Simon Adetona Akindes

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Articles

Between blackout and embargo

Nov 1, 2024 | africasacountry.com | Simon Adetona Akindes |Esteban Morales Dominguez |Francisco Perez |Francisco Salas Pérez |Sean Jacobs

In January 2019, I visited Santiago, Cuba, on a study abroad program, with seven of my students. They wanted to see and experience the “mythic” land about which single-sided stories predominate: a litany of distorted accounts of a malfunctioning society; a country that hung on to communism, an obsolete ideology; hyperbolic tales of repression; hordes fleeing an ugly communist dictatorship; a country training terrorists to harm the rest of the world, etc.
Rooting for everybody black

Aug 2, 2024 | africasacountry.com | Simon Adetona Akindes |Matthew Kirwin |Liz Timbs

As any sports fan knows, the Paris Olympics have arrived. This year’s Games, as with each of these quadrennial festivals of global sport, I’m rooting for everybody Black. Issa Rae said this during the 2017 Emmy Awards, and it is easy to apply this principle to the Olympics, which, with its provocative patriotism and proxy-war-like “nation vs. nation” orientation, are the perfect forum for using a broader diasporic focus to push back against that hypernationalism.
Who are the Olympics for?

Jul 24, 2024 | africasacountry.com | Simon Adetona Akindes |Matthew Kirwin |Liz Timbs

On Friday evening, the world’s attention will lock in on the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympic Games as they return to Paris, the birthplace of Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the modern Games. Over its 128-year history, de Coubertin’s Olympiad has experienced some quite radical changes. His inaugural 1896 Games in Athens saw participation from just a dozen nations, while 206 are expected to take part this summer in Paris.
More than Fela’s mum

Jul 11, 2024 | africasacountry.com | Daniel Okechukwu |Simon Adetona Akindes |Sean Jacobs

As a child growing up in Nigeria, you mostly know Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti as the first Nigerian woman to drive a car. As you grow into your teenage years and become familiar with Afrobeats, the music movement and sound her son inspired, she’s mostly spoken about as Fela’s mum.
La femme fatale africaine

Mar 8, 2024 | africasacountry.com | Simon Adetona Akindes |Boima Tucker

The recent explosion of artists like Rema, Amaarae, Tyla, and Ayra Starr on to the international stage, underscores the growing global recognition of African music. We at AfroWave curate playlists that speak to the multiple fusions and adaptations of local genres and their accompanying scenes in Africa—including afrobeats, highlife, amapiano, and alte—that are taking over local and international charts.
Learning from Chile

Mar 1, 2024 | africasacountry.com | Simon Adetona Akindes |William Shoki |Pablo Medina Uribe

To draft the second constitution, the Congress, dominated by right-wing parties, elected a council of experts, headed by a Pinochet supporter, Hernán Larraín, and a constitutional council, elected by the people, with parity between men and women, but without any seats reserved for indigenous communities. On December 17, 2023, voters rejected this right-wing constitution, with 55.8% against and 44.2% in favor.
Learning from Chile

Mar 1, 2024 | africasacountry.com | Simon Adetona Akindes |William Shoki |Pablo Medina Uribe

To draft the second Constitution, the Congress, dominated by right-wing parties, elected a Council of Experts, headed by a Pinochet supporter, Hernán Larraín, and a Constitutional Council, elected by the people, with parity between men and women, but without any seats reserved for indigenous communities. On December 17, 2023, voters rejected this right-wing Constitution, with 55.8% against and 44.2% in favor.
Keeping Afrobeat decolonial in Buenos Aires

Nov 10, 2023 | africasacountry.com | Simon Adetona Akindes

SA Please, introduce yourself, family background and education. ET Well, I am Ezequiel Tedesco, my father’s last name comes from an Italian family and my mother’s from a family with a Lebanese father, so I have always had some relation with immigration. Since I was little, I was marked by politics in my country. I studied music, and I continue to study music, in various conservatories. I studied philosophy, particularly decolonial philosophy.
The “Caribbeanization” of Afrobeat in Colombia

Sep 14, 2023 | africasacountry.com | Simon Adetona Akindes |Boima Tucker

Bogotá Orquesta Afrobeat (La BOA), the first self-designated Afrobeat band in Colombia was created in 2009, about 37 years after Fela’s Shakara became a hit on the western coast of Colombia, and 12 years after Fela’s death..