Articles by this Author
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Eoin Redahan: There are countless American boxers of African ancestry in boxing’s Hall of Fame. Why do you think Africa has so few boxers in the Hall of Fame?
Adeyinka Makinde: Perhaps you could ask a similar question as to why the African Diaspora in North America produces the men and the women with the fastest recorded times in sprinting. Most of them, I'd wager, would be able to trace their ancestry to parts of West and Central Africa, yet there is no corresponding success among their contemporaries from the 'Motherland'. It's likely to be down to the nurturing they receive in the early stages of their careers.
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BOOK REVIEW: JACOBS BEACH - THE MOB, THE GARDEN AND THE GOLDEN AGE OF BOXING
The sport of baseball has traditionally been referred to as the national sport of the American nation. Its handsome uniforms, consisting of embroidered caps, buttoned tops and knickerbockers, suggested the spirit of civilized competitiveness. Adapted from English ‘rounders’, it was, and perhaps still is, seen as something of an embodiment of the American way. “Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America,” wrote Jacques Barzun, “had better learn baseball.”
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BOOK REVIEW: OSCAR MICHEAUX – THE LIFE OF AMERICA’S FIRST BLACK FILMMAKER
The mention of the term 'filmmaker' brings to mind the likes of John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Francois Truffaut, Luis Bunel and kindred scions of the cinema. More than merely being a paid cog in the machinery geared towards producing a motion picture, the filmmaker is not merely a director. he is usually the instigator as well as the facilitator whose visualised product bears the personalised imprint of a series of techniques and themes that are instantly recognisable to connoiseurs of the art.
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Pope Pius XII and History
If any person serves as an illustration of history as a battleground in the interpretation of a legacy then it surely must be the figure of Eugenio Pacelli, the twelfth Pope to bear the name Pius and the 260th in the line of apostolic succession from St. Peter. During the 1950s, in the aftermath of the allied victory of the Second World War, he had stood triumphant; at the head of a church at the height of its influence and prestige. Pius was a steely but saintly man who it was argued had kept the church together and enabled it to survive one of its darkest hours.
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Music Syncretism: Blues Rock
John Lennon may be lionised -undeservedly, it may be argued- by many for reasons in excess of his worth as a writer and co-writer of some of the most influential songs in popular music, but may also be unfairly derided for his alleged pretensions as rock music's intellectual-in-chief. He was in actuality a rather straight-talking iconoclast and social commentator whose famously incendiary analysis that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ, actually resonated with more than a grain of truth about the shift in Western societal values from the Christian derived sort to those of a more secular vein.
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THE LEGACY OF MICHAEL JACKSON
The opening rapid stroke of fingers across the keys of a piano, followed by a staccato funk-driven guitar accompanied by bass, sets the scene for arguably one of the most stunning introductions in the history of rock. A prepubescent voice; controlled and dynamic, affects a high-pitched mournful smooth-as-silk wail that is reinforced by the doo-wop-like vocal bobbing of a set of older but still youthful backing singers. Then the words come tumbling out; an impassioned plea for mercy and forgiveness by a previously complacent lover: “When I had you to myself I didn’t want you around”. The voice continues.
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The Pride and the Passion - Barcelona v Manchester United
Since its inauguration, the UEFA Champions League while bringing together an aggregate of the best football teams on the European continent has nonetheless failed to convince some who still yearn for the old format European Champions Cup which pitted 16 of its member nations league champions against one another in an entirely knockout competition. The new order they gripe is merely a self-contradicting tourney -its participants after all are not all champions- designed solely with the objective of lining the pockets of the elite teams and UEFA
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Wole Soyinka
Akinwale Oluwole Soyinka holds the distinction of being the first African winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. His works, which have encompassed drama, novel and poetry genres, have tended to reflect the syncretism of Yoruban culture and the subversive instincts of his Egba heritage; traits which also marked the career of his famous musician cousin Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.
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TRIBUTE TO WANGARI MAATHAI : by Adeyinka Makinde
That Wangari Maathai is a special human being is beyond doubt. But in determinedly surmounting and overcoming the particular barriers arrayed against her so effectively as to become a global figure of female emancipation, democratization, and environmental consciousness; the operative appellation, perhaps, should be ‘extraordinary.’
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THE IGBO AND JEWRY
The following is an adaptation of the substantive aspects of a private response to Mr. Ozodi Osunji's rejoinder to a lecture that I delivered to an audience of the Jewish Museum in London. In it, I attempted to pick up on a number of points and observations of Dr. Osunji; many of which have added alternate perspectives and further depth to my knowledge and understanding of the topic. I embarked on this topic fully cognizant of the controversies and sensitivities attendant to it.
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