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PAUL ONDITI: Notes from a curious mind
Mystical, translucent and seductive. The works of Kenyan artist Paul Onditi are mesmerizing and intriguing. He is one of Kenya’s bright and upcoming contemporary artists who found his own style and voice a long time ago. Mixing and matching genres, materials, techniques and media is Onditi’s thing. Filmstrips, prints, layers of layers of ...
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GÉNÉRATION ELILI: Changing the image of the Congo
By Hadrien Diez They are young. They are skilled. They are fed up with the dark narrative international media keep reporting on their region. “Génération Elili”, the generation of the image in Lingala language, is a photographer collective born a few years ago in Brazzaville with the desire to see Congolese taking part in ...
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Richard Russell: ”I’ve probably carried the feeling of my visit to Ethiopia into everything I’ve done since.”
Richard Russell is the boss of XL Recordings (home of Radiohead, Vampire Weekend, Jack White etc.) and the producer of recent classics such as the late Gil Scott-Heron’s I’m New Here and Bobby Womack’s The Bravest Man in the Universe (together with Damon Albarn). In 2010 Richard travelled to Harar, Ethiopia, as part of the Africa Express along with ...
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Somali music discovered/rediscovered: From Dur-Dur to Waayaha Cusub
Somalia seems to have finally turned the corner. In 2011 Al-Shabaab withdrew from Mogadishu and last year Somalia’s first formal parliament in more than 20 years was sworn in. Now Mogadishu is booming with a returning diaspora and skyrocketing house prices. What is next for Somalia? A music revival against the odds? The Somali hiphop ...
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Darfur Fashion
All photos © Pedro Matos Fashion is usually not the first thing that comes to mind when Darfur is the topic of discussion. Pedro Matos who worked three years in Darfur is slowly changing this through The Darfur Sartorialist. We asked Pedro why Darfur is fashion and how life is as a street photographer in Darfur. ...
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”Ethiopia didn’t need me” – Vincent Moon on Ethiopia
“Ethiopia is an island,” Vincent Moon explains. The French filmmaker has been on the road for four years now travelling and filming music and spiritual rituals across the globe and releasing them through his Petites Planètes label. 2012 saw him spending three months in Ethiopia exploring and recording Easter in Gonder and the sounds of Merkato ...
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Utopia in Ethiopia: A rendez-vous with artist Wanja Kimani
Kenyan born Wanja Kimani (b. 1986) is a young visual and performance artist living in Addis Ababa. With a BA in Fine Art from the University of the Creative Arts in Canterbury and an MA in Human Rights from the University of Essex, Wanja interlaces, social, emotional, artistic and personal aspects in her visual stories ...
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The Ethiopian comeback
It has been a long time coming. The Ethiopian national team has been rare guest at the Africa Cup of Nations. In the years after the inaugural tournament in 1957 – in which only three teams took part and Ethiopia got a wild card to the final – the ‘Walaya Antelopes’ was a dominant force ...
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A man returns: An audience with Oromo legend Ali Birra
By Andreas Hansen for Addis Rumble, all rights reserved. The rumours of Ali Birra’s death have been greatly exaggerated. During his career, Ali has not only been jailed dozens of times. He has also been reported death more than once. First in the mid-70’s when the authorities in his home town of Dire Dawa ...
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Best of Addis 2012
The task of identifying the best artistic and cultural experiences in Addis in the past year turned out to be much more challenging than expected. Not because there were not a plethora of events to cherry pick from. There were, and many of them were as such interesting but also fairly safe. Only ...