Colombian superstar Shakira and FC Barcelona defender Gerard Pique announced Saturday they were calling time on their relationship of more than a decade.

The 45-year-old “Hips don’t Lie” songstress is one of the biggest names in the global music industry and has sold more than 60 million albums.

Spanish football hero Pique, 35, won the 2010 World Cup and the 2012 European Championship, and is a three-time Champions League winner with Barcelona.

The couple share two sons and had been living together for years on the outskirts of Barcelona.

“We regret to confirm that we are separating. For the well-being of our children, who are our upmost priority, we request respect for (our) privacy,” they said in a statement.

With her mix of Latin and Arabic rhythms and rock influence, three-time Grammy winner Shakira is one of the biggest stars from Latin America, scoring major global hits with songs such as “Hips don’t Lie” and “Whenever, Wherever”.

In 2020, she performed with Jennifer Lopez at the halftime show of the NFL’s Super Bowl championship final in Miami, typically one of the most-watched half-hours in US television.

The couple announced their separation just over a week after Spanish court documents inched Shakira closer to standing trial in Spain for tax fraud after a Barcelona court dismissed an appeal from the singer.

Spanish prosecutors accuse her of defrauding the Spanish tax office out of 14.5 million euros ($15.5 million) on income earned between 2012 and 2014.

They say she moved to Spain in 2011 when her relationship with Pique became public but maintained official tax residency in the Bahamas until 2015.

Her defence lawyers say she moved to Spain full time only in 2015 and insist that her “conduct on tax matters has always been impeccable in all the countries she had to pay taxes”.

In an interview with AFP in 2019, Shakira said temporarily losing her voice two years earlier had been “the darkest moment of her life” and affected her “deeply”.

She later recovered her voice naturally, without needing to undergo surgery as recommended by doctors and subsequently carried out a world tour in 2018.

Source: AFP

Legendary Bikutsi artist Nkodo Sitony who passed away on December 21, 2021 at the Central Hospital in Yaoundé will be laid to rest in his native village of Kaa in the Centre Region on Saturday.

The 62 year old had a place in the minds of not only French speaking Cameroonians but all the people of Southern Cameroons and beyond following a more than 40 years of musical career that marked the Cameroonian music stage with successful songs including “Métil wa” and “Mba Mvoe”.

Singer, songwriter, performer, Nkodo Sitony was an accomplished artist. He was a lover of the guitar, the tam-tams and the balafons with which he exploited for more than 40 years.

Nkodo Sitony was one of the most celebrated Bikutsi singers in the 90s. He was also popular for his work in Beti, Fang and Ewondo languages.

He migrated to France and lived in Paris for over 15 years and finally returned home in 2019.

The renowned musician died after a long battle with cancer. He was reportedly weakened by ill health and was less visible on the scene until his death. He left a huge work of 25 albums and received a number of awards with the most prestigious ones being the politicized Cameroon artist of the year award.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Hollywood’s film academy on Friday said its board of governors banned Will Smith from any of its events, including the Oscars, for 10 years after the best actor winner slapped presenter Chris Rock on stage at the Academy Awards ceremony.

“The 94th Oscars were meant to be a celebration of the many individuals in our community who did incredible work this past year,” Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President David Rubin and Chief Executive Dawn Hudson said in a statement.

“However, those moments were overshadowed by the unacceptable and harmful behavior we saw Mr. Smith exhibit on stage.”

In a statement, Smith said, “I accept and respect the Academy’s decision.” The actor had resigned from the academy on April 1 and has issued statements apologizing to Rock, the Oscars producers, nominees  and viewers.

At the March 27 televised ceremony, Smith strode up to the stage after comedian Rock made a joke about the appearance of the actor’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, then smacked Rock across the face.

Less than an hour later, Smith gave a tearful speech on stage as he accepted the best actor award for his role in “King Richard.” After the ceremony, he was seen dancing at Vanity Fair’s annual post-Oscars party.

Rock’s joke about Pinkett Smith made a reference to the 1997 film “G.I. Jane” in which actress Demi Moore shaved her head. It was unclear whether Rock was aware that she has a condition that causes hair loss.

