Annansi Chronicles

• Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie bought Ethiopia. (Not the African country itself, but the island which represents Ethiopia in Dubai’s island phenomenon The World)
• American general seeks to play down fears over new Africa command. (Uhhh… sure. No worries.)
  
• Africa’s nuclear hopes. (Could this be the solution to the electricity shortages?)
  
• MTV begins Africa Music Awards (Viacom knows where the money is)
• More (RED)washing at The Gap (African charity still gets consumers in the retail door)
• Gucci’s African charity Indy bag drops (holidays + African charity = $$$$)
• India eyes Africa to meet rising energy needs (African’s need to refine and accelerate our business models)
• First black (Nigerian) mayor elected in Ireland (A Nigerian Irish mayor. Wow!)

Here’s a good opportunity for African creatives to get some real world projects under their belt:
The African Leadership Academy, a world-class boarding school opening outside Johannesburg, South Africa on September 2008, has launched a pan-African design competition to solicit designs for the Academy’s inaugural school uniform. The competition is open to individual students or groups of students between the ages of 12 and 20 all across Africa. The best design will be decided by an international panel which will include world-renowned African fashion designers, and the winner will be commemorated with a plaque at the Academy. The first round runs until the 15th of November.

For more information about the competition visit the ALA website.

Last Saturday I attended the 5th Annual Hip-Hop Odyssey (H2O) Awards, held at BB Kings in New York City. Organized by the Hip-Hop Association, the awards ceremony recognized today’s hottest Hip-Hop filmmakers, industry professionals and pioneers. The event always features appearances and performances by Hip-Hop heavyweights. This year’s event, as usual, was packed with many of the individuals who have played a major part in shaping the hip-hop landscape including, artist/entrepreneur/hip-hop personality Fab 5 Freddy (that’s him in the picture standing in front of me as we listen to DJ Beverly Bond speak about YO! MTV Raps’ late producer Ted Demme), Ice-T (who gave an excellent acceptance speech about staying true to oneself), Dana Dane, Grand Wizard Theodore, (Dr.) Roxanne Shante, Ralph McDaniels (Video Music Box), The Cold Crush Brothers, Chubb Rock and much more.

On Friday, June 15th, some of Hollywood’s most influential African-American talent got together at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, California for a panel discussion on promoting African-American interest in Africa. The meeting also served to organize a trip to attend the 9th Annual African Union Summit in Ghana next week. The gathering was organized by designer Ozwald Boateng, and included Jamie Foxx, Chris Tucker, Mos Def, Herbie Hancock, James Mathis, and Isaiah Washington - whose Gondobay Manga Foundation was started after he discovered that he is genetically linked to Sierra Leone’s Mende people. During the African Union Summit, held in Ghana from 25 June – 3 July 2007, 50 influential African-Americans will meet with the 53 attending African presidents to discuss the continent’s future. The African Union Summit’s ultimate goal is of full political and economic integration leading to the United States of Africa. It’s good to see African-Americans playing an active part in planning Africa’s future.

Renowned fashion photographer Nick Knight is at it again with another fashion/art/multimedia project. His seminal SHOWstudio site - through which I had the honor of participating on the iD Magazine/London Fashion Week “Bring and Buy” project some years ago - now features a commercial project that “rethinks traditional advertising using motion image”. The project features 10 models from a range of mixed ethnic backgrounds -five male and five female- filmed wearing pieces from adidas’s new ‘Materials of the World’ line, “a collection influenced by the indigenous fabrics of different world cultures”. If you’d like to see the latest release of the Adidas Materials of the World Africa jackets in action on live models head over to the SHOWstudio Skin project site.

Skin is an undertaking by the company &Son, the creative consultancy run by stylists Simon Foxton and Nick Griffiths; a commercial project that rethinks traditional advertising using motion image. Ten models from a range of mixed ethnic backgrounds -five male and five female- are filmed wearing pieces from adidas’s new ‘Materials of the World’ line, a collection influenced by the indigenous fabrics of different world cultures. Over a period of ten days beginning on May 10, the living portraits will be also be displayed in the windows of a Curtain Road shop front in London’s Shoreditch where the attention of passers by will be tested to register that it is film and not stills that they are seeing. In this sense, Skin is a subtle development out of Simon Foxton’s previous Sittings: Thirty Men project of 2005 and a handsome addition to SHOWstudio’s ongoing study of living fashion portraiture.

One of the most important events for Africa’s technology, entertainment, and design industry development, TEDGlobal 2007, is in full swing in Arusha, Tanzania. Coming from vacation I have been reinvigorated by all the developments coming out of this seminal event. Now in it’s 3rd day, the conference has already given me more than enough insight into innovative ideas behind Africa’s next chapter. With all the information and idea sharing at this event, the African blogosphere is sure to be fueled for a long time to come. Below are some important resources for keeping up to date with the happenings in Tanzania. I’ll be watching and listening closely as I hope you all are.

Live updates:
Soyapi Mumba is Twittering TEDGlobal
Ethan Zuckerman of My Heart’s in Accra is live-blogging

Other bloggers at TEDGlobal 2007:
TEDFellow Erik Hersman, of White African
TEDFellow Rafiq Phillips at WebAddiCT
DNA
David McQueen
Africa Beat, by Jennifer Brea
Bankalele
Mental Acrobatics
AfroMusing
TEDFellow Mweshi
TEDFellow Fran Osseo-Asare, of Betumi: The African Food Network
TEDFellow Soyapi Mumba
TEDFellow Ramon Thomas, of NETucation
Ndesanjo Macha, who writes Digital Africa, in English, and Jikomboe, in Swahili
Fifthculture
Ellen Horne at Radio Lab in Tanzania
ClassV
Sam Ritchie
Harinjaka (in French)
Kenyan Pundit, by TED Conference speaker and blogger Ory Okolloh
Timbuktu Chronicles, by TEDGlobal conference director Emeka Okafor
and of course you can get official updates at the TED blog site

The concept for the June 2007 Vogue magazine cover story is a diary of British actress Keira Knightley’s “vacation in Africa” - more specifically Kenya. While the idea was probably someone’s eureka moment for an interesting feature, the resulting shoot and story is another re-hashing of Out of Africa. The fashion blogosphere has taken issue with one image in particular where the actress is photographed feeding a baby elephant which has been draped with a leather Louis Vuitton blanket.

After lunch at the Giraffe Manor, a hotel near Nairobi where giraffes roam the grounds, Keira donned a chic gray Bottega Veneta frock to visit the baby elephants at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Mbagathi, the only successful project in the world at rehabilitating orphaned elephants into the wild. Her diary entry for that day reads, “Today everyone tried to catch the baby elephants so we could put Louis Vuitton blankets on their backs. I’ve never seen anything more brilliantly stupid. I hope Louis Vuitton like it; they should definitely give the elephant a modeling contract.” - via Style.com

Here’s an exciting special event for all my London folks. Ghanaian designer Tina Atiemo is bringing her Avante Garde fashions to a show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington - London on the 1st of June 2007. The Ghana 50 Fashion Show is part of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s event series celebrating 50 years of Ghanaian art and design. I’m sure Tina will bring some great designs as she did when she joined Ozwald Boateng, Deola Segoe and other African designers in the CatWALK the World event in Ghana last year. If you’re in London on June 1st check out the show and the exhibit.

Details
SPECIAL EVENT: Ghana 50 Fashion Show at the V&A Museum
Show Times: 16.00pm and 18.30–22.00
Location: Raphael, Room 48a
Price: Free entry to the show, but tickets must be collected for this event outside the Raphael, Room 48a between 15.30 - 19.00.

Join us for the Ghana 50 launch party with celebratory speeches by leading Ghanaian’s, be amazed by the dazzling fashion showcase of the best in rising Ghanaian talent, discover what’s on the Ghana, Gold and Slaves trail, view the special commemorative display of Asante Goldweights, and meet British Ghanaian visual artists and view their Asafo Flag project Forward Africa. In collaboration with cultural partners Africa Image Alliance.

On Monday evening, designer John Galliano showed his Christian Dior Cruise 2008 collection in New York City. Going into the event I expected the normal couture runway spectacle, including the absence of anything or anyone African (or black). I was delighted to see though that Galliano did his part to at least acknowledge the diversity of the times by including Alek Wek and “it girl” Chanel Iman. While the collection and scenery channeled the 60’s-era, the Parisian fashion house designs and choice of music impressed me with it’s updated view of what luxury lifestyle is today. While the inclusion of only two ethnic models in a show themed “Marrakech Express” is not the best case scenario (hellooo! Moroccans have a unique African culture), I am happy to see that the trends I observed in last season’s shows is not catching on throughout the industry. Hopefully more African models can soon get a chance to lend their authenticity to couture runway shows. Ethiopian supermodel Liya Kabede was also in attendance.