Tags for this video have been changed from 'kelvin doe, engineering, radio, dj focus, mit' to 'kelvin doe, engineering, radio, dj focus, mit, sierra leone' - edited by xxovercastxx

Back in 1993, I remember this guy with a bad leg, living in a slum in Freetown (Sierra Leone's capital), in a tiny room plastered with Bollywood and Hong Kong B-movie posters, and whose door was made of pieces of cardboard glued together. He didn't have much.
He was called "Prof" Abubakar and made a living creating and selling steel wire sculptures from stuff he was scavenging off the streets. You're probably thinking of African steel wire toys, but his were crazy, there was nothing like it. They were incredibly complex, animated, spring-loaded, or with some sparkling devices.

Some years later, someone I knew came across him. He was exposing at the Pompidou centre in Paris.

Two decades later, it's like Kelvin Doe is his Internet-era spiritual son. I hope he does as well.

[EDIT]
Correct name: Abu Bakarr Mansaray (bio | one of his contraptions). He now lives in the Netherlands.

See what you think of this one. Mariama is a Sierra Leone born German musician and songwriter (she moved as a baby) and here she's playing acoustic guitar in Paris for the French website Soul Kitchen.

http://videosift.com/video/Mariama-Underground-SK-Session

Tags for this video have been changed from 'agentk, bella, sierra leone, phat riderz mix, tampa breaks, house trance' to 'agentk, bella, mt eden, sierra leone, phat riderz mix, tampa breaks, house trance' - edited by hpqp

I knew this tune sounded familiar...

Love the inky *animation.

you posted the dubstep version.
yeah yeah..its all the rage now.
how bout some progressive house breaks?
http://videosift.com/video/agent-k-bella-sierra-leone-phat-riderz-mix

Nicely done on creating a dubstep playlist! Here's another one

http://videosift.com/video/Mt-Eden-Sierra-Leone-Dubstep

I usually love TED, but you can't have a substantial conversation about aid and its efficacy or lack thereof if you aren't willing to engage in serious and critical political discourse. Unfortunately TED has always been too politically correct for its own good, but when you look at their trailing list of corporate sponsors how can you be surprised.

Hmmm, lentils, bed nets, immunization . . . what about the context that all these aid measures take place in? Africa is not some generic entity to be pitied. As an 'African' a South African more specifically, I get seriously annoyed by the disingenuous way in which 'African' issues are constantly portrayed and inevitably lugged together. Just trying to get a basic inkling on the poverty and aid issues underpinned by the social, economic and political fabric that exists in South Africa alone would take an incredible amount of time and is VERY specific.

Just learning about and trying to understand my own country has been consuming enough and truthfully I only have a basic handle on a few others like Cote D'ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Botswana and Nigeria. All have an incredibly diverse and complex set of problems and they will never be addressed by grouping them together as if inflicted with some kind of 'generalised poverty disorder' that you can throw a pill at.

Pointing to the success of small scale village based social programs as some kind of science based platform for understanding and eradicating poverty in Africa is, in my opinion, totally delusional. It wreaks of the ahistorical imperial anthropology of old.

If you are going to generalise and frame 'Africa's' problems, you have to have the courage to point fingers at some of the MANY corporations, banks, institutions and nations that so readily contribute towards the vast pools of misery found throughout this beautiful continent. Poverty is a complex bi-product of Africa's colonial history and the consequent exploitation and manipulation that has dogged the continent to this day. As long as the majority of the wealth of its nations is being siphoned off into foreign bank accounts there will be no solutions bearing any lasting impact.

The scary part of this is not what he says; it's that he's the respectable and eloquent face of the BNP. In UK nationalist terms, he's the intellectual elite. I honestly knew a BNP supporter that went out one night with a couple of his 'Nationalist' friends for a few beers, and woke up to find they'd tattooed a swastika onto his arm for a joke. He was annoyed that they'd tattooed him while unconscious, but was not bothered by the whole swastika thing.

