Journalist at RFI (ex-DW, BBC, CBC, F24...), writer (on art, music, culture...), I work in radio, podcasting, online, on films.
As a writer, I also contributed to the New Arab, Art UK, Byline Times, the i Paper...
Born in Paris, I was based in Prague, Miami, London, Nairobi (covering East Africa), Bangui, and in Bristol, UK. I also reported from Italy, Germany, Haiti, Tunisia, Liberia, Senegal, India, Mexico, Iraq, South Africa...
This blog is to share my work, news and cultural discoveries.
All I need to live fully is art, music, engaging political and social discourses, mind-changing literature and of course friendship. All of these precious sources of fulfillment are almost free... The rest is more or less pointless. Today, in my thoughts, Jean-Michel Basquiat:
Talking about politics in music is not about writing openly political lyrics or expurgating anger on guitars, it often lies in deeper concerns, genuine stories, about the authenticity of a career path. Jupiter epitomises it perfectly. As he ends in this amazingly beautiful tracks, in the last sentence of the lyrics: "l'histoire nous jugera". History will judge us. Please listen here below - this track is features on Jupiter and his Okwess International orchestra's first record, Hotel Univers:
"Masters of War" is a song by Bob Dylan, written over the winter of 1962–63. It was released on the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in the spring of 1963.
Great interview this afternoon in Paris with Congolese musician Jupiter.
Jupiter and his Okwess International band will be playing in Paris on May 27th in Pop Up du Label, 14 rue Abel, 75012, then in Le Zénith with Blur on June 15th!
I'll be writing articles soon, in French, but here is a link to listen:
My favourite song on the album "Kinshasa One Two", by DRC Music, including Damon Albarn and a bunch of Congolese musicians:
11 - Ah Congo (Feat. Jupiter Bokondji and Bokatola System) [DRC Music: Kinshasa One Two]
Jupiter Bokondji: 'The cultural riches of Congo are immense' The Congolese star on his country's music and the UK Africa Express tour, featuring 80 musicians on one train as it makes a string of stops across the UK
Jupiter Bokondji in West London. Photograph: Linda Brownlee for the Observer Linda Brownlee/Observer
Jupiter and his Okwess International band will be playing in Paris on May 27th in Pop Up du Label, 14 rue Abel, 75012, then in Le Zénith with Blur on June 15th. Rendez-vous est pris...
-- Talking about politics in music is not about writing openly political lyrics or expurgating anger on guitars, it often lies in deeper concerns, genuine stories, about the authenticity of a career path. Jupiter epitomises it perfectly. As he ends in this amazingly beautiful tracks, in the last sentence of the lyrics: "l'histoire nous jugera". History will judge us. Please listen here below - this track is features on Jupiter and his Okwess International orchestra's first record, Hotel Univers:
Massive Attack's Robert Del Naja's second release on his Battle Box label is a heavy, electronic collaboration with Congolese musician Jupiter Robert Del Naja & Jupiter Bokonjdi, the pair having met on an Afrika Express adventure in 2012.
Released on October 17, 2013, by The Vinyl Factory as a limited hand-numbered pressing of 300 with exclusive sleeve artwork by Paul Insect. -- The Duo produced the tack named '3D On Jupiter' - or 'Battle Box 002'. To listen: https://soundcloud.com/thevinylfactory/battle-box-001-main-mix-feat
Tracklist: A. 3D on Jupiter – Main Mix B. 3D on Jupiter – Alternative Mix
Massive Attack figurehead Robert ’3D’ Del Naja has turned his attention to The Congo on a new 12″, strictly limited to 300 copies.
This time last year, Del Naja inaugurated his Battle Boxproject – a new outlet intended to “fuse music, art and discourse across one-off live events, exhibitions and exclusive vinyl releases.” Its first drop was the Battle Box 001 12″, released in association with The Vinyl Factory, which featured a new 3D/Guy Garvey collaboration plus a Guy Andrews remix on the flip.
Today sees the release of Battle Box 002, titled 3D On Jupiter. The new disc sees Del Naja on an Afrocentric tip, remixing Congolese musician and Okwess International lynchpin Jupiter Bokonjdi. As Del Naja outlines below, the record takes inspiration from his stint with Damon Albarn’s Africa Express project:
”In 2007 I went to the Congo with Africa Express. I was lucky to hang out and listen to some pretty amazing musicians, Jupiter among them.