Source: REUTERS

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns a decision by Cameroon’s National Communication Council (CNC) to suspend the head of one of the country’s most outspoken and popular TV channels, one of its star presenters, and one of its leading current affairs programmes for a month. The suspensions are arbitrary and unjustified, and constitute a serious press freedom violation, RSF said.

The one-month suspensions of Equinoxe TV director Sévérin Tchounkeu, presenter Cédric Noufele and the programme “Droit de Réponse” (Right of Reply) were announced by the media regulator on 1 April.

Alluding to a teachers’ strike, the CNC accused Equinoxe TV of “failing to manage” a guest whose comments were “liable to amplify a potentially explosive social demand.” It also accused Tchounkeu of making offensive comments about state institutions, and Noufele of broadcasting an amateur video that was not related to the subject discussed – an error that the TV channel had nonetheless acknowledged and repeatedly corrected.

“We condemns these suspensions, which have no serious grounds and clearly aim to sanction a media for its coverage of a strike that embarrasses the authorities,” said Arnaud Froger, the head of RSF’s Africa desk. “This is nothing less than an attack on journalism and the right to news and information, which this regulator is supposed to protect. We call on the CNC, which is not in the habit of imposing arbitrary sanctions, to review this decision.”

Cameroonian journalists are often subjected to judicial harassment, arbitrary detention and sometimes very violent physical attacks, but politically motivated media suspensions are relatively rare. Equinoxe TV has been summoned before the CNC several times in the past but has not been suspended in recent years.

Cameroon is ranked 135th out of 180 countries in RSF’s World Press Freedom Index.

Culled from RSF

Will Smith resigned Friday from the motion picture academy following his Oscars night slap of Chris Rock and said he would accept any further punishment the organization imposed. The slap virus which originated from Anambra State in Nigeria is taking a toll on major institutions around the globe.

Smith in a statement released Friday afternoon said he will “fully accept any and all consequences for my conduct. My actions at the 94th Academy Awards presentation were shocking, painful, and inexcusable.”

Film academy president David Rubin said Smith’s resignation was accepted. “We will continue to move forward with our disciplinary proceedings against Mr. Smith for violations of the Academy’s Standards of Conduct, in advance of our next scheduled board meeting on April 18.”

Smith loses voting privileges with his resignation. But there are other, less tangible benefits to being part of the academy, Hollywood’s most prestigious organization: It bestows industry credibility on its members. It’s invitation only, and with a once-a-year membership review.

“I betrayed the trust of the Academy. I deprived other nominees and winners of their opportunity to celebrate and be celebrated for their extraordinary work,” his statement said. “I am heartbroken. I want to put the focus back on those who deserve attention for their achievements and allow the Academy to get back to the incredible work it does to support creativity and artistry in film.

“Change takes time and I am committed to doing the work to ensure that I never again allow violence to overtake reason,” Smith concluded in the statement.

The resignation came two days after the academy’s leadership board met to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Smith for violations against the group’s standards of conduct. Those proceedings could have resulted in suspension or expulsion, and it was not immediately clear what additional punishment he could face.

Had he been expelled, Smith would have joined a small group of men removed from the academy: Harvey Weinstein, Roman Polanski, Bill Cosby and the actor Carmine Caridi, who was kicked out for sharing awards screeners.

On Sunday, Smith strode from his front-row Dolby Theatre seat on to the stage and smacked Rock, who had made a joke at the expense of Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Moments later, he went on to win the best actor award for his role in “King Richard.”

Rock, who was about to present Oscar for best documentary, declined to file charges when asked by police. He has only briefly addressed the attack publicly, saying at one comedy concert in Boston this week that he was still “kind of processing what happened.”

Smith stunned Rock, the theater crowd and viewers at home when he took the stage after Rock joked: “Jada, I love you. ‘G.I. Jane 2,’ can’t wait to see it.”

Pinkett Smith, who has spoken publicly about her hair loss condition, alopecia, had a closely shaved head similar to that of Demi Moore in the original movie.

