Semba: an ode to Angola
Imagine Brazil without Samba. Would there be colour, carnival, that overwhelmingly vivacious spirit? Well, if it wasn’t for Angola, Samba would never have existed. It is the fusion of different muscial genres from its culturally diverse population, but one of its most predominant elements is Semba – the music of Angola.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZirILoMfl4c&feature=related]
Read MoreRepresentations of Africa
When you think of Africa, what image immediately springs to mind? Dry earth and mud huts? Masaai warriors and safari? Chaotic crowded cities? Poverty? Famine? AIDS?
I don’t wish to imply that people doubt what a varied and diverse continent Africa is, but certainly in the UK, the media representation of Africa seems to be woefully inadequate, a vision of an entire continent based on the famine in Ethiopia of over 20 years ago. The recent Comic Relief campaign served to highlight this perfectly: outraged celebrities went to some rural hospital in ‘Africa’ and begged, threatened and guilt-tripped the public into giving money, because look – this is what life is like in ‘Africa’. Whether they were in Uganda or Eritrea, Rwanda or Sierra Leone hardly seemed to matter. That these countries have cities as well as villages, their own governments and their own social and political systems was neither here nor there.
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