A brief summary of @Chiefboima’s Ebola information dissemination activities…

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Ebola has been weighing heavily on my mind. From it hitting Ashoka, a friend who I met in Liberia in 2011 (and who’s attended Dutty Artz parties), to worrying about friends and family on the ground in both Sierra Leone and Liberia, I feel sort of stuck and unable to help while being in Brazil. However in the face of a seeming panic in the U.S. about the disease invading the country, and rehashed African stereotypes in the mainstream media, I find I can contribute something by writing…

For staters, I put together a post for Cultural Anthropology’s “Hot Spots” series called “Beats, Rhymes, and Ebola.” Check it out on the Cultural Anthropology website, and listen to some of the songs I mention, plus a few bonus tracks on Africa is a Country. When you’re finished with all of that, check out my post on Africa is a Country reviewing the somewhat disappointing “Stop Ebola” coupé-décalé by DJ Lewis.

I dedicated a portion of my show latest radio show to Shadow, a Liberian artist who got a lot of global attention for his song “Ebola Coming,” but despite the song being used as the soundtrack for a Vice Documentary that to date has reached over 2 million views he’s received no financial compensation from the CNN sponsored news organization. To help Shadow get some deserved spotlight beyond Ebola, U.K. producer Subculture sounds and I are going to be releasing a remix EP of one of Shadow’s tunes soon!

In much better news, Ashoka is feeling better, and starting to tweet away… In the face of a world of increased attention check out this brave and inspiring tweet, he put out after starting to recover:

I’ll leave you with two of my favorite videos that I’ve seen come out of Liberia… live music events on the beach in places with names like “Pan-African Beach” and “Rasta-beach.” The first was edited and uploaded by Ashoka and the second features another Liberian homie Takun J:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFhfp14vZY0[/youtube]

[vimeo 108228395 w=853 h=488]

cross-posted at chiefboima.com