Annansi Chronicles

Painter Kehinde Wiley’s World Stage: Africa

Kofi — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 23:53:00 +0000

EXHIBIT
Kehinde Wiley, The World Stage: Africa Lagos~Dakar
July 17—October 26, 2008
PLACE
The Studio Museum in Harlem
144 West 125th Street
New York, New York 10027
tel 212.864.4500

The World Stage: Africa, Lagos ~ Dakar is Kehinde Wiley’s first solo exhibition at The Studio Museum in Harlem and features ten new paintings from his multinational “The World Stage” series. Wiley is known for his stylized paintings of young, urban African-American men in poses borrowed from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European figurative paintings, a practice he started in the early 2000s while an artist in residence at the Studio Museum. Over the last two years, Wiley has expanded his project by living and working abroad; he temporarily relocates to different countries and opens satellite studios to become familiar with local culture, history and art. His “The World Stage” series is the result of these travels.

pictures from the exhibit opening

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Video: Fela! A New Musical (off Broadway)

Kofi — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 01:32:48 +0000

Tony Award winning director Bill T. Jones directs and choreographs this new musical about the life of African Pop Icon Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Play runs August 5 Through September 21 only at the 37 ARTS located at 450 W. 37th Street between 9th and 10 avenues, NY, NY. Visit the website and get tickets.
More clips

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Video: Digging in African crates for music

Kofi — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:59:39 +0000

Trailer for upcoming film on a German Dj’s quest to find rare records in West Africa. Shows how African music can be truly timeless. The sounds make me miss Jump N Funk.

via Africanhiphop.com

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Focus Features launches Africa filmmaking program

Kofi — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:26:15 +0000

California-based Focus Features, a division of NBC Universal, announced that it is launching an African film making program. The Africa First Program, spearheaded by producer Kisha Imani Cameron, will award 5 African filmmakers $10,000 in financing for post or production work on a narrative short that makes use of local African film industry resources. Filmmakers selected for the grants will retain the copyrights to their projects as well as artistic, budgetary and editorial control with support from a team at Focus. The winning filmmakers will retain global distribution rights to their shorts, excluding North America, which Focus will retain. Focus also holds the right of first negotiation to any productions derived from the shorts. Focus Features has produced and distributed award-winning films including Traffic, Gosford Park, The Pianist, Lost in Translation, The Constant Gardener, Brokeback Mountain, and Atonement. The company also produced the 2006 film Catch a Fire which was set if Apartheid-era South Africa.
via Variety

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“Africa Rising” festival brings JAY-Z, Rihanna, Alek Wek to Nigeria & Washington DC

Kofi — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 01:45:27 +0000

Friday was the kickoff for Nigeria-based media company THISDAY’s 3rd annual festival titled “Africa Rising”. The star-studded THISDAY Music and Fashion Festival at the THISDAY Dome in Abuja, Nigeria featured performances by Jay-Z, Rihanna, and Usher. The fashion portion of the festival featured models Naomi Campbell, Tyson Beckford, Alek Wek, Oluchi, and designers Chris Aire and Ozwald Boateng. The annual festival which is “focus on finding ’sustainable solutions’ rather than the ‘problems’ facing Africa”, will be making it’s international debut with stops in Washington DC’s Kennedy Center on August 1 with Beyoncé and Seal as headliners, and in London on October 14. THISDAY has some 700 staff members in 38 offices across Nigeria. It also maintains a bureau in Washington DC, from which it provides news on Africa to a variety of global news organisations and agencies across all platforms- from online to broadcast.

“Right now the international community seems to be dealing with the symptoms not the problems of Africa. The symptoms are poverty and disease, but the problem is lack of social and physical infrastructure. This initiative is to highlight the need to focus sustainable solutions on the problems through massive investment in infrastructure and microfinance in order to rebuild Africa from the ground up. Europe is what it is today because after World War II the ‘Marshall Plan’ took hold. It did not deal with poverty, it focused on rebuilding Europe.” - said media mogul Nduka Obaigbena, THISDAY’s Editor-in-Chief.