“This track is built with an unknown modular synth from Munich, a Moog and a Vermona drum machine, with help from Euan Dickinson and Tim Goldsworthy. And mixes by Bruno Ellingham. I wanted to mirror the energy and message in the song without complicating it. The b-side is a more relaxed and melodic using a Prophet 5 and a jupiter 8.
It is the second release on the Battle Box label, which is made and distributed through The Vinyl Factory. Paul Insect has designed the covers and label art. Everything is screenprinted and limited in number.”
FACT have the first play of the video for the hammering A-side, which you can watch below. 3D On Jupiter touches down via The Vinyl Factory today; head here to buy.
"Labour is still in disarray, the Liberal Democrats are nowhere, the Greens unconvincing, Ukip is eating itself alive. The SNP is the only effective opposition and that’s no comfort outside Scotland. Things can only get bitter". (...) "And social media makes it easier than ever to organise a protest: a generation ago, it took six months of campaigning to fill Trafalgar Square; now you can organise a flash mob in an hour".
"Unions, faith groups, charities and campaigners are taking a longer run up by calling all dissenters to gather under the banner of the People’s Assembly, with a national march against austerity on 20 June that will start outside the Bank of England.
They will want a peaceful protest, a carnival of concern: a vast version of an anti-austerity event that happened in Bristol last Wednesday and drew a couple of thousand people. It got less attention than the smaller, more angry confrontation outside Downing Street the day after the Tories came back to power, when smoke bombs and traffic cones were thrown at the police (who had come in their body armour and riot shields ready for such a clash).
Protest thrives in days like these, when there seems to be no alternative, but is it worth it? Does it work?
"Those are questions posed by a new film called We Are Many that looks back at the biggest protest in British history: the day a million people – or maybe two million – marched in London against the war in Iraq. They were from all walks of life, and many were protesting for the first time ever. The actor Mark Rylance remembers in the film that he thought he had stumbled into a different march: “I thought: ‘This must be for something else.’ Because there were all these families, people with pushchairs and babies, people who I had never seen before on these things and the outpouring of rage from the people was so beautiful, really passionate and eloquent and beautiful, people crying out and shouting.”
(...)
"The realisation that this was not the case was a huge moment which, as the author John le Carré says in the film, has stuck in our craw ever since.”
We Are Many will have its premiere in London on 21 May and be released in cinemas on 22 May.
Amirani, a Londoner of Iranian descent who trained at the BBC, says he is one of a “huge swathe of voters who have said they will never vote Labour again because of what the party did with that war. Where do those people go?”
His answer is that they have gone into single-issue politics or campaign groups such as 38 Degrees, whose co-founder David Babbs appears in the film.
"So, if you are going to protest, here’s how to have the most impact. First, make sure it’s an issue that effects people around you, not far away. Next, make a clear demand like stopping a war or raising the price farmers are paid for milk.
Get celebrity backers. Go break a window or two. Don’t hurt anybody or daub graffiti on war memorials as some idiot did during the Downing Street protest, but if you want to get noticed then absolutely do make it look as if there is chaos on the streets and the authorities can’t cope. These are the lessons from history.
(...)
The protests are coming, but if they are ignored will we do what we did in 2003 and melt away, almost embarrassed to have caused a fuss?
“As Ken Loach says in our film, government can handle that,” says Amirani. “What it can’t handle is real organisation. Whether we will have that in Britain over the next five years remains to be seen.”
Les forces de sécurité ont fait savoir qu'elles prenaient très au sérieux les messages des islamistes shebabs.Reuters/James Akena
L'Ouganda a décidé de renforcer ses mesures de sécurité après de nouvelles menaces des shebabs, les islamistes somaliens affiliés à al-Qaïda, a annoncé samedi la police ougandaise.
Selon la police ougandaise, une nouvelle vidéo attribuée aux miliciens somaliens shebabs circule sur internet. Elle diffuse des messages encourageant les musulmans à commettre des attaques en Ouganda et au Burundi. Les deux pays participent en effet aux effectifs militaires de l'Amisom, la mission de l'Union africaine en Somalie.
Les forces de sécurité ont voulu rassurer la population. Elles ont expliqué que la vidéo était en train d'être étudiée attentivement pour en vérifier le contenu et surtout l'authenticité. Mais elles ont précisé qu'elles prenaient très au sérieux les menaces. Rien n'a été divulgué quant aux détails des mesures de renfort de la sécurité, mais les autorités ont répété que les précautions les plus extrêmes seront mises en place.
