photography for her body …
PASS in NY: Nontsikelelo Mutiti and guests
Working across disciplines to produce work that occupies the forms of fine art, design, and social practice, Zimbabwean-born artist and educator Nontsikelelo Mutiti curates an African Hair Braiding Salon that provides a framework to publish and present a range of works that are physical and performative in nature. Here, women of colour are brought into proximity with each other over the business of beauty. Collaborators include graphic design Julia Novitch, writer Tinashe Mushakavanhu and sculpture LaKela Brown. Mutiti also hosts: …
PASS landing at Performa 15 Hub, New York
From 11 to 15 November 2015, the Chimurenga Library hosted PASS with a live broadcasting programme of music, interviews, and events with Chimurenga collaborators in New York, including musicians, journalists, writers, curators, and filmmakers. The live broadcast studio functioned amidst an installation that brought together pop-up stores that experiment with trade, informal economies, aesthetics and body language, music and spoken word, mobility and infrastructure. Working with collaborators such as Brooklyn-based African Record Centre and Yoruba Book Center (established 1971); artist …
African Futures Music Concert & Party: Spoek Mathambo / Batuk/Keziah Jones/Just A Band/Gato Preto
Nigerian musician Keziah Jones, South African Spoek Mathambo, Kenya’s Just A Band and German duo Gato Preto will join for an evening of music and the closing party of African Futures. Each of them will be performing music that relates to the theme of African Futures. Listen to this concert on PASS. 31/10/2015. 21hoo-late Keziah Jones, Nigerian singer-songwriter and guitarist, who accompanied Lenny Kravitz on his world tour, will present music from his latest album Captain Rugged, which was accompanied …
Category: Articles, News, Pass Blog, Pass Radio
Tags: African Futures, Gato Preto, just a band, Keziah Jones, spoek mathambo
Leave a comment
African Futures Knowledge Production: Where do we go from here?
“Who generates knowledge about Africa? How do past, present and future collide in representations of the continent? And what are the different languages we use to speak about Africa’s political, technological and cultural tomorrow?” Listen to this talk on PASS. 31/10/2015. 10hoo-13h00 While the world embraces information as both resource and currency, Africa is busy working on telling its story and imagining that story’s future. Will this shift the way in which we think about information or data? Can fiction …
Category: Articles, News, Pass Blog, Pass Radio
Tags: Achille Mbembe, African Futures, Keziah Jones, Ntone Edjabe, Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi
Leave a comment
Circum-Atlantic Conference: The Future of the African Diaspora
“Afrofuturism, arguably the most famous concept of speculative futures of the African diaspora, originated primarily in the USA, and is associated with artists such as Sun Ra, George Clinton and Octavia Butler. Envisaging a future and presenting this impulse was considered a symbol of liberation. How do contemporary artists and intellectuals of the African diaspora in North and South America, as well as Europe, envision their future today?” Listen to this talk on PASS. 30/10/2015. 19hoo-21h00 The circum-atlantic conference will …
African Futures. Technology: Means or Curse of the Future?
“Who owns technology and its embedded codes? When will we use software that’s written in Yoruba? And what’s the story with Ghanaian cyberpunk?” On the 30th of October, 2015, PASS will be streaming the panel discussion “Technology: Means or Curse of the Future?” that features Raimi Gdadamosi (Nigeria/UK) as the keynote speaker, and Teagan Bristow (South Africa), Jonathan Dotse (Ghana) and Waniru Kahui (Kenya) as panel respondents. “Technology in its current form (and particularly the representation of technology) is widely produced …
Category: Articles, Pass Blog
Tags: African Futures, Jonathan Dotse, raimi gbadamosi, teagan bristow, Wanur Kahui
Leave a comment