The “Africa Rising” event “tour” reflects a rapidly growing trend in the Africa-focused aid sector: African’s creating products with a sustainability focus targeted to both African and international consumers. I’m eager to see what the attendance numbers are for the UK and US events.

more pics

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AfriMonitor launches with ‘Exploring ChinAfrica’ trends brief

Kofi — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:09:08 +0000

Throughout my years as an entrepreneur, I have had to conduct endless market research and have found a serious lack of information about the African market. Drawing on my experience as a marketer myself, I am developing a new website called AfriMonitor to aggregate important research and information about the growing African market. While I understand that the African market is still very young, I feel that to help it grow and to encourage more entrepreneurs to develop products to help it grow, a product like AfriMonitor is necessary. While I still write about African business and culture trends at Annans Chronicles, much of the in depth analysis of trends will be posted there on AfriMonitor. To read more about direction AfriMonitor will be developing towards in the next few months visit the About us page.

AfriMonitor.com serves as a market research portal for the Africa-focused global business audience. The website aggregates pertinent information about African business, consumers, economy, companies, and products, as well as information on African marketing and advertising trends. AfriMonitor provides an overview of African consumer and product markets so individuals, agencies, and corporations can discover new opportunities and make the right business decisions.

As part of the beta launch of AfriMonitor.com, we have put together a trend brief focusing on the growing China-Africa relationship. The brief,”Exploring ChinAfrica: Trends in China’s 21st century push into Africa” , touches on many of the key issues surrounding the topic. It is intended to serve as resource for anyone who is curious about China’s 21st century push into Africa. The brief is available as a free download and you can distribute it to whomever you feel could benefit from the information included. I’ve also put together an interactive timeline with key dates for those who want more information.

I am launching AfriMonitor as a beta for now to get some feedback and begin getting some information to those who can make use of it. We will be working hard in the next couple of months to get you much of the information which will make the site most useful, so check back often or better yet, subscribe to AfriMonitorâ€™s rss feed or sign up for automatic email updates. For now the News tabs currently contain aggregated content from all the major news engines and is updated many times a day. The news is broken up into three categories, All News, China-Africa news, and India-Africa news.

In the next few months weâ€™ll be adding more insights and reports from various sources including African marketing agencies and featuring interviews with newsmakers. Please let any advertisers or marketers with information about the African market know to contact me to get their reports featured on the website. While some of the reports and briefs will be free, others will be available for a fee. Weâ€™ll also be updating our Resources and Events sections soon. Please feel free to submit a resource or event for inclusion in our directory or just contact us with any comments/suggestions. AfriMonitor is a work in progress so your input is always welcome. I hope the website gets you the information you need to make the proper business decisions.

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1st India-Africa Summit held

Video: Ozwald Boateng on career, design and Ghanaian influences

Kofi — Fri, 30 May 2008 05:36:45 +0000

Part 1

Part 2

via YG

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Ethiopia adds luxury coffee to brand identity

Kofi — Wed, 28 May 2008 04:53:49 +0000

Whether you’re religious about your coffee or just a casual drinker, you’ve no doubt seen mention of Ethiopian coffee on some sort of packaging or marketing. Well beginning this month the brand identity and marketing of Ethiopian coffee will finally be regulated and controlled by the Ethiopian government. After a long fight with coffee giant Starbucks, in early 2007 the Ethiopian government won the the rights to trademark it’s coffee beans which account for about 2% of Starbucks’ coffee purchase. In a effort to use Starbucks as leverage and re-position the country Ethiopia within the luxury lifestyle so many of us attempt to live out by drinking our premium coffee, the Ethiopian government recently hired UK-based design firm Brandhouse to create a series of new brand logos to use in it’s upcoming coffee marketing push. The new logo featuring a letter “E” in the form of a coffee bean over the name of the countries most popular coffee varieties Harar, Yirgacheffe or Sidamo, accompanied by the slogan “Ethiopian Fine Coffee.”, was designed to “establish Ethiopia’s reputation for high-quality coffee around the
world, like French wine, Russian caviar, or Cuban cigars.” No doubt the Ethiopian government have realised how their country’s natural resource is a coveted commodity around the world and is using Starbucks’ marketing techniques to try to get a larger share of the revenues from their number 1 export. Hopefully the marketing plan for Ethiopian coffee tells the story of how Ethiopia has long been considered the birthplace of coffee. Stories sell products and brands, and if done well a story from the originator of coffee should sell foreigners on the image of a bountiful, resource-rich Ethiopia, a stark contrast to the current story of Ethiopia resounding in tourist and consumer minds.

