Nigeria's booming entertainment industry

I confess to be just as surprised as the next person (sadly my knowledge of African pop culture doesn't quite measure up to what I know of the continent's politics): Nigeria's music and film industries are booming. So much so, in fact, that the country's film industry (known as Nollywood) has surpassed Hollywood (!) to become the world's second largest after Bollywood:

According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) survey, Bollywood – as the Mumbai-based film industry is known – produced 1,091 feature-length films in 2006. In comparison, Nigeria’s moviemakers, commonly known as Nollywood, came out with 872 productions – all in video format – while the United States produced 485 major films.

“Film and video production are shining examples of how cultural industries, as vehicles of identity, values and meanings, can open the door to dialogue and understanding between peoples, but also to economic growth and development,” said UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura.

“This new data on film and video production provides yet more proof of the need to rethink the place of culture on the international political agenda,” he added.

To gain a better appreciation of the Nollywood industry, I strongly suggest you watch Franco Sacchi's film, 'This is Nollywood.' 'This is Nollywood' shows not only how the introduction of digital technology has revolutionized (loosely stated) one of the world's poorest (and by some accounts failing) countries, but also speaks to the very theme of culture highlighted in the UNESCO report. Ethan Zuckerman blogged about the film back in 2007 (I'm a bit behind, it would seem).

But there's more: according to CNN, Nigeria's hip hop industry is also growing. Like the film industry, Nigerian hip hop is regarded as a cultural alternative to Western music and in some sense serves as a unifier in what is a most ethnically diverse state:

While no one is so naive as to suggest that the film and hip hop industries are the panacea to Nigeria's problems, their respective success may nevertheless be a small, albeit important, step on the road to economic growth and development. One can only hope and, indeed, enjoy.

[HT: Joshua Keating, Africa is a Country]

Postmodernism comes to China…-ish.

The image of the new China Central Television building (below) built especially for the 2008 Olympics was yesterday's most e-mailed image on Yahoo. 

The building, constructed by the Dutch architectural firms OMA and Arup, clearly breaks with the more traditionalist towers which point towards the sky. Here, instead, one has a continuous loop of horizontal and vertical sections that create their own space and, in a curious yet powerful way, create a distinct sense of energy; one can almost feel the electric currents surging through the building. 

Such a construction would, indeed, be an architectural accomplishment anywhere, but the fact that it has occurred in Beijing is particularly significant. As with all forms of postmodernist architecture, the new CCTV building poses challenges to the limits of modernism and, in turn, to those who hold to the notion of an under-developed China. As noted by a recent article in Vanity Fair, the entire Olympic construction project appears one big attempt to say to the industrialized world: "Whatever you can do, we can do better." And fair enough. 

Beyond it's architectural splendor, the fascinating thing about this seeming wave of postmodernism in China (if one can even go so far to call it that), lies in its connection to politics. There's no denying that architecture has always been inseparable from politics in a broad sense. No less than, say, the Egyptian pyramids, Europe's great Gothic cathedrals were conceived as expressions of power. Similarly, both Albert Speer's grandiose design for Hitler's Berlin and 1960's efforts to bring social improvement through public housing were politically inspired. 

The recent surge of what I like to call "can-do" architecture in China likewise signals the rise of a powerful China - it's impact on African politics and it's relations with the US are enough to make this point clear. Yet within China itself, there appear to be minimal changes; many citizens are actually worse off than in years past. This contrast between the image of a rising China and that of a country struggling to resolve its own domestic problems raises a plethora of questions over whether Chinese politics will be able to match its architecture. As the saying goes, you can talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?