Continued…Her late son was pan-African revolutionary and musician, Fela Kuti, who many regard as the pioneer of Afrobeats. He proudly recalls his mother leading marches against the British regime, and in particular the time she led a protest against the local colonial administration. Funmilayo was insulted by an arrogant White official, but she put him in his place, calling him a ‘rude little rat’ and a ‘bast**d’. Fela said, ‘Imagine insulting the highest representative of the British imperial crown in Abeokuta; oh man! I was proud. People in Abeokuta talked about nothing else but that incident.’

May she continue to rest in peace and power!

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HOW BILLIONAIRES PLUNDER AFRICA

So, just how much is a billionaire worth? The GDP of multiple African countries combined, apparently. Some people say they earned their money fair and square. Others say the children mining cobalt for them in Eastern Congo are lining their pockets. Here’s our take. Tell us if you think we’re on the money!

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COLONIAL METAPHOR IN ‘GOLDEN BALLS’ GAME SHOW?

In the British game show, ‘Golden Balls,’ which aired between 2007 and 2009, contestants competed to win as much money as possible by choosing from balls containing prizes ranging from £10 to £75,000 (or $12.74 to $95,580 in today’s dollars). In the game’s final round, the two remaining contestants must choose whether to ‘split’ or ‘steal’ the jackpot.

In this episode, a Black contestant trusted her white rival to split the prize money so that she could donate the proceeds to her church. This came after the white contestant told her that she, too, was a Christian like her. However, shockingly (although we weren’t shocked), that was just a ploy to bring down the Black player’s guard so she could steal the entire prize money.

Some online are saying the episode itself is a metaphor for the relationship African people have with European people: Too trusting and easily fooled when it comes to promises predicated on religion.

Continued…. When the Portuguese first arrived in Africa in 1418, they came initially for trade, but it soon turned into a land grab to extract our resources for as little as possible whilst trading our people as slaves. Conversions to Christianity were used early on as a diversion only for religion to be imposed on the masses over time.

The late South African Bishop Desmond Tutu described the process best when he said: ‘When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible, and they had the land.’

For many online, this clip symbolises how many of us have not learned from the past. Or is this just another case of the internet overthinking stuff?

Let us know in the comments.

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BRAZILIAN RAPPER MANO BROWN ON BLACK PEOPLE’S AGENCY

Mano Brown is the lead lyricist of Brazilian rap group Racionais MC’s a collective that included KL Jay, Ice Blue and Edi Rock. They stormed parties and stages in São Paulo in the early 1990s, galvanising a politically charged hip-hop movement that swept the South American country.

Their music sparked greater social consciousness and mobilisation of adolescents and young adults in the favelas (slums), ‘quebradas’ (ghettoes), and other working-class city and rural communities, all of which helped to propel Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva to his first presidential victory in 2002. Three previous presidential runs for Lula (1989, 1994 and 1998) proved unsuccessful despite receiving support from traditional, big-name, left-wing, progressive and liberal political, social and religious organisations and movements.

Continued…. In 2020, Campinas State University, one of Brazil’s most prestigious educational institutions, included Racionais MC’s’ seminal album, ‘Surviving in Hell’ (1997), in its readings for students preparing to take the school’s entrance exam. That was the first time a music CD became study material. The designation drew ire because ‘Surviving in Hell,’ like other hip-hop albums, dispelled Brazil’s creation myth and the narrative of ‘racial democracy.’

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WATCH ROBERT MUGABE DEFEND ZIMBABWE’S PROCESS

We’ve all heard that Robert Mugabe was a brutal dictator who ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist. And that he destroyed the economy and created widespread suffering. Or, so the story goes.

In this 1980 clip, hours after Zimbabwe was admitted into the United Nations, Mugabe laid out his country’s progress in an exclusive interview with a US journalist.

Under Mugabe, Zimbabwe provided free primary education and health services, which is more than what most African countries have today.

Continued…. Before Western sanctions on Zimbabwe’s economy, the country was considered a beacon of progress and development throughout the continent. Some say things started to go downhill with Mugabe ‘overstaying’ in office. But a closer look demonstrates that really began in the early 1990s when Zimbabwe started to ‘structurally adjust’ Western loans. Then, in the early 2000s, the European Union and the United States hit the country with sanctions.

Do you think Mugabe deserves his bad reputation? Let us know in the comments.

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THE STORY OF ASSATA SHAKUR

Assata Shakur, born in 1947, is a revolutionary who escaped a high-security US prison while eight months pregnant, gave birth in Harlem under the protection of the Black Liberation Army and fled to Cuba as an asylum seeker, where she lives to this day.

This sister is a member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, an underground revolutionary group that fought to defend Black people’s human rights in the United States. The FBI targeted Shakur through its Counterintelligence Program (or COINTELPRO).

In 1973, she was convicted of killing a state trooper in a shootout and set to serve a life sentence.

Continued…. Under former President Barack Obama’s administration, the FBI placed Shakur on its most-wanted list in 2013, with a $1-million bounty for her capture. But, apart from her famous 1979 jailbreak, she’s known for supporting socialism.

In this clip from a 2016 interview on @houseofkonsciousness, Professor James Small (@prof_jamessmall), a comrade of Zayd Shakur (Assata’s husband), narrates her story.

Fun fact: Zayd Shakur was rapper Tupac Shakur’s uncle.

Assata Shakur remains an inspiration to activists, artists and scholars.

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Our African proverb of the week comes from the Yoruba people in West Africa. It reminds us we should enjoy our lives right now, rather than be anxious about the future or depressed about the past.

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GOOGLE SNUBS GREAT AFRICAN THINKERS

So, if we do a quick google search on who the world’s best scientists are, this is what comes up: Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Galileo. This list is highly Eurocentric and doesn’t actually reflect scientific discovery or significance across the history of mankind. African Stream’s Ahmed Ghoneim provides an alternative decolonised list!

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'NO SUCH THING AS NON-RACIAL CAPITALISM'

'Nonracial capitalism' isn't a thing, says historian Robin D.G. Kelley, in this clip from several years ago at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA. The academic said capitalism is inherently race-based.

What do you say? Let us know below.

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IS RELIGION HOLDING BACK AFRICA?

The oft-quoted Jomo Kenyatta saying goes something like, ‘When the white man came, he had the Bible. We had the land. He told us to shut our eyes and pray. When we opened them, he had the land. We had the Bible.’

Pan-African scholar PLO Lumumba used the first Kenyan president’s line as a response to a question in this clip about whether religion is holding back Africa.

While we cannot dismiss the ancient grassroots history of Christianity in Africa, the European version of the cross came before the flag, with missionaries paving the way for European settlers to permeate the continent. Initiatives like missionary education for the natives supported the colonial project and created a class of African elites to govern us after ‘flag independence’ in the mid-20th century.

What do you make of Lumumba's remarks?

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