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Ghanaian Photography exhibit

Kofi — Thu, 22 May 2008 13:54:50 +0000

If you’re in the NYC area this evening make sure to head over to Ghanaian photographer Stanley Lumax’s opening of photos from his recent trip to Ghana. Details below.

Back to My Roots
Photography By Stanley Lumax Jr.
May 22 - June 18th, 2008
Opening Reception
Thursday, May 22, 2008
7-9 pm
Habana Outpost
757 Fulton St. & South Portland
Brooklyn, NY
C Train to Lafayette
RSVP: info@stonefacephotography.com

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Video: Outsourcing for change

Kofi — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:41:05 +0000

One of the best conversations I had at SXSW was on the topic of outsourcing. While Asia - and India specifically - is known for having a strong history in outsourcing, Africa is quickly ramping up it’s ability to compete with and often times supplement Asian outsourcing. While there have been talk of Africa becoming the next Asia in terms of global business/investor focus, the continent still has some heavy issues to resolve before it can truly realize it’s potential. But, of course that will never stop entrepreneurs from doing their part. Watch this creative video below from a new Sillicon Valley-based venture called Market for Change.

Market for Change aims to catalyze economic development by creating a market for responsible outsourcing to small and medium-sized firms in developing countries.

via Timbuktu Chronicles

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Global hip-hop music and films in NYC

Kofi — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 04:19:32 +0000

If you’re planning on being in the New York City area this weekend please join us for the Global Hip-Hop Music and Film fest. The mini festival will feature films (African Underground: Democracy in Dakar, Peduo Hablar, Diamonds in The Rough, Chocolate City, Benign Eleven, Estilo Hip-Hop, African Underground: Democracy in Paris) and live music and performances by artists from countries including Senegal, Mexico,
Brazil, Sierra Leone and more. For more details check the flyer below or visit Fusicology.

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1st India-Africa Summit held

Kofi — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:30:50 +0000

While everyone was following the Olympic torch global tour and the protests at the various legs of the tour, a very important summit was held in New Delhi India. April 8-9 saw the debut of the 1st India-Africa Summit, where heads of state from 14 African countries including South Africa, Algeria, Uganda, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana and Tanzania met with the Indian government to discuss future relationships. While some people have said that India’s decision to hold the conference was inspired by the 2006 China-Africa Summit, none can deny the power of such summits in powering Africa’s development. While many people are using the Olympic games to draw attention to China’s human rights history - China is Sudan’s largest trading partner and is seen as a supporter of the turmoil in Darfur - , the issue of Asia’s influence in Africa will increasingly make mainstream news. With the India-Africa summit and China and South Africa celebrating a 10 year anniversary of diplomatic ties, we are sure to see a rapid impact of Asia in Africa.

(India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh) said India would more than double its lines of credit to African countries and regional economic groups to $5.4 billion, up from $2.15 billion in the last five years. Two-way trade between India and the African continent totals about $30 billion a year, having grown sixfold in the last five years, according to Indian Junior Minister for External Affairs Anand Sharma. In comparison, trade between China and Africa surged from $55 billion in 2006 to $73.3 billion last year, according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency. Premier Wen Jiabao said in 2006 that China should strive to bring the trade volume to $100 billion by 2010. ….In the last few years China and India have both bolstered their presence in oil-rich African nations. Last year companies from both countries won in a round of bids for exploration licenses in Nigeria, Africa’s leading oil exporter.
- Time

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AfriMonitor launches with ‘Exploring ChinAfrica’ trends brief

Africa 2.0, 2 yr anniversary, growth

Kofi — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 17:12:10 +0000

It seems it’s been about a month since my last post. Wow! How timees fly when you’re running around. I guess I’ve been neglecting my duties here on Annansi Chronicles, but hey there’s much more to life than posting to blogs. Some readers might not have missed me since we communicate regularly online, but I’m sure many of you were beginning to think I’d abandoned Annansi Chronicles. Not true! Here’s some updates of what’s been going on:

