Africa’s metal scene has been quiet compared to its counterparts on other continents. Duma rectify that, and loudly. Vocalist Martin Khanja (aka Lord Spike Heart) and guitarist and producer Sam Karugu hail from Kenya, and they relocated to Uganda to release their self-titled 2020 debut album on Kampala’s Nyege Nyege Tapes. That label is known […]
Tag: uganda
Posted inMusic
HHY & the Macumbas soundtrack the bonfire at the end of the world
Portuguese collective HHY & the Macumbas release a live album that captures their entrancing flood of percussion, brass, and “skull cave echo.”
Posted inNews & Politics
‘Please stay at home’
From a studio inside his closet, one refugee is using YouTube to broadcast information about coronavirus.
Posted inMusic
Kinobe juxtaposes East and West Africa in delicate, polished grooves
For the better part of two decades, virtuosic multi-instrumentalist Herbert Kinobe has composed exquisite Pan-African music from a Ugandan perspective. Born in 1983 in a small village outside Kampala near Lake Victoria, Kinobe (he performs under his last name) grew up hearing the music at the nearby Kanyange Nnamasole Tombs, a historic Buganda cultural site […]
Posted inMusic
Curator Adia Sykes on a voice that takes you back to the golden age of soul
Current musical obsessions of ESS codirector Olivia Junell, curator Adia Sykes, and Reader music editor Philip Montoro
Posted inArts & Culture
Cardboard Piano looks for hope and healing in Uganda
Hansol Jung’s drama takes on religious hypocrisy, the lives of child soldiers, and the connections between the personal and political.
Posted inArts & Culture
Choir Boy, Foxfinder, and 12 more stage shows to see now
A play by Moonlight author Tarell Alvin McCraney and a paranoiac drama by British playwright Dawn Hall are among this week’s best bets.
Posted inBlogs
Report: President Barack Obama is planning to say farewell at McCormick Place, and other Chicago news
Also, who knew that being the city’s “harbor boss” was such a challenging gig?
Posted inBlogs
Living for 32
Kevin Breslin’s short documentary “Living for 32,” about Colin Goddard, antigun activist and Virginia Tech shooting survivor, screens Friday 2/25 in the Peace on Earth Film Festival, which runs through Sunday 2/27 at the Chicago Cultural Center.
Posted inFilm
ABC Africa
This is the most accessible film to date by Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami, though some people have been mistakenly scared away by its subject matter: the enormous number of Ugandan children orphaned by the AIDS crisis. In fact, much of this 2001 digital-video documentary focuses on the kids singing and dancing–at times it resembles a […]