CONCEPT: Pollution

Pollution: The term pollution is understood to encompass "all unwanted effects of human or natural activities" (Conway and Petty, 1991: 2). Emphasis here is on effects. Types, as well as potential or actual contexts, of pollution include: water, air, soil, noise, aesthetic and cultural. When waste finds its way into previously potable water, we call it water pollution. 

When it gets into the air we breathe or the soil in which we grow our crops or other plants, it causes air or soil pollution -- or other types of pollution. Thus, we may even prefer the stronger terms of water or soil contamination when referring to wastes with more chemically and similarly "aggressive" effects on human or animal food-chains -- or on the ecology as a totality. 

Noise pollution  stands out among all these types of pollution in the sense that the term refers simultaneously to a cause and an effect. Persistent or recurrent noise of a certain decibel level is the cause of noise pollution. It is, uniquely, the cause of itself; and is, indeed, itself. And of course context matters here. People at a disco, for example, do tolerate more noise than those who live in the neighbourhood, even though they may suffer in the end if their being there is habitual. Those who live near large and busy airports will suffer degrees of permanent hearing loss, as well as heightened levels of anxiety.  

READ: Pollutants

CONCEPT: Contamination

Contamination: It is fairly common knowledge in science that this concept originated from the Latin word contaminat, which means "made impure" -- or tainted with impurity. Of several definitions given in one English dictionary (The Free Dictionary), the most broadly-conceived gives us the idea of contamination as "The presence of foreign material that adulterates or renders impure a material the composition of which is thereby degraded". Tom Sizmur defines it concisely as "the PRESENCE of a substance that should not be present naturally" -- that is, in the "host" in question. 

A longer definition by Sizmur, which focuses on soil contamination, captures the generic sense that many people probably have of contamination (and not necessarily with Sizmur's reference to the soil). He states that soil contamination is "an excess of any element or compound, through direct or secondary exposure, which causes a toxic response to biota or humans, resulting in unacceptable environmental risks" (Sizmur, 2011?). Generically speaking, however, a substance doesn't have to be present "in excess" for it to be a contaminant inside the "host". In many cases, a "mere presence" will be deemed a compromising impurity and a contamination -- for diverse and often conflicting (or mutually-reinforcing) cultural, aesthetic, ethical, religious and/or personal reasons.

In a word, then, to contaminate is to introduce an undesirable or harmful solid, liquid or gas into a container which holds a quality-assured substance (a gas, a liquid or a solid), which compromises the latter's integrity, efficacy or appeal -- and thus poses a danger to those who may use it.





Note: The Sizmur quote is correct, and correctly attributed, but, despite several efforts, I couldn't quite retrace my steps back to it soon after transcribing it.

MUSIC: Mr. Eazi's "Leg Over"

Leg Over is a great piece of music, with vocal and instrumental cords finely weaved and even more tastefully pitched. The two (voice and sound), heard so seamlessly as one, deliver a delightful audio experience. With his distinctive and powerful voice, Nigeria's Mr. Eazi is one of Africa's leading pop stars. His voice is a veritable 'tool' for cultural innovation.

While the dancers whom we see in Leg Over give just as fine a show (and even look happy doing so), in harmony with the voice and the sounds, the video's overall mood rings somber to keen ears. It is not uplifted, and yet seems to invariably uplift. The fans don't appear to tire listening to it day-in and day-out.

WATCH: Leg Over Video

If you don't understand pigdin, the message (the 'content') packed in Leg Over plainly 'flies' by you. No matter. Settle instead for the universal 'form' of the song, any song. And jienjoy! There's lots to savor in the 3:24 minutes of that video; and, of course, Leg Over, released in February this year, continues to be a hit across sub-Sahara and within Africa's many language 'boundaries'. Thanks, clearly, to the expanding networks of electronic and related social media.

Despite the obvious language barriers for many -- neither Eastern Africans nor Southern Africans, for example, speak the pidgin in which Mr. Eazi sings -- the lyrics provided below do allow for greater scrutiny of the message, especially upon translation. 

READ: Leg Over lyrics. 

Q: When did you last (or ever!) see a priest cringe in the confessional, as we see in the video?

READ MORE: 
1. Lawrence Burney, "Watch Mr. Eazi Confess His Love in His 'Leg Over' Video"

2. My earlier commentary: Mr. Eazi's Uneasy Confession 

A Thought ~ 16: The Music Ramrod

Renaissance:Music must surely be a/the ramrod by means of which Africa will gain/regain its glorious place in the cultural world. And if not the world, the universe.

