Music All The Way With Victoria Kimani And Khuli Chana

Victoria Kimani has a stand-out performance in All the Way, in all respects. She dances in a cool, sophisticated and charming way. Her voice enchants -- seduces. She carries the whole thing, all the way, in the way she carries herself.  

The song's visuals are all in-the-groove. The drumbeat -- the irreplaceable drumbeat -- steers, in tandem with all that VK does, all the goings-on: A literal moveable feast of dancing bodies and cultured postures, of wonderfully modulated voices and sumptuous colors, of groomed personas and an altogether "glad you're watching" attitude. It's all very African. All symphonic. And all truly lovely. It whispers, anticipates and echoes all that we hear and see (and, p'raps, do) through (alas, too brief) 3:40 minutes of pure funk. 

South Africa's Khuli Chana, an accomplished musician in his own right, happily plays a supporting role in this video; but his contribution is golden -- and his 'spirits' fusing. His voice adds rich punctuation to all the singing, and the drumbeat, and all the dancing.

The leading lady's singing all her heart out here, for sure. Cool, controlled. The supporting cast knows it is in a charmed place, due in no small part precisely to it, and the members are all the merrier for it. As we ourselves are. We, the spectators, are all swayed by all this, in an existential sort of context. Even, if it must be so, unto the Twelfth Night. And so, let us each say it too, what was said so long ago: "if music be the food of love, play on. Give me excess of it...". Play on, VK!

READ: All The Way Lyrics

NOTE: Published on January 21, 2016, this song had gained 178,394 YouTube views by 12:30 a.m. on December 31, 2016.

PS: Victoria Kimani certainly isn't getting the frequency of airplay she deserves on Africa's music channels. Since September this year, all Eastern African eyes are specifically on Trace Mziki and even Trace Naija. The neglect is there for all to see. The officials and DJs concerned owe the viewers, paying or not, an explanation. Fairness matters. A transparent, well-structured rotation policy is a necessity if artistes are to earn their fair rewards.

A Thought ~ 7: Social Capital

Networks -- even social networks (or "personal relationships") -- are not in themselves social capital, as one understands the latter term. They are instead the infrastructure of/for social capital. Indeed, they provide the channel(s) through which social capital, or any other shareable resource, may flow freely or with a mix of subtle and explicit impediments (some personal and some social-structural) -- and so be variably put in store. 

Social capital itself is a resource painstakingly built up (alright, accumulated) over uncertain time, in the course of a protracted and multi-faceted social exchange -- via those very same networks. It is in that way akin to physical and financial capital, for example, though these latter are products of apparently and potentially more formal and ipso facto more regulated market exchanges. 

But social capital is, more emphatically, the consequence at once of a specific pattern of participation in, and the operations of, a given form -- or forms or networks -- of social exchange. The wealth accumulated from such exchange assumes various forms and shapes in social space -- simultaneously fuzzy and tangible -- each of which is typically a continuum (rather than an either/or), but none of which can be quoted on the stock or currency exchange. Examples of these essentially qualitative and broadly synonymous 'forms' are, in alphabetical order: adulation/admiration, celebrity/popularity/reputation/renown, charisma, dignity, eminence/prominence, endearment, esteem, gratitude (of others), honor, influence, leadership, power, prestige, respect, status/standing/stature/approval, and trust(worthiness).

To reiterate: neither are the capital markets and associated lines and points of access in any way a substitute for the actual capital which the investor may gain, hold or lose while operating in or through them, nor are the social networks and related lines and nodes (or sets) of reciprocity the social capital which the savvy social actor (as opposed to the nonchalant or anti-social one) eufunctionally harvests. Social capital is precisely that which is reciprocated -- the content of the reciprocation -- and not the underlying reciprocal relations/networks as such, important as these are. 


Updated: November 29-30, 2016 

Suburban Long Season, Again [Haiku]

Abril's rumbling sky --
Sunday's for hopping channels --
Leaves rock in dark winds.