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Africa

What to Expect from The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah

by Jeff Myhre

Ryan Shea, Manhattan Digest, Trevor Noah, Newsweek

I am old enough to remember when Jay Leno took over the Tonight Show from Johnny Carson. It was recognized at the time as the end of an era. But Leno did his thing, and because of that, it was the beginning of an era as well.

We’re looking at the same phenomenon on the Daily Show as South African Trevor Noah follows Jon Stewart, who (let’s face it) can’t be replaced. I miss the Stewart era, but I am looking forward to Noah’s time in the host’s chair. I have been a fan of Noah’s for a couple of years now, and if you haven’t seen his work, you owe it to yourself to track down his HBO special and some of the YouTube clips out there.

The first thing to note is that the show is going to be different in its approach. We’re all different people, and Noah is coming from a different time and place than Stewart. As Noah told Entertainment Weekly, he is a “31-year-old half-black, half-white South African man who immigrated to the United States in 2011 and Stewart (as a 52-year-old Jewish man who grew up in New Jersey). “The way we look at the same story will be completely different,” he said. “We have different access to different jokes, different sides, different sensitivities … the most important thing is the place that you come from.”

“We’re still dealing with the same issues, it’s just a different angle we’re looking at things from—and it’s my angle, really. I’m taking things in a slightly different direction, but to the same endpoint.”

Noah speaks seven languages and does some of the best accents and impersonations I have ever seen. So, you’ll see more of that. As an immigrant, he’s got a different take on America than a native, and as a man of mixed-race heritage from a country that abolished legal segregation in his lifetime, he has the standing to talk to us about race.

My friend, Gys de Villiers is a South African actor (he played de Klerk opposite Idris Elba’s Nelson Mandela in “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom) who explained, “Because of his mixed race, he can say things in South Africa that an Afrikaaner like me or a Zulu might not be able to and have the same credibility. Like Obama, he’s neither one nor the other and so he can speak to both.”

Noah himself told Rolling Stone that his show will wind up coming from a more diverse group than the previous incarnation of the Daily Show did. “Already we have people coming in and the racial diversity of the correspondents has gone up dramatically …. Gender-wise, we’ve got a ton of great female writers, too. In the new submissions, 40 percent of the final writers we decided to go with are female. And finding those voices is difficult but we’re lucky in that I’ve worked with great people of every color and I’ve worked with fantastic female writers as well. So we’re bringing that into the room.”

One thing that will feature in his Daily Show that Stewart’s didn’t is New York City itself. Like just about every newcomer, he’s got observations about the city, how people behave, and of course, the subway (he reckons it would be a great opportunity for us all to discuss climate change). Stewart, a Jersey boy, took much of the comedy potential of the city for granted.

One tiny hint – -don’t just watch the first episode and make a decision. The first week will be a four-part miniseries, so you’ll have to at least watch for the whole week.

Filed Under: AFRICA, NEW YORK, TELEVISION Tagged With: Africa, america, Daily Show, Jay Leno, Johnny Carson, Jon Stewart, New York City, Race, South Africa, Tonight Show, Trevor Noah

African Gay Rights Continue to Go Down

by Brian Connolly

African

While Marriage Equality continues to spread over the United States of America and Europe like an unstoppable tidal wave, our African brothers and sisters are suffering a wave of anti-gay sentiment and anti-gay laws.

So why are African leaders getting away with laws that in some cases offer nothing but death as an option for being gay?

African politicians are referring to being gay as “learned” behaviors, and being gay as “disgusting” and a “genetic distortion”. The unfortunate effect of leaders using these sorts of negative descriptions for homosexuality is the uneducated populations willingly absorb these connotations and live by them as fact and absolute truth. So what is a peasant farmer in Uganda, who has no access to education, to believe. Would he question his political leaders as being right or wrong? Well the outcome here is the farmer more than likely will adopt the anti-gay rhetoric being publicized as normal by political leaders and more alarmingly spread this anti-gay sentiment and embed it in the minds of the next generation via his children and grandchildren.

The African education system is lacking also as a tool for equality, with teachers being the primary guilty party for truancy, and even if they were present full time would they teach equality in the state run classrooms? The short answer is no. Education for the most part is run by the same anti-gay politicians. So our new African generations will most likely not gain valuable equality information from school either.

So where do our new generations of Africans learn about the world, the struggle for equality and the future of societal change?

Cell phones – Africa’s cell phone use has risen to well over 650 million in recent years and is being used for many outreach activities, more noticeably and successfully as a mobile banking system (M-PESA) for the many Africans who have no where to store money or the ability to enact transactions to buy food, materials for survival. These cell phones can access Twitter, Facebook, the internet at large and as we have seen in global development, the information age has spread the societal movement and development faster than ever before. Campaigns spread around the world at incredible speeds and gain support like a typhoon, most memorable was the campaign “Kony 2012”, however ill-fated as it was we are unable to deny the incredible level of support this campaign generated in such a small space of time.

Perhaps Africa will also generate its own whirlwind of online campaigning and support in time via gay equality movements from the local civil society of Africa, and we outsiders to Africa must support, hit our like buttons, comment and create a deafening call of support that African leaders are unable to ignore, so our brothers and sisters in Africa are encouraged to continue fighting for their equal and human rights to love, be free and be who they are open and proud.

