CHIMURENGA LIBRARY video album art posters audio book/publication event OCTOBER 8 - NOVEMBER 21 2015, THE SHOWROOM

An intersection of the routes of the South Freedom Songs, Transcription Centre Culture and Resistance African exiles, and the routes of the avant- MUSIC IS THE WEAPON Conference, , ,1982 garde jazz pioneers, and the routes of the anti- Your Own Hand Sold You, Harmony Holiday Aesthetics vs Anasthetics modern hipsters, and the pan-Atlantic routes of Medu Arts Journal, Medu black migration. Those routes converge in their Arts Ensemble wild search for a home, a single truth, a tonal “A music of the crossroads, then? In the Ironically, one of the few subgenres centre which is no longer there, a place from mid-1970s, Fela explained why his music of jazz that experienced growth which to begin. They converge, momentarily, wasn’t sorrowful: ‘Despite my sadness I in the 1970s was groove-based in an exile of the heart. (Julian Jonker, “A Silent create joyful rhythms… I want to change African jazz fusion by the likes of Way: Routes of 1946– sadness…’ The music points you to an Cannonball Adderley, , 1978”, Chimurenga 1: Music is the weapon, outside, in other words, an entirely different James Mtume, Pharoah Sanders, April 2002) “We used photographic covers with South path. Or, as Lester Bowie put it, ‘one of the and Fela Kuti. As police repression, African models mostly because I knew immediate goals of our music is to stimulate agent provocateurs, and internal them and they were easily accessible. thought…’” dissension brought down black Amandla Cultural Group In London you could find anything in (Brent Hayes Edwards, “Crossroads GEORGE HALLETT militant organizations, Black Power I thought about the large audiences at terms of props. I created theatre, I used Republic”, Chimurenga 8: We’re All slogans and Pan-Africanist sentiment the streets of London or bedrooms, and I Exile and the Nigerian!, 2005) FESTAC who were listening to South African were alive and well throughout the music, most of it being struggle music and never used professional studios. I created creative imagination African diaspora in the late 1970s. an ambience using costumes and my Zombie, Fela Kuti, Polydor, 1976 the support it got. They had never heard The black world was primed for world anything like it, that music, and then there imagination. celebration of African culture. (Robin I got people to perform the theme out of Home and Exile by Lewis Nkosi were the dances and the struggle message D. G. Kelley, Africa Speaks, America pumping in. They loved it. The leadership the book that I felt reflected what was Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Exile demands contemplation because it is saw that too. That’s why I was called going on in the book and which made the They were profoundly hopeful Times, 2012) potential purchaser look at the book. They unavoidably real for those who experience it. events… they were seen to back. They sent someone fm the military More than a word, exile is also a condition. in Botswana to fetch me and we formed had to be dramatic and interesting and function as laboratories for the Festival panafricain d’alger It is a place, a knowledge, a narrative, but Amandla with MK soldiers and we spent 10 different from everything else.” George development of new, continent- by William Klein Hallett (quoted in Sean O’Toole, “Cover most importantly, it is a psychic space that wide politics and cultures. years touring the world. (Jonas Gwangwa story: a visual history of Things Fall Apart”, is obvious to those who inhabit it, those who (Dominique Malaquais, Alger ‘69 by Theo Robichet interview, Pan African Space Station, 2014) The Chronic, October 2011) must engage and wrestle with it because only “Shepp’s Shirt Suggests”, by so doing can they come to terms with it. Muzmin, July 2015) The notion of Arab-African hybridisation, as the Khartoum Heinemann African Writers Engaging with exile is a technology of the School contemplated it, seemed to our generation