Mohammed Babangida's Reflections on African Music

When I lived in Africa, I had the great opportunity to experience many different forms of African music firsthand. While Mali has its share of well-known singers who play traditional Malian music, such as Oumou Sangare and Salif Keita, there are many others who borrow from different styles of music, especially reggae. In his blog about music, Mohammed Babangida discusses the influences of African music on other musical styles and famous musicians. Mohammed Babangida is a Nigerian with a great love of jazz music. He examines how jazz’s West African roots are evident in its use of blue notes, improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopations, and swing notes.

To learn more about Mohammed Babangida, visit www.muhammad-babangida.com.

Linus Gitahi's Runners of Kenya

I used to have a doctor who drove me crazy. Every year when I went in to see him he would say "Hey, you were in Africa! How was that?" Never mind that I had been home from Africa six or seven years already and he’d already asked me this question multiple times. Then without even waiting for an answer he would say "Where were you? Mali? Is that where they jump really high? Don’t they jump really high over there?"

"You asked her that last time," his assistant said once. Even she remembered we’d been through this routine before.

Nobody jumped really high in Mali, to my knowledge. I can only assume he was referring to the 1994 Kevin Bacon movie, The Air Up There, about a team of basketball players from Africa. I never saw it, but I believe the movie was shot in Kenya, where Maasai warriors are commonly over six feet tall. So maybe the premise of the movie wasn’t that they were such good jumpers, but that they were just tall. This probably also accounts for the fact that Kenya produces a lot of world-champion runners, including Kip Keino, a two-time Olympic gold medalist. According to Linus Gitahi, in his blog The Runners of Kenya, Kenyan men hold six of the top 10 fastest recorded times in the marathon. Linus Gitahi also posits that running up and down the steep mountains of Kenya have conditioned the athletes there to lean forward and use gravity to their advantage. They also use a unique hop-like foot strike that allegedly expends less energy while running. So while I’m not sure about their jumping ability, they certainly do seem to have an edge in running.

Linus Gitahi is the CEO of Nation Media Group, the largest media firm in East and Central Africa.

Wangethi Mwangi’s Kenyan Recipes

People are always interested in what kind of food I ate when I lived in Africa. I guess they expect African food to be exotic and flavorful, but where I lived, people subsisted mainly on rice and millet, so the food was generally pretty bland. The main staple for much of the year was a millet paste that had the consistency of play-doh made from bird seed. It’s definitely not something I would make now that I am back in the US.

If you’re interested in trying new ethnic foods, this blog of recipes from Kenya by Wangethi Mwangi features foods that sound a little more palatable. Wangethi Mwangi’s recipes look like an easy option you can prepare at home yourself. Many of them include fresh ingredients like corn, beans, and potatoes, and he also provides some background into Kenyan culture and describes how the foods are traditionally eaten. Stay away from the millet paste and try some of his Githeri instead.

Wangethi Mwangi is the Editorial Director for Nation Media Group, the largest media company in Kenya.