The Africa 2.0 panel at South by Southwest Interactive went pleasantly well. Besides getting to finally meet a few of my fellow African bloggers/entrepreneurs/innovators, SXSW was one of my best conference experiences to date. The energy, people, and information was well worth the effort of organizing the panel. For a roundup of what went on read my review at the newassignment.net website. Also read Erik, and Uduak’s perspective. The panel was well attended and we got to talk to some really great people. Thanks to the SXSW crew especially Hugh and Christine for allowing us a great opportunity. Below is some video of an interview I did with Sunny Gault of Veoh TV’s Viral channel right before the panel. In the video I talk about the topic of Africa and technology as well as the work I’ve been doing as a board member of the African Film Commission.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

In some other news, Annansi Chronicles passed it’s 2 years anniversary this month! Thanks to all the readers and the brilliant Africa-focused minds who have helped me keep the blog inspiring. It’s been great connecting with people all over the world and building business and personal relationships through Annansi Chronicles. I had no idea what I was doing when I started 2 years ago and to see the response has been very motivating. As a result of the good people I’ve met through this blog, I have been able expand on ideas which I never would have had. I am currently working on a bigger project which, building on some ideas I’ve explored on Annansi Chronicles, will hopefully add to the efforts of innovation in African business and community development. Hopefully I will be soon announcing this new project, but in the meantime, I am looking for writing contributers for this and other projects. Please contact me if you or someone you know might be interested in working with me and my company Annansi LLC.

Finally, for those reading Annansi Chronicles using rss make sure to visit the site itself to see the new re-design. Going forward Annansi Chronicles will have featured posts of in-depth analysis of news items. For those familiar with the content of the blog, the features will be the longer in-depth posts I’ve been doing periodically here. I’m looking forward to providing more inspiration for you all.Thanks again for reading Annansi Chronicles.

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Video: Africa’s creative minds gather at Design Indaba ‘08

Kofi — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:48:55 +0000

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Video: Growth of business process outsourcing to Ghana

Kofi — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:10:23 +0000

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Puma’s love affair with African football deepens

Kofi — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 18:57:00 +0000

Being the No. 4 sporting-goods brand is tough. But Puma is betting that backing African football (soccer to Americans) will differentiate the brand and win it a significant increase in market share. Continuing with the company’s commitment to African football made during the 2006 World Cup Games, Puma put some serious resources together for product and marketing efforts behind the 2008 African Cup of Nations held recently in Ghana. As a sponsor for 9 out of the 16 African teams, including tournament hosts Ghana and champions Egypt, Puma worked hard to make the brand synonymous with African football, even going so far as buying the Ghana team a top-of-the-line Mercedes-Benz bus for transport between matches. The company began it’s Cup of Nations efforts with a sponsorship deal for Eurosport’s live coverage of the games and then a press conference at the brand new Puma store in Ghana’s Accra Mall. The press conference was held to announce several activities on the ground during the tournament, including a youth exhibition game co-hosted by the Peace One Day charity and edun Live and featuring African football legends Roger Milla and Anthony Yeboah. With a Puma sponsored team win at the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations, the company is now launching the celebratory â€˜African Cup of Nations packâ€™, a limited collection of sneakers based on one of Puma’s staple silhouettes, the Puma Argentina. The â€˜African Cup of Nations packâ€™ features shoes representing four African teams - Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Senegal. The â€˜African Cup of Nations packâ€™ along with the Peace One Day/edun Live collection and accessories will be available this spring.With French multinational holding company PPR, parent company to luxury brands such as Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Bottega Venata, and Balenciaga, spending $7.1 billion last year for a 27 percent stake in the Puma brand, Puma is gearing up to cash in big as African football takes center stage during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. In a recent interview Puma CEO Jochen Zeitz expanded,

For us it is just part of who we are and what we do. We are about innovation and we want to look at new ways of moving the brand and our product forward and we believe there is tremendous excitement in Africa we want to use that as part of our self-expression. It’s about passion, colorfulness and diversity. To bring Africa to the rest of the world or innovation through Africa is an approach that no one has ever selected before. And that’s why we got so heavily involved.

Puma store GhanaPuma Africa Cup packPuma Africa Cup commercials(2006)(2008)Behind the scenes

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A retirement plan for African leaders, Mo Ibrahim

Kofi — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 21:24:12 +0000

African leaders, Ibrahim (says), look to retirement as they would to the edge of a cliff, beyond which lies a dizzying fall towards retribution and relative poverty.

