Africa
OMG: This South African soprano will make British coronation history!
Pretty Yende will soon go down in history as the first African to be invited to perform a solo at the coronation of a British monarch.
The South African soprano will be one of three soloists to perform at the coronation of King Charles III on May 6 at Westminster Abbey, in London, according to CNN.
“I feel very, very honored because it is something that has never happened before,” the 38-year-old told AFP.
“Generations from now they will read about the British monarchs… and they’ll see the name of a girl from the tip of Africa written in there – that she was actually invited by the king himself to sing at Westminster Abbey.”
Yende was born at the height of apartheid in the small town of Piet Retief to a religious family. Her closest musical reference was spiritual hymns, and she never intended a career in music until she heard opera for the first time at the age of 16.
“Hearing this music and the power of it, sounded like something supernatural. I did not believe human beings could do it,” she recalled to CNN.
“I remember recording it and imitating it,” she said. “I would play the recording the whole day. My gosh, my family were in trouble, because I wouldn’t stop practicing and shouting.”
Yende started her meteoric rise in the opera world while still a student at the University of Cape Town. In 2011, she graduated from the Young Artists program at the Accademia at the Teatro alla Scala, in Milan, Italy, and, since then, she has been in demand at opera houses throughout the world.
The past decade has not always been lined with roses, however. Yende said she has had to battle opera’s Eurocentric homogeneity and hopes to use her talent and success to break stereotypes.
“The biggest challenge has always been being the different one in the room. When I was the first Black in the Accademia of La Scala it was a bit uncomfortable,” she remembered.
“Sometimes I would enter the rehearsal room, and I could see in the room looks like, ‘Why are you here?’ And I would just smile. But once I start making music, all of us in that room agreed that I’m not there by mistake.”
Charles III, an avid patron of the arts, saw Yende perform at Windsor Castle a year ago during the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s 75th anniversary gala.
And now, the South African soprano will perform “Sacred Fire,” a new piece by British composer Sarah Class, before a worldwide audience of millions.
“It’s a dream come true, because when I found out that I have this incredible gift I wanted to share it with as many people as possible,” Yende said. She added, ““I know that my life will no longer be the same.”
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Alice B. Otchere is a native Houstonian and was raised in Houston’s Fifth Ward. She never thought of herself as a philanthropist. After high school, she attended the University of Northern Iowa, and along the way received Business School Certifications from the University of Michigan and the University of Texas. She established herself in Houston and developed a longstanding and successful career in Human Resources, at all levels through executive levels. Otchere visited Accra, Ghana in 2019 after connecting with her sons’ Ghanian family. The family welcomed her and her sons with open arms. While touring the country, she visited Sagyimase, the village which the family called their “home village”. She observed that there were no libraries in the area for the school children and others in the community of villages.
After visiting Ghana and returning to the United States, Otchere established the non-profit Literacy for Life (www.literatelife.org) in September 2019. She has received tremendous financial support from her immediate family, including her family in Ghana who donated the land. In addition, she received support from friends and Port City Chapter (TX) Links, Incorporated sisters by hosting fundraisers and receiving donations from many donors who appreciate the value of her commitment to share blessings with those in need. She also contacted the pending Consul General of Ghana in Houston to advise him of her plans. He was delighted to hear about a Houstonian engaged in humanitarian efforts in his home country.
Ms. Otchere returned to Ghana and Sagyimase in January 2020 to announce to the family and the village community her plans to build a library. While there, her desire and plans to build a library were confirmed. She saw the local village school and recognized it was underserved. She asked one of the teachers if they had a library. There were a few books, and the bookcase was dilapidated. As an avid reader, Ms. Otchere wanted to do something to ensure the schools, the students and all who lived in the area would have access to a library. She committed to do her part to work towards building and operating a Library in Sagyimase. 2020 offered challenges with the COVID pandemic; the air space in Ghana was closed and travel into the country was prohibited. But 2020 offered opportunities to work with the General Contractor, Architect and Project Manager to layout the plans for the library.
