Femi Kuti, the Nigerian singer and saxophonist, admits to being delighted that “Fela!,” the Broadway musical about his father, Fela Kuti, is a hit, attracting new fans to Afrobeat, the politically charged musical genre that Fela created and Femi plays. Even so, he is not planning to see the Tony-winning show during a trip to [...]
Nollywood’s success began in 1992, with the film “Living in Bondage.” At the time, after years of recurring military coups, someone finally had the courage to address the subjects that related to ordinary people. The film is about a man who falls under the influence of a religious cult, and about money and black magic. [...]
Martin Onyemaobi is one of the kings of this world. His office in Alaba isn’t a real office, but more of a tiny storage room, filled with unpackaged DVDs, stacked in packs of 100, held together with rubber bands. Onyemaobi explains how the business works and reaches for his calculator. “This is where the life [...]
Two-thirds of its population lives on less than a dollar a day, and yet Nigeria has the world’s second-largest film industry. It’s called Nollywood, and it provides Africa, and beyond, with a steady stream of action flicks and love stories. For Dickson Iroegbu, the day he was almost killed by Nollywood began with an important [...]
Click to read “Nollywood only Second to Bollywood in Film Industry Scale”
This week, a new pop song hits the airwaves in West Africa with a highly unusual message: Don’t be seduced by cybercrime. Cybercrime is a global issue, but perhaps no form of cybercrime has been more associated with a region than the advance fee fraud collectively known as “Nigeria” or “419” scams (419 is the [...]
The US Department of Justice has said that it is still not satisfied with a deal that would allow search giant Google to build a vast digital library. It said the plan failed to address antitrust and copyright concerns. It echoes objections by online retailer Amazon, which has said that Google’s plan to scan and [...]
