Hundreds of mourners attended a memorial service for South African recording star and anti-apartheid champion Miriam Makeba Saturday.
Poets and musicians performed tributes to the woman known as “Mama Africa” at the Johannesburg Dome, a popular venue for concerts.
South African President Kgalema Motlanthe delivered a video message from the G-20 summit to an audience of mourners [...]

Gospel Hill will open the 16th Annual African Diaspora Film Festival to be held in six venues in Manhattan from November 28 to December 14, 2008. The directorial debut of Giancarlo Esposito, this year’s ADFF Opening Night film will be one of 50 New York City premieres among 86 titles representing 40 countries.

In an unofficial sampling, many Africans told VOA they support the election of Barack Obama as the United States’ 44th president. Senator Obama is the first African-American to hold the office.
MALAWI
“I’d like to congratulate Barack Obama for winning, for entering the White House. You know it’s victory for Africa and for the whole [...]

Barack Obama won more white votes than even John Kerry and even succeeded in doing what John Kerry failed to do in winning so many Republican States. Was this done through, as someone put it, “skillfull targeting”? Who cares, it worked.

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs has awarded the 2008 Patricia Blunt Koldyke Fellowship on Social Entrepreneurship to Ada Onyejike, cofounder and chief executive officer of the Girl Child Art Foundation (GCAF) in Nigeria.
Onyejike’s GCAF uses the arts to empower and educate young women in Nigeria where sons are often more highly valued than daughters, [...]

It’s election eve, Africans, like many people around the world, are watching with great interest. What are observers on the continent thinking about the election?

A Reader’s Digest poll conducted in 17 countries shows 69% of respondents believed America was ready to welcome Mr Obama into the White House, with support for the Illinois senator greatest in the Netherlands (92%) and at its lowest in Russia (52%).

Today we heard from our friend Bob Shingleton, who writes a leading classical music blog, On An Overgrown Path. He blogs from the United Kingdom, where Black History Month is observed in October: “Hi Bill, interesting news of concerto for kora and symphony orchestra by Malian musican Toumani Diabaté plus more on the kora and [...]

Magic System, a national musical treasure from Ivory Coast fully represented on Saturday, October 11th 2008 at the Apollo theater in Harlem, NY. If the musical group, Magic System doesn’t ring a bell, I am sure the song, premier gaou will definitely set bells a ringing. The resounding success of this song in 1999, led [...]

Full text of the lecture by Prime Minister of the Republic of Kenya, Rt. Hon. Raila A Odinga at the 25th Anniversary of The Guardian Newspaper in Lagos, Nigeria. Oct 9, 2008. Theme: Democracy and the Challenge of Good Governance in Africa
“Genuine democracy is about freedom of choice, a universal concept that is meaningless without [...]