In September 2021 Otchere returned to Ghana to break ground for the library in Sagyimase, Ghana! Since that time, the project has been on-going, and the Project team has been successfully meeting construction milestones. The library is scheduled to open and begin operations October 16, 2023,
When asked what her family takes away from this experience, Otchere says, “you don’t have to be a millionaire to help a village”.
- FITCC Partners with Texas Southern University - September 17, 2023
- Houston Resident Builds Library In Sagyimase, Ghana - September 17, 2023
- Coco Gauff subdues Aryna Sabalenka to win the U.S. Open for her first Grand Slam title - September 9, 2023
A mannequin stands with head tilted, a knee jutting from the deep bias chiffon and woven fabric hemline of Papa Oppong’s Takari T, a T-shirt worn as a dress from the Ghanaian-born designer’s celebrated 2021 Yopoo collection, which evokes a Ghanaian woman’s life from birth to marriage to death. A “Ghana Must Go” bag — the ubiquitous blue, white and red reusable bags that have come to symbolize the forced migration of millions of Ghanaians from Nigeria — sits on the floor next to the mannequin.
It’s one of two looks from Oppong included in the Brooklyn Museum’s iteration of “Africa Fashion,” the blockbuster exhibition that opened last summer at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, and which runs Friday through Oct. 22 in New York.
“I can’t believe this is my work,” muses Oppong, as he raises his hands to his cheeks. “It doesn’t seem real. Coming from Ghana, I dreamed of creating work that could be this accessible. So this,” he says, spinning around to take in the work of fellow designers on display in a large central gallery, “is truly a dream come true.”
Like many of the additional designers included in the Brooklyn Museum exhibit, Oppong’s pieces evoke the heritage but also the political and socioeconomic realities of the African diaspora; from political satire and adherence to traditional weaving, hand-dyeing and beading techniques to collaborations with other African artists, from illustrators to weavers to photographers and musicians.
Organized thematically, the exhibition features garments, textiles, photography, books, music and catwalk footage from more than 40 designers and artists from 20 of Africa’s 54 countries, including pioneering 20th-century designers Kofi Ansah (Ghana), Naima Bennis (Morocco), Shade Thomas-Fahm (Nigeria), Chris Seydou (Mali), and Alphadi (Niger) in the “Vanguard” section. “The Cultural Renaissance” section explores the independence era, from the 1950s through the 1990s, a period of dramatic political, social and cultural upheaval reflected in the Pan-African fashion and art scene. “Politics and Poetics of Cloth” surveys the rise of Indigenous cloth as a political act; textiles from the museum’s Arts of Africa collection complement the V&A’s wax prints, commemorative cloth, àdìrẹ, kente cloth and bògòlanfini. “Capturing Change” chronicles the independence years through artists such as Seydou Keïta (Mali) and Malick Sidibé (Mali), from the museum’s collection, as well as fashion photography by James Barnor (Ghana). “Cutting Edge” is organized around concepts including “Afrotopia,” “Artisanal,” “Co-creation,” “Provocation,” “Minimalist,” and “Mixologist” and showcases a new generation of fashion designers and creatives, including South Africa–based designer Thebe Magugu, winner of the 2019 LVMH Young Fashion Designer Prize. “Through the Photographer’s Lens” examines the power of contemporary photography with a series of images of intricate African hairstyles from Nigerian photographer J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere, and work from New York native Kwame Brathwaite, the father of the 1970s “Black is Beautiful” movement who died last April. The exhibition concludes with “Global Africa,” which explores how the digital world accelerated the expansion of Africa’s influence in the fashion industry.
Photographer J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere’s images of African hairstyles are among more than 50 additional items from the Brooklyn Museum’s collection.
Additional new contemporary pieces also include Brother Vellies designer Aurora James’ Mother Nature gown with a raffia skirt and basket bodice, which the Ghanaian-Canadian designer wore to the 2019 Met Gala; a basket bag from Sudanese-American designer Eilaf Osman; and a shirt and skirt ensemble from Studio One Eighty Nine that features a pineapple husk belt and dried raffia straw hat.
