Nigeria, the land of plenty

backstage promotion During Felabrations, a whole crew of artists are invited to perform on the New Afrika Shrine. They gather at the back of the building and enter through "l'entrée des artistes" (a bamboo gate with strong security) to avoid mixing with the public. artists at l'entrée des artistes Two tents were acting as lounges for artists to interact with journalists, furnished with carpets, sofas and fake crystal lamps, dim lights, so that trendy artists could spend a pleasant time waiting for their turn. Another tent was sponsored by Orijin a soft drink made with local plants, tasting a bit like campari; It was served as cocktail with palm wine. cosily lounging Another corner was well lit for interviews, and then at the back of the building a long tent with long tables where food could be served. One passage is leading inside of the Shrine, along one side of the stage, while another one is leading to "les coulisses". Bright yellow wall...

we styled up for Felabrations 2015 Fela Anikulapo Kuti was a character of Nigeria's recent history. He passed away of AIDS in 1997. He is remembered every year in a festival called "Felabrations" organised by his children at the New Afrika Shrine among other locations. The place is like a giant market hall, a large concrete hall topped by a corrugated iron roof set a couple of meters above the walls to leave the wind carry away the heat from the sun during the day and from humans at night. It is also a sort of ventilation for the weed smoked. Non smokers definitely have their fair share of passive smoking in the course of an evening. It is the only place where weed is tolerated by the police, and a few streets away from the Shrine, people get arrested if they carry some. active and passive smoking The place is popular with youngsters. On Friday night, the crowd was immense, thousands of people outside looking at the action on the stage over a giant outdoor scre...

make-up for the Gods, smoke for inspiration Fela came from a well-off family of Abeokuta. Soon after Nigeria was made independent, he went to England to study music at Trinity College, classical music at first and soon turned to jazz. He played there with a band called the Koola Lobitos which was fairly successful in the clubs in London in the early sixties. He went back to Nigeria and recreated his band, gathered influence from James Brown, highlife music and developed a musical style progressively known as Afrobeat. His band was renamed Nigeria 70 at the beginning of the 70's He travelled to the US on tour and was introduced by Sandra Izsadore to the conditions of black americans and the black liberation movements with the politics of Malcolm X among others. Upon his return to Nigeria, he became more active politically. He set-up a recording studio called Kalakuta republic and a night-club not too far called the Shrine. He was opposing to the rule of Generals who had po...

Happy New Year! New Year's Day in Lagos, what can one do? Going to the beach is obviously an option. The sun shines as usual and this is where many of us are going to have a good time. so let's do it! The day will go by easy, for most, while some will go the extra mile to have fun. Acrobats taking advantage of the piles of dead plants that invaded the lagoon in the past few weeks, some kind of water jacinth, to jump and do saltos. wishing you a safe landing this year Some will play football with the tenue de rigueur ( yours underpants must be clearly visible above your shorts). it's cool to show you're wearing underpants Some others will prefer a warm bath at sunset. taking a happy dip In any case don't neglect your style. flower power

Mon beau sapin, roi des forêts/ Ô Tannenbaum Lagos roads and streets are always the best place to find out about what is in the air thanks to street hawkers who are doing a business with every possible needs, that is to say, needs that a person sitting in a car would want to fulfill. Everyday, chips are and drinks are the usual suspects to feed and quench the thirst of passengers. Newspapers in the morning, books in the evening, hats during sunny days, DVDs and CDs in the evening and on weekends. It is amazing to see how well demand is being addressed by a timely supply. the choice is yours: prepare Christmas party and/or refuel with jerry cans But specific situations are also quickly taken care of. Fuel shortages see a flurry of plastic jerry cans and plastic funnels being peddled. And since a couple of weeks Christmas is out on the street with hats, mask and even Christmas trees, so just pick the one you like. red is the color of Christmas