If anybody is so myopic as to think that, because blacks in America have a sense of unity, that this extends to all blacks, they should really travel a little. Just see how much black unity you'll find in Congo, in Kenya or in Sierra Leone. Anywhere you go, you'll find that minority groups identify well with each other. It's true of Americans living in Europe, of Irish living in Australia, and of Jews living in New York. It's human nature. Griff-tard seems to think that, because there's no huge sense of unity and fraternity in the all-white, thick-as-pigshit ghetto of mediocrity that he inhabits, that this means that white English people have some loftier sense of identity that extends beyond race.

Here's a list of the military actions the US has been involved in since 1960.

I think he may have a point...

1959-60 -- The Caribbean.
1962 -- Thailand.
1962 -- Cuba.
1962-75 -- Laos.
1964 -- Congo (Zaire).
1959-75 -- Vietnam War.
1965 -- Invasion of Dominican Republic
1967 --Israel.
1967 -- Congo (Zaire).
1968 -- Laos & Cambodia.
1970 -- Cambodia Campaign.
1974 -- Evacuation from Cyprus.
1975 -- Evacuation from Vietnam.
1975 -- Evacuation from Cambodia.
1975 -- South Vietnam.
1975 -- Cambodia.
1976 -- Lebanon.
1976 -- Korea.
1978 -- Zaire (Congo).
1980 -- Iran.
1981 -- El Salvador.
1981 --Libya. in the Gulf of Sidra, claimed by Libya as territorial waters but considered international waters by the United States.[RL30172]
1982 -- Sinai.
1982 -- Lebanon.
1982-1983 -- Lebanon.
1983 -- Grenada.
1983-89 -- Honduras.
1983 -- Chad.
1984 -- Persian Gulf.
1986 -- Libya.
1986 -- Libya.
1986 -- Bolivia
1987-88 -- Persian Gulf.
1988 -- Honduras
1988 -- Panama.
1989 -- Libya.
1989 -- Panama.
1989 -- Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru.
1989 -- Philippines.
1989-90 -- Panama.
1990 -- Liberia.
1990 -- Saudi Arabia.
1991 -- Iraq.
1991 -- Zaire
1992 -- Sierra Leone.
1992 -- Kuwait.
1992-2003 -- Iraq. Iraqi No-Fly Zones
1993-Bosnia-Herzegovina.
1993 -- Macedonia.
1994-95 -- Haiti.
1994 -- Macedonia.
1995 -- Bosnia.
1996 -- Liberia.
1996 -- Central African Republic.
1997 -- Albania.
1997 -- Congo and Gabon.
1997 -- Sierra Leone.
1997 -- Cambodia.
1998 -- Iraq.
1998 -- Guinea-Bissau.
1998 - 1999 Kenya and Tanzania.
1998 -- Afghanistan and Sudan.
1998 -- Liberia.
1999 - 2001 East Timor.
1999 -- NATO's bombing of Serbia
2000 -- Sierra Leone.
2000 -- Yemen.
2000 -- East Timor.
2001 -- Afghanistan.
2002 -- Yemen.
2002 -- Philippines.
2002 -- Côte d'Ivoire.
2003 -- 2003 invasion of Iraq
2003 -- Liberia.
2003 -- Georgia and Djibouti
2004 -- Haïti
2004 -- Georgia, Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia, Yemen, and Eritrea.[7]
2006 -- Pakistan.
2006 -- Lebanon.
2007 -- Somalia.

Well, I lived in Maine, which is right next to Canada and on the east coast. So I'm an expert in Relations with Canada, England Ireland, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden, Iceland, Greenland, Finland, Italy, Greece, Bosnia, Croatia, Haiti, Cuba, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and OH, what do you know? Russia is on the Atlantic too, so count that one in there. Then add Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra-Leone, Liberia, Cameroon, Togo, Benin, Ghana, Guyana, Suriname, Guyane, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize.

And that's just the Northern Atlantic.

Well, and Of course I was in Japan, Korea, Iraq and Kuwait, so add those and all surrounding countries.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to use my new-found skills to disssolve the DMZ and instill peace in the Koreas, Stop the mini wars in Africa, get the Columbian government to stop all drug trafficking into the U.S., convince Israel to calm down, get the Kurds, Sunnis and shiites to stop fighting and work together, Convince Iraq, Saudia Arabia and Kuwait to give half their oil to the U.S. for free, and Iran to stop all the "naughty business" with nuclear research.