Spetxa One by C4Pedro                                                                

Kelele za Chura by Chege ft. Nandy                                                               

               

Leg Over by Mr. Eazi                                                                                                                         

King Kong Remix by Vector ft, Phyno x Reminisce x Classiq x Uzi                                                           

Nana by Diamond Platnumz ft. Mr. Flavour                                                                                          

Dorobucci by The Mavins (Don Jazzy et al)                                                                                  

Dance For Me by Eugy and Mr. Eazi                                                                                                                                                                                                         

The Ballad at (as?) the Core: Popular African Music Today

The dominant genre of modern African music in 2013-14 was the ballad. Is this symptomatic of anything? Is the African singer, perhaps, at heart a balladeer(ess)? Since it began to step out of its Congolese cradle (where it nestled as rumba) in the mid-1950s, contemporary African music, increasingly a part of the global ‘pop’ culture, continues to be at its most endearing and most resonating in that modus. Since Bob Marley, however, it has been much challenged around Sub-Sahara by the infectiousness of the political-cultural messaging in reggae, the rambunctious imprint in hip-hop, and that catch-as-catch-can wave -- Afro-Fusion.

Still, the lyrical content of African pop music today is mostly about love and loneliness ('aloneness', even) and loss, in distant or forsaken places. Love: which in may sorts of ways, to an expression. The anguished heart which Zahara’s ballad evokes returns us to a period, not quite so long ago, which she probably has a personal recollection of, when parents, spouses and lovers didn’t have mobile phones, and many couldn’t even write. So absences and longings were total, and telegrams (the quickest way to say anything from afar) were dreaded for their habitus-induced capacity to totalize the end of hope. The telegram had become the default bearer of the worst kind of news -- the death of a loved one. 

Has the mobile phone, then, killed longing and lonesomeness? Not quite, for it has restored hope that, as in the traditional village or community life, no social (dis)connect is beyond rerouting and repair in the global village. But it requires a different sort of re-imagining and feeling. Perhaps Zahara should tell us how one should feel about the empty train now. 

Is not all gospel music a protestation of undivided love for The Maker? The “Kwetu” (motherland) which John Bosco, the Congolese, sang so longingly about in ‘broken’ Swahili -- that brokenness being both Sheng’s precursor and contemporary -- across East Africa of the Fifties: Wasn't it about Love?

Here below are 25 of the best African ballads of 2014. Check them out. They are not arranged in any particular order:

1. Bondo - Say You Love Me 
2. D’ija - “Awww” 
3. Jaywon - “Tana Wole”
4. Davido ft. Uhuru x DJ Buckz - “The Sound”{Nigeria+S. Africa}
5. Vanessa Mdee ft. K.O. - “Nobody But Me” {Tanzania + }
6. Skales - "I am for Real" 
7. Orezi and Davido - “Shuperu”
8. Seyi Shay - “Jangilova”
9. Yemi Alade - “Johnny”
10. Tiwa Savage - My Darlin'    
11. Adekunle Gold - Sade 
12. Rayce - For You 
13. Rayce - Tetela  
14. Mr. Flavour ft. Chidinma - “Ololufe”
15. Zahara - Limbisa {South Africa}
16. Tolu ft. Don Jazzy - My Lover 
17. Elani - Nikupende (Lyric Video) {Kenya} 
18. Waje - Coco Baby ft. Diamond Platnumz {Nigeria + Tanzania}
19. Avril - Nikimuona {Kenya}
20. Charass - Coco Butter [Remix] ft. Davido x Phyno 
21. Alicios - Posa ya Bolingo (Lingala Love) {DRC}
22. Harrysong - I'm In Love [Remix] ft. Olamide
23. Bisa Kdei - I Love You {Ghana}
24. DeeVS ft. Bisa Kdei - Yebeko 
25. Elani - Kookoo {Kenya}


NOTE
See also Zahara's Loliwe; and see how she explains the meaning of the song. The literal meaning of the word is “The Train”. Though it came out in 2011, I mention it here for the special poignancy and richness of its allusions. Loliwe is Zahara's metaphor for the deep longing for a father, a loved one, who went away in search of greener pastures. A father who went away and, it seems, isn’t ever coming back -- because trains from the big towns arrive predictably at the local station and disappoint.

Nairobi Art Auction: East African Art Rising

Nairobi's profile as East Africa's premier centre of art exhibitions and auctions is perceptibly on the rise. None too soon for the "City in The Sun", with its still under-the-radar continental and global ambitions. Events of the last few years are both telling and encouraging, but much still needs to be done to: (a) grow a savvy and ethically deep-pocketed middle class with taste for the finer things of life (Nyam Choms weekend-in and weekend-out is just not cool); (b) attract a significant proportion of the global jet-set, and Kenyans in the diaspora (who can have their friends tag along), to the city as a preferred place of abode for at least part of the year. Smartly leveraging and twinning the respective strengths of Nairobi and the Kenyan coast -- with Mombasa as its epicentre -- might just be the way to do this.

Watch the video below and click here for more on this narrative

UPDATE: Nairobi, Cultural Hub

Rain's Coming, in a Double Time-Warp: Two Renditions of Kothbiro by Ayub Ogada and Regina Carter

Koth Biro, meaning Rain's Coming, is a Dholuo phrase commonly heard in Kenya's lake region, far west of Nairobi, and where ever soccer, involving Gor Mahia, is played; and especially when Gor, also known as K'Ogalo, wins, which is more often than not. Sometimes, too, when there's a political rally, in an urban setting, at which a major issue is (is to be, or has just been) interrogated/expounded by preferred politicians.

