MUSIC TUESDAY! woooooo

SORRY FOR THE ABSENCE!

School started 2 weeks ago and life has become SO HECTIC! Its crazy how much can happen in a small period of time but NEVERTHELESS, I need to keep my blog going while maintaining school and extracurricular activities!
Enough with the excuses, UR-A-FIKI IS BACK AND AT IT AGAIN!
so I'm back with my favorite section: MUSIC TUESDAY!

The music I'd like to feature today is KUDURO MUSIC

This type of music comes from traditional AFRICAN beats but with SYNTHS & Electro beats. Kuduro orginated from Zouk & Tribal House! I think I really enjoy Kuduro music because its bringing a fresh new sound the orginal african (zouk) sound.

My favorite group from Kuduro Genre is....BURAKA SOM SISTEMA

Buraka was started in 2006 but I was introduced to them by friend around 2008. There first song I heard was their single off of BLACK DIAMOND LP, which was called KALEMBA (WEGUE-WEGUE)
have a listen:





Makes you wanna party right? The song is amazing and to think that it all started from simple zouk beat like this:










I saw B.S.S LIVE at Terminal 5 with a couple of my friends, in april! That show was off the hook! Since they are from Angolan background, they brought out dancers in the carnival outfits to hype the crowd, and that EXACTLY what it did, it was SUCH an amazing concert!


If they ever do something again in the NYC AREA, make sure to grab a ticket because they are something WORTH to see LIVE


Still CRAVING for more on Buraka: CLICK IT

FASHION MONDAYS!

HEY
I'm back at this again! with the first EVER FASHION MONDAY!

Over the weekend, I was researching about AFRICAN FASHION WEEK here in NYC, which takes place in July every summer. I was looking through some of the designs from this year and one designer from Nigeria, really caught my attention. Her brand is called CHIANU, she started by designing for friends and family. Her brand gained a lot of press and knowledge after 2009 because there mixture of african prints with modern style. I could DEFINITELY see myself wearing some of her designs. Here are some pictures of her design at this years AFRICAN FASHION WEEK!

My Favorite

This is a picture of the Head Designer

If you would like to check out more designs from CHIANU, check out her website: www.chianu.com

THROWBACK THURSDAY plus some specials!

Habari Everbody! (Habari is Hello in Swahili, Kenya's Official Language)
I hope everyone enjoyed there weekend and maybe someone out there did something that was on the list, from "where ya goin fridays" post. Well this past weekend was very hectic for me but so much fun! I don't know if anyone heard but KENYA GOT A NEW CONSTITUTION! its been 47 LONG YEARS since the constitution has been updated, I know, crazy.  So this past weekend, there was a NICE celebration for new constitution at the AMBASSADOR'S residence

Here are some picutres from the party!





Moving On, today is THROWBACK THURSDAY and I wanted to feature a video that represents what I'm trying to create with this blog, something that's "modern yet african" and the video for "Love Lockdown" By Kanye West was perfect. In the video, he features african "warriors" moving about while he's on the side, in his very basic outfit sitting on the sidelines, just chilling. I find that contrast so interesting. I also found this video funny because of African dancers just being there but then I started to appreciate that he added the dancers to demonstrate the emotion in the song. WITH THAT BEING SAID, check out the video below: