KWABS’ Magnetic Sound

Simply put, Kwabena Adjepong aka KWABS can sang.

The Ghanaian-British singer/songwriter began turning heads with his killer windpipes last year as a contestant on the BBC Two reality TV Show, Goldie’s Band. The popular show preps emerging UK artists for the big stage. One show performance at the Buckingham Palace produced gasps, head shakes and tears from audience members unprepared for the bigness of Kwabs’ sound.

First off, how bold + beautiful is it that Kwabs chose the old Negro spiritual, “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” (circa 1870) to sing in the Buckingham Palace.

The hymn of the enslaved – filled with the crippling sorrow of being ripped from home and brutally made to work in a strange land, of being split again from family and sold off to different plantations – carries the memories of stinging loss through the vehicle of the throat. His almost-indictment of colonial empire and the grave debt owed to the Gold Coast and its diaspora is absolutely chilling.

Kwabs sings an original tune, “Lay Back”:

Kwabs’ voice is bright and deep…like a moon river, wide in big-belly girth, cold like melting stone. Melancholy drips through glitches of hope. Endurance peaks and spills over into tomorrow. His voice is all bass yet pulse steady – daring you and drawing you in at the same time – as if to say, THE FIRE THIS TIME.

If you are as hooked as we are, check out Kwabs’ cover of “The Wilhelm Scream” by James Blake.

And peep his musings on returning to Ghana to visit family for the first time after leaving the country as a kid at kwabsmusic.tumblr.com

Follow Kwabs’ musical journey – @kwabsmusic /  www.facebook.com/KwabsOfficial

HOODIE it UP!

StylesAFRK.com

THE HOODIE – already a popular accessory in its own right – has now become a downright trademark.

Whether you’re making a political statement (a la Trayvon Martin), or demonstrating your artistic expression or just keeping it chill and comfortable, the hoodie will forever be the joint to rock.

Beat back the summer rain with these African print remixes of the traditional hoodie.

ifenkili.co.uk

THE NORTH FACE

ZALI

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ifenkili.co.uk

FRUITION LAS VEGAS

Okay, this one’s going a bit too far now….

DES TETES AFRICAINES/NURIA RIUS

Catching YELLOW FEVER

Yellow Fever: TRAILER from Ng'endo Mukii on Vimeo.

Graduate student Ng’endo Mukii gave folks at the Royal College of Arts in London pause for the cause with her thesis film, Yellow Fever. The ten-minute film is an exquisite exploration of race, gender and beauty regimens told through the intimate perspectives of her Kenyan mother and young niece.

The film mixes media into what Mukii calls an “almost schizophrenic self-visualization,” employing her study in animation, photography and ethnography. The result is a sincere and stunning composition that examines how African women think about skin bleaching, hair extensions, body image and western pop culture.

The filmmaker says this about Yellow Fever:

I am interested in the concept of skin and race, and what they imply; in the ideas and theories sown into our flesh that change with the arc of time. I believe skin and the body, are often distorted into a topographical division between reality and illusion. The idea of beauty has become globalised, creating homogenous aspirations, and distorting people’s self-image across the planet.

NG’ENDO MUKII

Mukii is definitely on our radar. Can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.