suspicious Series self. (Olu Oguibe, “Exile and the Creative for more reasons than one, not the least of these being that FESTAC... a rip-off! Corruption left and Imagination”, Chimurenga 2: Dis-Covering the idea of “pure” African and Arab ethnicities existing Blue Notes right! FESTAC was just one big hustle, so (Counter) Festac by Home, July 2002) somewhere out there is not innocent of the suspicion of a whole lot of military men and useless Sara de Gouveia happy racism. (Hassan Musa, “El Salahi, The Wise Enemy”, politicians could fill their pockets... I didn’t Muzmin, July 2015) Bebson De La Rue (Kongo go to the thing-o! I stayed at the Shrine and Though he is kin to John Cage, Robert Filliou Astronauts) made my “Counter-Festac” there! (Fela Kuti and Alan Kaprow, it is for Michael Jackson, quoted in Carlos Moore, Fela, Fela: This whom he suspects had Mongo ancestors, Bitch of a Life, 1982) EL SALAHI and for his own, many peeps that Bebson de la Rue deploys his funkattitude, zipping The Sahara is through the ozone in his DYI spaceship, a not a boundary cool machine that runs on Pacolami (Ngbaka FESTAC / COUNTER-FESTAC moonshine). (Eleonore Hellio, “The Anti-Art of Performing Pan Africanism Festac 77 registration cards Kongofuturism”, The Chronic, April 2013) Ibrahim El-Salahi (left) The problem that Ali Mazrui’s theorisation of “Afrabia” has and Tayeb Salih (right) at Whereas the ‘American Negro’ was in attendance at the Sudanese Embassy in always run into, however, has been twofold. The first is that London. Early 1971. PLAYING Dakar (Duke Ellington and the Alvin Ailey groups), the its reliance on the history of African and Arab interaction “Afro-American” was in attendance at Algiers (Eldridge as proof of future possibilities is as weak as it is strong. WITH ELECTRICITY Abubakr Mansaray Cleaver, Stokley Carmichael and his wife, Miriam This history includes as many lows as it does highs. For Season of Makeba). (Editorial in West Africa, August 2, 1969) every proof of racial equality in a supposed Islamic history, Migration to there is a proof of paternalism and exploitation. For every the North by More more more future by Tili Tili Tili by Lesedi Mogoathle Mansa Musa, there is a Zanj revolt. For every claim on an Tayeb Salih Studios Kabako African Muslim empire, there is a claim of Arab conquest Postcolonial Dilemna 1, 2, 3 Festac 77 - Festival News of that empire. The second, and most damning problem, by Kongo Astronauts is that the logic of these ideological configurations accepts the idea of civilisational difference and implicitly Ibrahim El The Pan African Nation: Oil a hierarchy established on the basis of those differences. Salahi: A and the Spectacle of Culture in That hierarchy goes something like the following: the West Visionary My Life in the Nigeria by Andrew Apter is the best, Islam is next and Africa is what’s left. (Wendell Modernist Bush of Ghosts Hassan Marsh, “Islam between Françafrique and Afrabia”, by Salah M by Amos Tutuola Muzmin, July 2015) Hassan Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta by Michael Watts What culture and what memory will be left of oil, after it has gone? Will Only by training ourselves to listen again will we even AFTER OIL Capitalist Realism by there (at last) be new ruins, half in the begin to recognize the abject robotics of popular Mark Fisher sea, beyond Bar Beach? What will the speech today, and poetry and poetics encourage that WATER beautiful Nigerians not yet born make skillful listening that might have the capacity to bring of this time that is passing and of this us back to ourselves. (Hamony Holiday, “Manifesto for substance that confused everyone? Afro-Astrosonics”, The Chronic, April 2013) (Jeremy Weate, “Life After Oil”, The Original Sufferhead, Fela Kuti, Chronic, April 2015) Lagis International Records, 1981 At different points during the first half of the BODY PATHS 20th century Burkina Faso was part of Côte Laughter here is not resistance. In New African Cartographies, “When in the run-up