You would think after all that, and with all my foreign relations skills I could convince MINK to stop being a douche. Well, I'm not God, you know.

It'll be a busy day.

eh..

* Antigua dollar - Antigua
* Australian dollar - Australia, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, Norfolk Island, Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu
* Bahamian dollar - Bahamas
* Barbadian dollar - Barbados
* Belize dollar - Belize
* Bermudian dollar - Bermuda
* British Columbia dollar - British Columbia
* British North Borneo dollar - British North Borneo
* British West Indies dollar - British West Indies
* Brunei dollar - Brunei
* Canadian dollar - Canada
* Cayman Islands dollar - Cayman Islands
* Continental dollar - Colonial America
* Cook Islands dollar - Cook Islands
* Dominican dollar - Dominica
* East Caribbean dollar - Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
* Fijian dollar - Fiji
* Grenadan dollar - Grenada
* Guyanese dollar - Guyana
* Hawaiian dollar - Hawaii
* Hong Kong dollar - Hong Kong
* International dollar - hypothetical currency pegged 1:1 to the United States dollar
* Jamaican dollar - Jamaica
* Kiautschou dollar - Qingdao
* Kiribatian dollar - Kiribati
* Liberian dollar - Liberia
* Malaya and British Borneo dollar - Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak, British North Borneo and Brunei
* Malayan dollar - Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore
* Mauritian dollar - Mauritius
* Mongolian dollar - Mongolia
* Namibian dollar - Namibia
* Nevisian dollar - Nevis
* New Brunswick dollar - New Brunswick
* New Zealand dollar - New Zealand, Cook Islands, Niue, Tokelau, Pitcairn Islands.
* Newfoundland dollar - Newfoundland
* Nova Scotian dollar - Nova Scotia
* Prince Edward Island dollar - Prince Edward Island
* Penang dollar - Penang
* Puerto Rican dollar - Puerto Rico
* Rhodesian dollar - Rhodesia
* Saint Kitts dollar - Saint Kitts
* Saint Lucia dollar - Saint Lucia
* Saint Vincent dollar - Saint Vincent
* Sarawak dollar - Sarawak
* Sierra Leonean dollar - Sierra Leone
* Singapore dollar - Singapore
* Solomon Islands dollar - Solomon Islands
* Straits dollar - Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore
* Sumatran dollar - Sumatra
* Surinamese dollar - Suriname
* Old Taiwan dollar - Taiwan
* New Taiwan dollar - Taiwan
* Texan dollar - Republic of Texas
* Tobagan dollar - Tobago
* Trinidadian dollar - Trinidad
* Trinidad and Tobago dollar - Trinidad and Tobago
* Tuvaluan dollar - Tuvalu (not an independent currency, equivalent to Australian dollar)
* United States dollar - United States of America
* Zimbabwean dollar - Zimbabwe

More about the band here: http://www.videosift.com/video/Sierra-Leones-Refugee-All-Stars

They are playing at the Jazz Cafe in Camden Town, London, this friday - http://www.meanfiddler.com/displayPage.asp?ArticleID=3728&URLID=19

I will look out for that Dalai Lama from now on. I mean, look at the 20th Century alone . . .Chinese Communists don't have a religion, the Nazis banned religion, the Soviets under Lenin and Stalin also were of the religion is the stupid opiate school . . .and they all racked up impressive body counts

And at the same time, OF COURSE there are many purely religious nutjobs who kill people and break things -- Charles Taylor in Liberia/Sierra Leone, Hutus in Rwanda, Muslims in Sudan and Congo, Bin Laden, name your favorite radical Muslim sect in dozens of countries in the Middle East, Zionist settlers, etc. etc.

But it, i.e. fucking the world, requires a number of elements beyond merely theism or atheism. It requires political, nationalistic, and military ideologies as well as a willingness on the part of other nations to look the other way to protect their economic interests. And what is so tiresome and lazy is this repetitive exchange:

Theist: You don't Believe in Jesus and I can't listen to you because you are damned to Hell.
Atheist: Well, you are stupid and you have fucked up the world.

Ad hominem ad nauseum