Sixto

Because I had already introduced the Sixto Rodriguez story to students in my Honors colloquium Detroit: Arts City, I mentioned him when working with those students to create a map of the city's points of interest. They were developing a map for the BSU delegation that traveled to Detroit for the annual meeting of the AAG, and I wondered aloud whether there might be some kind of monument to visit. It took the students less than a minute to find the building where he had worked in anonymity for decades. 

I was able to take this photograph a few months later, and to include it in my presentation at that conference.

For years, my friend and colleague from South Africa had been telling me about the 2012 film Searching Sugar Man. When I finally got around to it, both my spouse and I were big fans. I ordered a Sixto Rodriguez CD before we even finished the film. The trailer is full of spoilers, but the story is riveting, even if you know how it ends.

A very nice introduction to his music is the orchestral performance of Crucify Your Mind on Late Night. As David Letterman remarks, the story is fascinating and impossible and true, all at the same time.

Seun Kuti

I recently realized that I had included Egyptian musician Seun Kuti in my Africa regional class, but had not remembered to mention him in this class, where his story is even more appropriate. 

Photo: seunkutimusic.com

I found myself returning to his story because we are doing some work on economic geography that relates to the outsized role of IMF on the continent. 

As NPR journalist Anastasia Tsioulcas reports, he "is the youngest son of Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti. He began playing with his father's band Egypt 80 at age 8 — and took it over upon his father's death just six years later." 

Please read the text that accompanied her "First Listen" audio story -- it describes many of the tracks (including one entitled IMF) and has links to related music, including some from his father. For the IMF video, I recommend enabling the closed captions on YouTube, even though the song is in English. Note that the captions skip the part where Kuti renames the "Monetary Fund" part of IMF to a more commonly used meaning of MF. 

Lagniappe 

When I was attending a meeting in my hometown (Washington, DC) with students from Brazil circa 2010, the walk from a hotel we could afford to the university hosting the meeting had us passing a lot of landmarks. When we passed the White House my students craned their necks in hopes of glimpsing then-president Obama. They were disappointed when I told them an arriving motorcade of 6 vehicles was probably a cabinet secretary, and that we would be nowhere near the place if if were the president.

But I digress: the relevant landmark was the World Bank (which is the conjoined twin of IMF). My otherwise lovely and polite students seemed ready to spit on the building. I have to admit being a bit impressed, but it should not be surprising. Educated people in the Global South recognize the damage that WB/IMF have done in the name of "development." 

My presentation Sovereign Debt and the Erosion of Sovereignty tells the deep back story. I first gave this presentation in 2001, and sadly I have only needed to update some of the details -- the basic story has not changed at all. It is particularly poignant that Kuti is from Egypt -- the story begins there, when his father was still young.