*NEW YORK — Music and the sounds of revolution are in the air as the 12th season of AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange opens with an episode saluting the work and lives of the originators of the Afrobeat music genre, Fela Kuti and Tony Allen.
Premiering on WORLD Channel at 8 p.m. ET (10 p.m. PT) on January 20, the AfroPoP season opener features Joel Zito Araújo’s documentary film My Friend Fela about the African musical icon followed by Birth of Afrobeat, a short film from director Opiyo Okeyo telling the story of drummer Tony Allen.
Produced by Black Public Media (BPM) and co-presented by distributor American Public Television (APT), AfroPoP has brought real stories of life, art and culture in the modern African Diaspora to public television audiences for more than a decade.
In My Friend Fela, director Joel Zito Araújo follows Carlos Moore — a close friend and the official biographer of Fela, as well as friend to major, international black figures like Malcolm X and Maya Angelou — as he explores the many unknown aspects of the legendary musician’s life. To counter what Araújo notes is the popular narrative of Fela as the “eccentric African pop idol of the ghetto,” photos, archival interviews and Moore’s own personal conversations with Fela’s wives, family and bandmates, bring viewers a seldom seen side of the revolutionary artist’s life and music. Likewise, as Moore delves into the Nigerian political strife during Fela’s life and the Pan-African theories which shaped his beliefs and bled into his music, a nuanced profile of a musical revolutionary and champion of the people emerges.
The premiere episode will conclude with the short film Birth of Afrobeat. The live-action and animation hybrid captures the story of iconic drummer Tony Allen as he records the album What Goes Up with the American band Chicago Afrobeat Project in 2017 and discusses how he and Fela pioneered the Afrobeat genre.
“Season 12 launches with two films that pay tribute to the enduring legacy of two cultural trailblazers and the music they created which has done so much to unite people around the world around political struggles and shared realities,” said Black Public Media Executive Director and Leslie Fields-Cruz.
Other episodes in season 12 of AfroPoP include Amina by Kivilcim Akay (January 27), a moving look at the life of a Senegalese immigrant living in Turkey and trying to pursue her dreams in the face of growing obstacles; Daddy and the Warlord by Shamira Raphaëla and Clarice Gargard (February 3), which follows Gargard on a trip to postwar Liberia to uncover the truth about her father’s involvement with the infamous war criminal Charles Taylor; Gilda Brasileiro: Against Oblivion from Viola Scheuerer and Roberto Manhães Reis (February 10), a profile of one woman’s quest to challenge a culture wishing to ignore its ties to slavery after she discovers documents exposing an illegal 19th century slave-trading post in the Brazilian rainforest; and the season finale episode (February 17) which includes Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela, director Thomas Allen Harris’s personal documentary profiling his stepfather, B. Pule Leinaeng (“Lee”) and his fight against apartheid as a foot solider in the African National Congress, paired with Spit on the Broom by Madeleine Hunt-Erlich, an experimental short film on the United Order of Tents, a clandestine organization of Black American women organized in the 1840s during the height of the Underground Railroad.
Each episode of season 12 of AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange will also be available for streaming on worldchannel.org beginning on the day of its broadcast premiere.
AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange is co-executive produced by Leslie Fields-Cruz and Angela Tucker. The program is produced and directed by Duana C. Butler with the generous support of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts.
For more information on the series and its episodes, visit www.blackpublicmedia.org. For viewing information, check local listings or visit www.aptonline.org.
ABOUT BLACK PUBLIC MEDIA:
Black Public Media (BPM), formerly the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC), is committed to enriching our democracy by educating, enlightening, empowering and engaging the American public. The nonprofit supports diverse voices by developing, producing and distributing innovative media about the black experience and by investing in visionary content makers. BPM provides quality content for public media outlets, including, among others, PBS and PBS.org and BlackPublicMedia.org, as well as other platforms, while training and mentoring the next generation of black filmmakers. Founded in 1979, BPM produces the AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange documentary series and manages the 360 Incubator + Fund, a funding and training initiative designed to accelerate the production of important black serial and interactive content.
About American Public Television:
American Public Television (APT) is the leading syndicator of high-quality, top-rated programming to the nation’s public television stations. Founded in 1961, APT distributes 250 new program titles per year and more than one-third of the top 100 highest-rated public television titles in the U.S. APT’s diverse catalog includes prominent documentaries, performance, news and current affairs programs, dramas, how-to programs, children’s series and classic movies. America’s Test Kitchen From Cook’s Illustrated, Cook’s Country, AfroPoP, Rick Steves’ Europe, Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Television, Front and Center, Doc Martin, Midsomer Murders, Lidia’s Kitchen, Kevin Belton’s New Orleans Kitchen, Simply Ming, The Best of the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross, and P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home are a sampling of APT’s programs, considered some of the most popular on public television. APT also licenses programs internationally through its APT Worldwide service and distributes Create®TV — featuring the best of public television’s lifestyle programming — and WORLD™, public television’s premier news, science and documentary channel. To find out more about APT’s programs and services, visit APTonline.org.
About WORLD CHANNEL:
Based at WGBH in Boston, WORLD Channel tells stories that humanize complex issues. WORLD shares the best of public media in news, documentaries and fact-based informational programming that helps us understand conflicts, movements and cultures that may be distinct from our own. WORLD’s original content offers a national platform to makers examining issues too often ignored by mainstream media. These emerging and master filmmakers spotlight a diversity of voices, telling stories not heard elsewhere. WORLD has won a Peabody Award, an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award and numerous national honors—including an RTNDA Kaleidoscope Award, a Media for a Just Society Award, two Lesbian & Gay Journalist Awards, a Gracie and an Asian American Journalists Award. Carried by 154 partner stations in markets representing almost 64% of US TV households, WORLD can also be experienced via WORLDChannel.org and social media platforms.
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source:
Alimah Boyd
Cheryl Duncan & Company Inc.
[email protected]
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