â€œWe donâ€™t have financial institutions for ex-presidents to go and run, or boards of great companies. There is life after office in other parts of the world. I just read that Tony Blair was paid half a million pounds to make a speech in China. People like Blair always have a place in society, they have secure financial futures,â€ - Lunch with the FT: Mo Ibrahim

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Sotheby’s, Bansky bring Bono green for Valentine’s

Kofi — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:50:15 +0000

Despite increasing criticism Bono’s marketing behemoth Product (RED) keeps on course, this time with a Sotheby’s run valentine’s day auction titled (AUCTION) RED. The art auction, held February 14th at the Gagosian Gallery, included limited edition art by the contemporary art world’s heavy hitters such as Takashi Murakami, Bansky, Damien Hirst, and Jasper Johns. The auction closed at a total of $42.58 million, an amount which even eclipsed Sotheby’s pre-sale estimate of $21 million - $29 million. A fan of contemporary art myself, some of the pieces sold are truly beautiful and I’m envious of the winning bidders.

In kicking off the Valentine’s Day sale, to which over 60 top contemporary artists donated museum-quality work, Bono led the crowd in a sing-along of the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love.” - Forbes.com

I continue to be amazed at the RED campaign’s ability to continuously be “successful” at tapping into the guilt of celebrities and normal citizens alike. It’s too bad that such a brilliant marketing vehicle doesn’t think it could be effective without consistently playing the victim/savior game. Check out some of the artwork and related video below.

Gallery footage

Damien Hirst speaking to Charlie Rose about the auction

Bono fanfare at the Valentine’s auction

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BET’s Bob Johnson adds to the African luxury hotel surge

Kofi — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:53:58 +0000

In the past few years there’s been a bit of news coming out of new hotel projects taking place on the African continent. From the Hilton Hotels Group to the Rezidor Hotel Group it seems there’s a lot of interest in Africa as a luxury travel destination. Some will say that the shift is part of the overall change in the world’s political climate, where stories of terrorist attacks come out of former tourist “safe havens”. Whether that is the case or if it’s a result of the increased marketing and advertising efforts by African countries such as Tanzania, the fact is that developers are looking to Africa as a premiere destination for luxury travel. But it’s not just the large developers who are jumping onto the trend. Recently Charlotte Bobcats owner and BET founder Robert L. (Bob) Johnson along with a delegation of African American businesspeople announced an agreement with the government of Liberia to build a villa-style, four-star hotel in Monrovia. The project falls under Bob Johnson’s Maryland-based firm RLJ Companies, which with some 135 hotels valued at more than $3 billion, is the largest Black-owned hotel investment company in the United States. The Liberian hotel project is the result of a “commitment” made by Bob Johnson, Debra Lee, Chairman and CEO of BET, and actors Chris Tucker, Cicely Tyson, and actor Jeffrey Wright among others to Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf at the 2006 Clinton Global Initiative Annual meeting. In addition to the hotel, which is scheduled to break ground in March 2008 and open in February 2009, Bob Johnson also donated $3 million to open a new fund which will “provide Liberian entrepreneurs and businesses with the financial and technical resources they need to rejuvenate the country’s economy and foster long-term stability in the wake of two decades of civil strife”.

What makes this story interesting, besides the kind of project the group chose to launch, is also the fact that - as I’ve reported numerous times on this site - African Americans are increasingly putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to Africa’s business development. And with Liberia being a country which was established as a place to send freed African-American slaves, what better place for a serious businessman like Bob Johnson to invest in. Black Enterprise Magazine quotes Andy Ingraham, President and CEO of the National Association of Black Hotel Owners, Operators & Developers saying, “Itâ€™s important to note that this is part of an overall philanthropic effort by Robert Johnson, and you will see more African Americans not only doing increased business with the Caribbean and Africa, but also entering into philanthropic ventures….African American investors have been in talks with developing countries in Africa such as South Africa and Ghana, to build hotels.”. This is certainly a story to watch.
(photo: RLJ Cos.)

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Annansi Chronicles

Painter Kehinde Wiley’s World Stage: Africa

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