to FESTAC ’77 d’Ivoire, Niger, Mali and Senegal, before its desire for majesty “the popular” The Chronic Nigeria asked Britain and the British eventually coagulating as the Republic of power’s repertoire, while the official Museum to return the exquisite carved Return to My Native Land Upper Volta. (Paula Akugizibwe, “Beasts of world mimics the popular vulgarity. The ivory mask of Queen Idia which had by Aime Cesaire No Nation”, The Chronic, July 2014) binary division between compliance and defiance crumbles. (Stacy Hardy, “Achille been chosen as the symbol of the Mbembe Idiolect”, Chimurenga 15: The FESTAC ’77 logo, the British had Making History by THE HEAD OF Curriculum is Everything, 2010) the diplomatic nerve to suggest that Karen McKinnon and QUEEN IDIA the Queen Idia could be loaned to Cecilia Tripp Nigeria for a sum of two million A Quesion of Power by Bessie Head pounds sterling.” (Tam Fiofori, Forever Makeba: The Story - Miriam Bronze, Modern Ghana, 2009) Makeba in Conversion with Nomsa Mwamuka Life and a Half by Sony Labou Tansi Nigerian Christianity may be largely about money In Nigerian lingo, the word “abroad” means those Les Saignantes by Jean-Pierre Bekolo and power, but it is also about the fear of God and his countries which, to our minds, are figuratively north representatives, about the need to understand the surreal of the global North–South divide. This might be contradictions of living in a country that imports tooth picks, because the genuine etymology of our abroad is “ilu Swiss lace and leg of lamb. (Yemisi Ogbe, “Superstar Men oyinbo” America, the United Kingdom, Germany, The Discursive Theatre of God”, The Chronic, April 2013) France, Switzerland, Australasia, very reluctantly of Nigeria LOWER China or India – countries attractive as designer The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie The National Theatre holiday destinations for those with disposable incomes. FREQUENCIES of Nigeria in Lagos (Yemisi Ogbe, “Birthing the American”, The Chronic, by Daniel Kötter and December 2013) Constanze Fischbeck Hei Voetsek! Poe$$!! A New Womyn’s Magazine

Everyday is for The Thief by Teju Cole Variations on the Beautiful in the Congolese NATIONAL World of Sounds by Achille Mbembe The white officer The Undercommons METHOD AFTER FELA TEAR-TER does not mind by Fred Moten and Curriculum Studies robbery, he only How to Make Love to a Negro Without Stefano Harney abhors tardiness. Getting Tired by Dany Laferriere (Lagosian saying) YAP News, Serious! Seri-arse! Fuck the irascible Jo’burg That supracultural monstrosity known as Extra Ordinary Issue, Sexing Islamic Girls kugle, here comes the dumb arse black bitch! the National Theatre. The theatre of which July 1980 Lately, we’ve been concerned with articulating a by Fokn Bois Gucci, Cardin, Diesel, Klein, you name it nation, by the way? Of Nigeria? Or of distinction between Black Studies as a academic and they’re in it. Just put a sassy name to Bulgaria, from where the concrete carbuncle endeavour and “black study” as an irregular, anti- your garment and they’ll splash out because was lifted, then grafted onto Lagos Kin Kiesse by Mweze disciplinary force of thinking, performance and well, it’s Loxtion Culture. It’s my culture to be marshlands? What, in that general’s cap Nyangura inhabitation.... It happens in churches but also in beautiful! Now I can smoke, fuck anything and or Christmas cake of a structure, constitutes clubs; it happens in cells and in the holds of ships. It anyone I want because hey, I’m free!! Free even a fragment of Nigerian or African persists, under duress, as criticism and celebration. to do with my pussy just as I please!! Free to architectural intellect, modern or traditional? (Fred Moten & Stafano Harney, “The Alternative Is die for and with my pussy! (Zebulon Dread, (Wole Soyinka, “Twice Bitten: The Fate of At Hand”, The Chronic, August 2013) “Holiday Planning with Hei Voetsek!”, The Africa’s Culture Producers”, PMLA, 1990) Chronic (Graphic Stories), July 2014)