Depuis les attaques contre le Kenya en septembre 2013 contre le centre commercial Westgate et à Garissa en avril dernier, les menaces se sont multipliées. Le pays a été ciblé en 2010 dans sa capitale Kampala par deux explosions durant la Coupe du monde de football, faisant 76 morts. Des sources occidentales ont par ailleurs confirmé ces dernières semaines que des tentatives d'attentats des shebabs avaient été déjouées dans le pays.
Quelques nouvelles du Soudan du Sud, en français. J'ai parlé hier au directeur de MSF sur place à Malakal et ma collègue anglophone a elle joint la porte parole de la Mission de l'ONU...
Le pays disparaît des journaux malgré 17 mois de guerre civile.
Ci-dessous, après mon article, un lien vers le Guardian...
Des habitants de Malakal qui ont fui les combats dans la ville désormais désertée.REUTERS/Denis Dumo
Des rebelles sud-soudanais ont attaqué la ville de Malakal vendredi soir, dans la région pétrolifère et stratégique du Haut-Nil. Une contre-attaque qui serait intervenue après une offensive des forces gouvernementales, lancées il y a plusieurs semaines. La ville a déjà changé de main plusieurs fois en sept mois de guerre civile.
L'accès à Malakal reste quasi inaccessible. Selon les équipes de Médecins sans Frontières Espagne, une des rares ONG encore présentes dans la région, les combats ont fait rage toute la soirée de vendredi, entre 19h et 22h, et le calme est ensuite revenu. Mais les accès à la ville sont bloqués et le directeur de MSF Espagne n'est pas en mesure d'estimer le nombre de blessés ou de déplacés.
De leur côté, les Nations unies confirment que le calme est revenu samedi, mais la situation reste instable à Malakal, capitale de l'Etat du Haut-Nil, une région stratégique du Soudan du Sud dont les puits de pétrole sont les derniers du pays à fonctionner.
La porte-parole de la mission des Nations unies pour le Soudan du Sud a confirmé qu'une milice shilluk du mouvement rebelle a attaqué la ville, désormais désertée. Il n'est pas encore possible d'estimer le nombre de déplacés, mais près de 30 000 personnes se trouvent déjà dans les quartiers des Nations unies à l'écart des combats.
Selon le ministre de l'Information sud-soudanais, les forces gouvernementales ont pour l'instant réussi à empêcher la prise de la ville. Les Shilluk s'opposent aux membres de l'ethnie Dinka depuis des semaines dans la région.
South Sudan risks 'catastrophe' with new aid agency law, warn NGOs
Thursday 14 May 2015 12.22 BST
Umbrella group of aid organisations voices fears over potential humanitarian repercussions of bill that would impose 20% limit on foreign staff
Sacks of food are retrieved following an aid drop near a village in Nyal, in South Sudan’s Unity state. NGOs are concerned about moves to limit foreign agency workers. Photograph: Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images
A new law that would force aid agencies working in South Sudan to ensure that no more than a fifth of their staff are foreigners could cost lives and have “catastrophic effects” on those most at risk in the aid-dependent and conflict-riven nation, a group of NGOs has warned.
On Wednesday, South Sudan’s parliament passed the non-governmental organisations (NGO) bill, which, according to the office of the president, Salva Kiir, is intended “to regulate the NGOs, international and local”.
Although the bill is still awaiting Kiir’s signature, the South Sudan NGO Forum fears it could jeopardise humanitarian operations once enacted.
The resulting conflict – which has split the country along ethnic lines, pitting Kiir’s Dinka against Machar’s Nuer – has killed more than 10,000 people, forced about 1.5 million from their homes, and left 2.5 million facing severe food insecurity.
The South Sudan NGO Forum, which represents 160 national and 140 international NGOs working in the country, said that while it welcomed the prospect of a strong regulatory framework to make it easier for its members to operate “within a coherent and consistent legal environment”, it was worried about the bill’s humanitarian impacts.
“There are still significant concerns that certain provisions of the NGO bill will not regulate NGO operations, but rather hinder their ability to serve South Sudanese people at a time when needs are escalating due to the ongoing conflict,” the forum said in a statement.
“It’s also important to note that NGOs are not currently operating unregulated. NGOs operate under national laws as well as rules and regulations of individual government bodies.”
Les forces de sécurité ont fait savoir qu'elles prenaient très au sérieux les messages des islamistes shebabs.Reuters/James Akena
Des habitants de Malakal qui ont fui les combats dans la ville désormais désertée.REUTERS/Denis Dumo
