Welcome to African Art, Music and Fashion
Actors
Music
A song called Jerusalema produced by South African DJ Master KG went viral producing a hashtag #JerusalemaDance and #JerusalemaDanceChallenge on TikTok.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ejHnEMs3W0
378,379,190 views on YouTube since its release in 2019 and 183,896,192 steams on Spotify On TikTok, the song has over a billion video views together as well as 812 million creations on Spotify.
The track has gone Number One in Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Romania, and Belgium.
Even African politicians became interested in this song and state president Mr Cyril Ramaphosa challenged everyone in South Africa to do the #JerusalemaDanceChallenge to celebrate unity.
Jerusalema is actually adapted from an old gospel hymn, titled Jerusalem Ikhaya Lami (Jerusalem My Home) from the IsiXhosa Methodist Church hymnbook. The original hymn reflects on this promise and hope.
It expresses a prayerful longing for the New Jerusalem. The hymn describes a wondrous place of rest and salvation.
- Jerusalema ikhaya lami [Jerusalem my home]
- Ngilondoloze [Keep me]
- Uhambe nami [Walk with me]
- Zungangishiyi lana [Don’t leave me here]
- Ndawo yami ayikho lana [My place is not here]
- Mbuso wami awukho lana [My kingdom is not here]
To watch the original music video:
To watch a Dancing Jerusalema all over the World:
Fashion
Head wrapping dates to pre-colonial African history in subSaharan Africa and were considered symbols of status, marriage, and family lineage. What once was a status symbol it soon became a symbol of enslavement since masters forced African women to wear a head wrap as a sign of oppression. In recent years, the natural hair movement has begun to reclaim these garments and the fashion industry is taking note head wraps are not only a trend, but they still hold deeply rooted symbolism for many African Americans.
Art
Fashion designer ruth carter breaks down black panther costumes in relation to African historical inspiration:
African art’s impact on modern western art:
References
- https://africa.thegospelcoalition.org/article/jerusalema/
- https://www.imdb.com/list/ls073991640/
- https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/jerusalema-global-dancehit-south-africa-spotify-1076474/
- https://www.teenvogue.com/gallery/head-wraps-nyfw-historycultural-appropriation
- https://abc11.com/african-head-wraps-gele-durham-public-schoolsblack-history-month/1192427/
- https://observers.france24.com/en/20160915-black-girl-hair-usa-headwrap