“Haute couture, notions of the handmade and luxury, slow fashion, using dyes or materials that are non-invasive to the environment, this conversation around sustainability has always been part of the African continent,” says Ernestine White-Mifetu, the Brooklyn Museum’s Sills Foundation Curator of African Art, who adapted the exhibition with Annissa Malvoisin, the museum’s postdoctoral fellow in the Arts of Africa.
“And the contemporary designers from the continent have continued those traditions while taking the making and design of African textiles to a new level that’s extremely exciting,” continues White-Mifetu. “And this is an opportunity for audiences in North America to get to know what that looks like.”
The exhibit includes more than 50 items from the museum’s collection, including Egyptian jewelry from B.C.E. through 1st century C.E. and 19th and 20th century jewelry from Niger, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burkina Faso. Many of the items have not preciously been on view. (The museum’s African galleries are currently undergoing a major renovation with a reinstallation slated for 2025.)
“African regions and culture and art isn’t stuck in a specific time period,” says Malvoisin. “The African fashion scene has always been vibrant, even 3,000 years ago. It was really important for us to include our collection because our collection highlights the cultural continuity and technological and manufacturing production that has continued for thousands of years and which are still being used today by the designers featured in the show.”
The contributions of African-born designers is already obvious in the fashion industry, but the exhibit is arguably the first comprehensive recognition of that legacy.
“We do fashion shows a lot [at the Brooklyn Museum], but to focus on African fashion in an expansive way, and to bring something like this to North America and in New York, which is one of the fashion capitals of the world, is really important. These shows are quite commonplace for European and North American designers,” says Malvoisin, invoking the Brooklyn Museum’s recent retrospectives of Christian Dior and Thierry Mugler. “This is placing African fashion designers on the same level as all of these other luxury fashion houses and designers. I feel like it’s just the beginning. Perhaps this will also lay the foundation and groundwork for something like that happening for an African fashion designer.”
Standing in the exhibit’s large central hall, Oppong — dressed head-to-toe in black Balenciaga, right down to his kitten-heeled shoe socks — takes in the designs from his contemporaries. “I know so many people in here,” he says, raising an arm toward a mannequin draped in Christie Brown’s She is King gold and black gown.
“I did art direction at Christie Brown for a year,” he says. “I love Kenneth Ize, Imane Ayissi. This hall is just magical.”
- FITCC Partners with Texas Southern University - September 17, 2023
- Houston Resident Builds Library In Sagyimase, Ghana - September 17, 2023
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CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – South African prosecutors on Friday significantly increased the number of charges they are bringing against Rwandan ex-police officer Fulgence Kayishema, who is wanted internationally for suspected participation in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.
On the run for two decades, Kayishema was arrested on May 24 under a false name on a grape farm in South Africa where, according to a prosecutor, refugees working there gave him up.
He now faces 54 separate charges in South Africa relating to fraud and immigration offences, up from five previously, prosecutors spokesman Eric Ntabazalila said outside a Cape Town court.
Kayishema had been a fugitive from justice since 2001, when the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) indicted him for genocide for allegedly ordering the massacre of 2,000 people hiding in the Nyange Catholic Church.
He denied any involvement during a court hearing on May 26, though said he was “sorry” for the 1994 killings.
South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) alleges that Kayishema used a false identity to apply for asylum and refugee status in South Africa. Kayishema has not responded in court to the South African charges.
The case was adjourned to June 20 to allow Kayishema’s defence team to consult, at which point he could apply for bail.
Some of the local charges could see Kayishema imprisoned for up to 15 years, said Ntabazalila.
Kayishema is also expected to face extradition to Rwanda to be tried over the ICTR genocide indictment, but those proceedings have yet to begin, Ntabazalila said.
An estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and Hutu moderates were killed during Rwanda’s genocide, orchestrated by an extremist Hutu regime and meticulously executed by local officials and ordinary citizens in the rigidly hierarchical society.
Kayishema’s arrest left only three fugitives indicted by the international tribunal whose whereabouts remain unknown.
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