After Smith’s attack, he returned to his seat and angrily twice shouted at Rock to “get my wife’s name out your (expletive) mouth.” When Smith took the stage again less than an hour later to accept his Oscar, he tearfully apologized to the academy but notably omitted any mention of Rock.

The fallout was immediate and intense. Smith had supporters for coming to his wife’s defense, but he was widely condemned for responding with violence and for marring both his long-sought Oscar victory and overshadowing the night’s other winners.

Source: AFP with additional editing

Members of the Sasse Old Boys Association in the United Kingdom joined their counterparts throughout the globe to celebrate Saint Joseph’s Feast Day, the day established to honour St. Joseph as the spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the step-father of Jesus Christ with church services and convention.

Preaching the sermon at Our Lady and Lancashire Martyrs Diocese of Salford, Fr Emmanuel Nuh in his homily gave a justification on why the Feast of Saint Joseph is now a popular custom deep within the Holy Roman Catholic Church.

Fr Peter Watson and Fr Bill Tollah both former lecturers at Saint Joseph College Sasse were full of praise for SOBA UK. The two retired clerics expressed their joy and satisfaction meeting with the new generation of Sasse Old Boys.

The Sasse Old Boys were reminded that anyone who comes to Sasse College begins a life-long academic journey that makes you a part of God’s plan.

The Alumni life simply focuses on multiplying and consolidating individual and collective gains deep within SOBA UK and it is available to all ex-students of Sasse College residing in the United Kingdom and all should avail themselves of the opportunity by accepting to be members of SOBA UK.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Emmanuel N’Djoké Dibango – Manu Dibango – will live forever thanks to his Afropolitan sounds, and to the fact that many artists in Africa and beyond are deeply indebted to him.

He was a man of legendary generosity of spirit and talent, with an accommodating heart that sought to bridge the local and the global with creativity and innovation in song and music. His album Soul Makossa was of such artistic genius that even a global superstar like Michael Jackson couldn’t resist sampling from it to enrich his own album, Thriller.

In his 1994 biography, Dibango describes himself as “Négropolitain”. It’s a term that would later be adopted and popularised as “Afropolitanism” by others enthralled by his idea of grounded cosmopolitanism.

African and European at one and the same time.

He saw himself – and insisted on being seen – as “a man between two cultures, two environments”. His music could not be confined to either, without losing its complexity and richness. It was the fruit of his diverse influences. His nimble fingers, voice and intellect were averse to any artificial barriers or attempts to contain the flow of the river of musical humanity.

Three kilos of coffee

Born on December 12 in 1933 in Douala, Cameroon, Dibango was sent by his parents to study in France when he was only 15 years old. He arrived in France bearing a gift of three kilograms of coffee from his parents, for his host.

In France he met Francis Bebey, another musician from his native Douala, with whom he formed a band and began to experiment with different modern instruments, such as the piano and the saxophone.

He later relocated to Brussels where he met his wife to be, Marie-Josée (whom he would fondly call Coco). It was also in Brussels that his music career began to blossom through fruitful contacts. Two in particular stand out: Joseph Kabasélé and African Jazz, who introduced him to “the cha-cha and the rumba, the two breasts nourishing Zairean music”, and who, in 1961, also invited him to Zaïre (today’s Democratic Republic of Congo). The result was his first record, African Soul, “a mixture of jazz, popular music, and rumba”.

Dibango’s life was exemplary in its resilience, combativeness and ingenuity in mobilising his creativity to contain or at least confront political and cultural repression. His music brought him worldwide fame. But he did not feel particularly fulfilled in the land of his birth.

He spent the best part of his life in a determined struggle to win recognition for music as art and musicians as artists in his motherland and elsewhere in Africa. These were contexts of strongman politics, personality cults and repeated frustrations by politicians, sometimes in cassock. Notwithstanding censorship, jealousy, penury, and repeated frustration and disappointment as an artist, Dibango refused to be deterred.