The phrase has acquired a proletarian image over the years, with a heavy street presence embodied in sweat-shopped, twig-waving, tireless soccer fans and/or politically driven, super-charged youth, with whom the older folks, and the wary, cannot possibly keep up, and so have to clear the way for. Indeed, the full phrase is "Koth Biro, Yawne Yo" (Rain's coming, clear the path for it). Pronto! It is shouted over and over, in ground-shaking fashion by running crowds which, on particularly emotive occasions, are a raging flood. You don't clear the path for the rain, however heavy the downpour, but for the flood that's sure to follow.

Deep down, though, Koth Biro is a meme of deep-culture, only in recent decades appropriated by urban folks and, through them, the political class. It was, indeed, a cultural rallying-call long before it became as singularly urban and political as it now appears.

That's the background, as I know it. And that's partly why I see the two musical renditions of Koth Biro, presented in two audios here, as co-existing, as a lineage, in a double time-warp.

In the first warp, a song older than he becomes Ayub Ogada's creation, to the vibrating accompaniment of timeless Nyatiti, which is the instrument of his choice, and featuring the Mandingo Kora, that instrument of many legends. There have been several audio versions of Kothbiro. The one presented here was published in 1993 and republished in 2014. There are indications, then, that Kothbiro was composed as early as 1993 (long before Regina Carter's veritable breakout), when AO was 37. It has featured in the soundtracks of several motion pictures since, including the acclaimed 2005 movie, The Constant Gardener.

Read: A Sketch of Ayub Ogada's biography

In Kothbiro, the singing, in the tradition of the other-worldly chant, reminds one of the beguiling power of the truth-sayer. It evokes, too, the mesmerism of the nightfall mumbler and whisperer, always rare in every bygone generation, I suppose, who in our parts it was said was possessed of, was truly with, the "lang'o" – which sporadically broke out. I think I did see one such, once upon a past. Perhaps he, the one I saw, could see, already, and see clearly, the great kor that was sure to come and that was to pass so near by the village – and that was, with time, to bring the whole wide world along with it.

In the second warp, Regina Carter (2010), quietly driven, purposefully turns, and turns with restrained and unapologetic passion, Kothbiro's haunting tune into a 'classical' mode the tradition of which did not know its kind, and which its kind did not know either and yet probably predated by a wide margin. Thus, the precursor is – by reason of this mock, this moot, time-travel – precursed. We, the audience, scattered in a myriad time-zones and temporal 'longitudes', are left happily, hopelessly, trapped in a magical 'circularity'.

All in all, its Flamenco pretensions quickly given up, Regina Carter's Kothbiro settles for the long-haul: a sombre, belaboring, dark-clouded, horizon-grabbing front-running of the very same rain it stresses over – over and over.

1. CLICK HERE FOR THE AUDIO OF Kothbiro audio by Ayub Ogada (1993,2014):

2. CLICK HERE FOR THE AUDIO OF  Kothbiro by Regina Carter (2010):


~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PS: You may also wish to watch this tasteful 2013 Andelag version

MUSIC (Kenya): H_ART THE BAND Sings a Different Sort of Tune in Love Phobic

 With Love Phobic, H_ART THE BAND reinforces its self-assigned image as both the 'under-class' and the coolest of Kenya's musical fraternity. The artistes seem determined to be different, musically, and to stay the course of a unique stylistic journey. This is fine, culturally. It may just take time to become a sustained commercial success as well. It has logged 65,167 YouTube views so far

I think the band and the song are really, rally good, really. They're laid back. They're not in-your-face voluble. But they get to grab your attention. That's an interesting sort of psychology.

Just listen to the song to the end, without distractions, and be entertained. It's only 5:25 minutes long, for goodness' sake! OK that's about a minute longer than most hits, but  worth the patience.

The music fuses two artistic streams: the singers are -- effortlessly, I dare say -- both rappers and balladeers. These are local boys comfortable in their skins, and their talents. And yet...

And yet the lyrics are crafted around the anomic type/brand of anxiety that's as perennial and as global, in its ebb and flow, as Love itself: "She loves me, she loves me not." These are "ebb" times, for sure. Remember back in the day -- over 50 years ago already (in the last millennium!) -- when The Beatles sang "She Loves You Yeah Yeah Yeah" with so much self-assurance?

The set is certainly a truly colorful production, very tastefully put together. This cannot be by accident, but the result of great and sustained immersion in the creative (ad)venture. A wonderful multiple-blend, then, of color codes and high definition snippets of motion. A clean, bright, sunny, tropical set.

Wholly artistic and wholly wholesome in the visual sense, is what I'm trying to say.