Zakes Bantwini, Nomcebo Zikode and Wouter Kellerman won a Grammy for their hit song. Photo: Supplied
Friday eds’ note
February started off with a bang and we’re only 10 days in. This year marks 50 years of hip-hop and we kicked off with an issue celebrating the female emcees who paved the way. This week we saw that issue’s cover star Salt-N-Pepa hit the stage with Queen Latifah, Busta Rhymes, LL Cool J, Rakim and many others for an unprecedented performance celebrating the genre.
He’s not hit the TV stage since the release of 2017’s 4:44, but we got to witness Jay-Hova recite hip-hop’s longest bar (his verse is minutes) while sitting Last Supper-style with Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, John Legend and newcomer Friday on the DJ Khaled-produced God Did.
Then, of course, the greatest living entertainer of our time, Beyoncé Knowles, on the same night, became the most awarded artist in the 65 years of the Grammys.
Trevor Noah brought his homeboy Sizwe Dhlomo to the awards and our boy killed it as the host of one of the most exciting awards in recent years.
In a couple of days, Noah’s birthday mate is due to hit the Superbowl stage after having a baby last year with rapper A$AP Rocky. Rihanna and Noah share a birthday, 20 February, (as a Pisces, I can name many of the celebs I share a star sign with) and while the Barbados billionaire is still denying us another album, the world is eager to see if she’ll have any surprise guests and what she’ll perform. (Let the record state if she doesn’t do Rude Boy, I’m resigning as a member of the Navy).
February is Black History Month in America and while many were perplexed by Hank Willis Thomas’s peculiar sculpture of Martin Luther King The Embrace, unveiled recently in Boston, the story of Africa and the West continues to evolve.
And how could we forget that SA’s own Zakes Bantwini, Nomcebo Zikode and Wouter Kellerman won a Grammy for their hit song Bayethe.
As we reported recently, Ghana’s Afrochella has been rebranded as AfroFuture and this new lease of life should assist with some of the problems faced by the continent’s biggest Afrobeats festival.
Then the official confirmation came that the sequel to 2017’s Girls Trip (featuring Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, Jada Pinkett-Smith and Tiffany Haddish) would be filmed in Ghana. The first movie was shot in New Orleans to coincide with the Essence Music Festival. I suspect this movie will coincide with either the Ghanaian version of Global Citizen (last year, it had South Africans crying thug tears watching Usher, Tems and others kill it) or AfroFuture.
That said, the euphoria around Ghana was mainly sparked by the strategy written by Ghanaian-American marketing superstar Bozoma Saint John — Uber, Netflix, etc — who is credited for sparking 2019’s The Year of Return.
It reminded me of the euphoria in South Africa in the early 1990s. From Whitney Houston to Janet Jackson, we had every black American famous person visit our shores. I’m going to say the one thing I know you’re thinking too — they were also here to have their picture taken with our biggest star at the time, Madiba.
Through Instagram, in recent years, we’ve watched as some serious A-listers, such as Idris Elba and Dave Chappelle (who’s rumoured to be buying a house in Ghana’s capital Accra), have descended on West Africa to connect with the MotherLand. This month, magazine Architectural Digest features the Lagos, Nigeria, house of renowned American artist Kehinde Wiley — who also happens to have a gallery in Senegal that hosts residencies for artists from the continent.
And so it wasn’t much of a surprise for us to hear that luxury French house Chanel would be hosting a fashion show in Dakar. Kimberley Schoeman looks at how the three-year project came to fruition, while highlighting that Chanel is not the only fashion brand looking to Africa for some much-needed inspo.
I will hop, skip and jump over the fact that Chanel doesn’t have much of a presence in Senegal. My question is, after the Instagram optics have been taken, how does the conversation between the West and Africa continue beyond one big event?
One of the things I worry about is Africa being a place where the wealthy of the West come to enjoy seeing TikTok dance videos in real life, only to retreat to their private jets and mansions after a few days.
What I’d like to see, and trust me, I’m painfully aware that I’m just an ant in the grander scheme of things, is long-term collaboration and investment in the arts on the continent. Most of our artists have to break internationally to be celebrated and make any real money — Black Coffee and Burna Boy are testament that you can come from Africa but belong to the world.
But they are the exception. Art and creativity are emotionally taxing vocations and without proper funding, they become thankless. We need people of African descent — from around the world, not just America — to come back to the continent and help creatives and start-ups to not only function but thrive.
So, while we’re all excited about the West being excited about our continent, let’s make it our business to make creating art worthwhile for the artists who are committed to being here and lifting us higher. And, no, “exposure” and freebies don’t count.