The picture below illustrates the current state of anti-gay laws on the African continent.

African

Filed Under: AFRICA, LGBT, POLITICS, TECHNOLOGY Tagged With: Africa, campaign, change, education, Equality, gay rights, generation, society, technology

Fashion Flash-Forward: The Future in Fashion

by Greg Serebuoh

Ulrico - The Visitors - G7 3

Manhattan Psycho

I am admittedly a sci-fi nerd. The other day I was reading about jazz musician, performance artist, and Afrofuturist philosopher Sun Ra and his iconic work Space Is the Place.

Sun Ra Head Dress 2     Sun Ra Head Dress 1

It got me thinking about the fact that futurism has continued to find its way into fashion and aesthetic concepts, from Jean Paul Gaultier’s costume design for The Fifth Element to singer Janelle Monae’s Metropolis cycle.

Janelle Monae - Electric Lady     Fifth Element - Gaultier

Fifth Element - Ruby Rhod     Janelle Monae - Archandroid

Something about the distant future inspires us to imagine new possibilities and make bolder aesthetic choices. When I was researching for my performance piece about an extra-dimensional traveler, Arken: Searching for Wonder, I sought out images of futuristic fashion for inspiration. Here are a few images and designers that excite my mind.

This editorial from Numéro Homme called “Manhattan Psycho” effortlessly merges classic style with a sci-fi sensibility.

Manhattan Psycho 7Manhattan Psycho 6Manhattan Psycho 3

Coco and Breezy’s entire line of edgy accessories has futuristic overtones, but its “20/20” campaign is all about what accessorizing will mean in the future: “‘Planet C &&B’ is a world that consists only of fresh air and extreme sunlight where normal eyes cannot stand to view without being covered.”

Coco and Breezy 2Coco-and-Breezy-20-20-The-949

Kay Kwok presented some out-of-this-world design concepts at his FW14 fashion week show in London. I don’t know if I’d wear this stuff on a regular trip to the grocery store, but I wouldn’t mind owning one of those visors, and I’m sure I’d cause a splash if I received dinner guests in that ET two-piece.

Kay Kwok AW14 1Kay Kwok AW14 2

Lee Roach’s line has a much more subtle sci-fi flavor as he makes use of shiny materials and contemplates how our evolution will result in more streamlined fashion, by eliminating collars and lapels, for example.

lee roach fw 14 3lee roach fw 14 4lee roach fw 14 6

Nasir Mazhar‘s FW14 collection updates men’s sportswear by exploring geometric shapes, distorted lines, quirky accessories, and shiny space suit sheen.

Nasir Mazhar AW14 1Nasir Mazhar AW14 2

In the “Warriors” editorial, Holly Fox-Lee imagines how modern-day hip hop style might evolve, fusing  it with an ancestral tribal aesthetic and taking it to extremes in terms of shape, scale, and materials.

Holly Fox Lee 2     holly fox lee

Holly Fox Lee 3     Holly Fox Lee 1

This editorial called “The Visitors” in G7 magazine features my buddy Ulrico Eguizábal, who I met while I was modeling in Argentina. Not only does it use the concept of alien “visitors” to play with size and shape, but it also imagines a future style that challenges our current gender norms in fashion (thank goodness), using elements typically associated with femininity, like shoulder pads and long flowing fabrics, to highlight the male form in a fascinating new way.

Ulrico - The Visitors - G7 3Ulrico - The Visitors - G7 2

Some of my favorite futuristic designs (and the ones I’d be most likely to wear in day-to-day life) come from Skingraft, which makes nuanced use of a lot of the earlier-mentioned elements, geometric shapes, extraterrestrial mystique, and interesting combinations of materials.

skingraft 1skingraft 4Skingraft 2

skingraft 3skingraft-collection-automne-hiver-2012-2013_80597_w460Skin Graft AW 12 Draped Shirt

Finally, INAISCE is one of my personal favorite designers right now, in part because it incorporates futurism into its larger design concept to create clothing that is arresting, undeniably unique, and totally wearable. Not only do I absolutely love the campaign for Fall/Winter 2013, but I’m also ecstatic to see another tall African model, South Sudan native Ger Duany, take center stage with his beautiful, otherworldly features. Africans unite!

INAISCE 2INAISCE 3INAISCE 4

INAISCE 1INAISCE 7INAISCE 5

 

Filed Under: FASHION, LIFESTYLE, STYLE Tagged With: Africa, Afrofuturism, alien, Argentina, Arken: Searching for Wonder, artistic, Bruce Willis, catwalk, Coco and Breezy, creative, Editorial, ET, experimental, extraterrestrial, fashion, Fashion Week, futurism, FW14, G7, Ger Duany, hip hop, Holly Fox-Lee, INAISCE, inspiration, janelle monae, jazz, Jean Paul Gaultier, Jona, Kay Kwok, Lee Roach, London, Milla Jovovich, Nasir Mazhar, Numero Homme, NYFW, performance, runway, sci-fi, Skingraft, South Sudan, Space Is the Place, style, Sun Ra, The Fifth Element, The Ones 2 Watch, The Visitors, Tribal, Ulrico Eguizabal

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