tanker for sale As in Singapore, many ships are crowding the horizon on the sea along the Atlantic coast of Lagos. These are patiently waiting for  their turn to come to unload or load their containers in the harbour of Apapa or Tincan Island. Most of them come and go after have completed their duty. But unlike Singapore some are just staying longer than expected, by design or by accident. Hence the coast is littered by ship wrecks which are rusting away and sinking in the sand progressively so that, in the end, they are no longer visible. once a great ship Stories point out human error as a reason for the ship's beaching. The captain went to see his girlfriends and the ship drifted ashore... seriously? More probable is that these ships are either beyond repair or the company owning her in financial trouble and therefore the ship is abandoned. from raw material to recycling One of them was a complete tanker standing ominously on the sand at the e...

who's wearing the hat? Lagos Jazz Series is back in Lagos, an interesting mix of jazz directions produced in a couple of venues in the course of a week. Well, this year the line-up was disrupted by the killings of Radisson Blue in Bamako, Mali which caused American artists to cancel their trip until further notice. An unfortunate confusion between Bamako in Mali and Lagos in Nigeria. While both are in western Africa, they are worlds apart. Lagos has not seen any terrorist acts or at least not in recent years. Occasional armed robberies may happen but these remain rare and police is now doing a much better job to prevent them. chinese vibe from the Collective Fortunately, not all artists were coming from the US and two big artists made the day on November 27th over a collaboration. First Seun Kuti and Egypt 80. Seun is the younger son of Fela. He is keeping alive the flame of his father Fela Kuti by perpetuating Afrobeat, pretty much in the way his father left it a...

coconut treats for sale Tarkwa Bay is a stretch of divinely fine sand at the exit of the lagoon into the ocean, it is shielded from the high sea by a seawall of huge stone blocks which provides to the beach goers a bit intimacy from the tankers entering the harbour of Lagos. a beach with a view Opposite the lagoon entrance is a vast construction work for the birth of a new city, Eko Atlantic: 250,000 people will live there on 9 million square meters. This will be a new center for finance and energy sectors, built on reclaimed land. It will be powered by its own power grid, independent of the rest of the country which produces about 20% of what Nigeria needs everyday. So far three towers have come up the ground. Eko Atlantic: one, two, three Well, back to the plastic strewn beach. it is a quiet getaway from the city center, a 15 minutes boat ride from Falomo bridge in Victoria Island. The sand stretch is lined up with reclining chairs of wood and cloth. A c...

a portrait of Suzanne Wenger in her last years Suzanne Wenger, an austrian artist, came to Nigeria in 1950 and decided to stay in Osogbo for the rest of her life as she became a yoruba high priest under the name of Adunni. She worked with her then boyfriend Ulli Beier to create concrete sculptures in the sacred grove of Osogbo , a wood on a hill traversed by a river. She contributed along the years to reinvigorate the local yoruba art scene in Osogbo. She adopted many children, some of which became famous like Nike . After a few years in Osogbo she contracted tuberculosis and was cured with the help of local medicine thanks to contacts with Yoruba priests. She was then initiated to Yoruba beliefs and became a \yoruba priestess. welcome to Suzanne and Ulli's world Her house in Osogbo has three levels. It is built of stone and concrete. Her bedroom was on the second floor, a simple room with a bed, a collection of fine artifacts and some now dusty books.  The hous...

market experience starts early The Yoruba city that became the city of Suzanne Wenger: Osogbo is about 200/250km north east from Lagos. It features an interesting mix of churches and mosques. The railway crosses the town. Osogbo central mosque The oldest part is hosting a market along several narrow streets, the remains of a palace, the grand mosque with a dome partly damaged as if a bomb had landed there. Grass grows on the edge of its roofs. It is built of stone the same way as the cathedral which looks much less impressive and all towards the sky.  the cathedral of all Saints A part of the market is dedicated to witchcraft. A lot of the houses could actually be very beautiful colonial buildings were they not in an advance stage of dilapidation. Their façade are reddish yellow as if the ground had slowly varnished them.  faded beauty