Manu Dibango performs on stage at Ronnie Scott’s club in 2009 in London. David Redfern/Redferns

Leaving Cameroon

He returned to Cameroon from Zaïre in 1963, issuing the album Nasengina. This was his only piece constructed purely from the indigenous Cameroonian makossa.

Dibango was appreciated by ordinary Cameroonians. But he hated the fact that politicians kept his artistic creativity under close surveillance. He was disenchanted with authorities that did not allow people “to fantasise” and “to dream”, and who forced everyone to talk “in cautious whispers” and to be “wary of everyone else”.

In 1964, disappointed in “this harmful atmosphere”, Dibango closed down his club and abandoned all dreams of opening a musical conservatory or arts institute. He left Cameroon for France after barely 16 months back home.

Still, he could not bring himself to give up on Cameroon entirely. He would pay brief return visits from the early 1980s onwards. His desire “to forge a unified image of Cameroon, representing all the musical currents in the country” received rare facilitation from the Minister of Culture who happened to be his friend, and resulted in a three-record set, Fleurs Musicales du Cameroun.

But his desire to project himself as “this famous Cameroonian musician heard everywhere but in Cameroon” would be met with the same contradictions, making the air “unbreathable” in what he described as his “last African adventure”.

He felt cursed that he “couldn’t create something here in Cameroon”. He found it ironic that Côte d’Ivoire, with the blessing of then President Houphouët-Boigny, could entrust him with the task of heading the Orchestre de la Radio-Télévision Ivoirienne, while Cameroon could not even take seriously his expertise as a professional musician of world renown.

Together with other expatriate African musical talents in France, Dibango released Tam-Tam pour l’Ethiopie, to raise funds for famine-stricken Ethiopia between 1983 and 1985. The initiative served as “proof that Africans too could take concrete action” vis-à-vis their own predicaments. And he personally took the proceeds from the album to refugee camps in Ethiopia to ensure that

‘For once, the money wouldn’t be misused by the government in power’.

Although the situation has improved significantly since publication of his biography in 1994, Dibango’s music is still much more appreciated abroad – as “world music” – than in Cameroon.

Despite the government’s attempts to impose creative inertia upon him in the early 1960s, Dibango was given the honour of composing the theme song of the 1972 Africa Cup of Nations football finals hosted by Cameroon. In 1988, he received a decoration as a Knight of Order and of Valour. However, as Dibango observed, “the authorities could decorate me with all the medals they liked” without doing much to stop “the descent into hell” for artistic creativity in a country where it is not uncommon to mobilise the military to raid clubs. Or to impose entertainment taxes with the intention of crippling artists who are perceived to be critical or unpalatable.

Manu Dibango died after contracting COVID-19 at the age of 86 in Paris, where he felt “condemned to be an expatriate”.

Quibble as they may in Cameroon, Dibango leaves behind a towering record of Afropolitan musical genius of truly global magnitude, to feed and inspire many a generation to come. Manu Dibango does not have to be in Cameroon, in Africa or physically in the world to continue to do things of relevance.

Culled from The Citizen

Artists Snoop Dogg and Kelly Clarkson will host a “American Song Contest” modeled after the beloved Eurovision competition in a series to premiere in March.

The show will broadcast on the US network NBC and run for eight weeks before a finale on May 9.

It will feature performers — solo artists, duos or bands — from all fifty US states along with one from the capital Washington and five from US territories.

“I am honored to host American Song Contest alongside my lil sis Kelly Clarkson, aka Miss Texas,” said the rapper Snoop Dogg in a statement.

Clarkson was the first ever winner of the long-running song competition “American Idol.”

“I have been a fan and love the concept of Eurovision and am thrilled to bring the musical phenomenon to America,” she said in a statement.

“I’m so excited to work with Snoop and can’t wait to see every state and territory represented by artists singing their own songs.'”

The Eurovision competition is one of the largest televised events in the world.

“Imagine if music was an Olympic sport and artists from all over the world came together to compete for the gold. That’s the Eurovision Song Contest,” said “American Song Contest” producer Anders Lenhoff in a statement.

“The American version will be different than anything seen before on US television, marrying the fanfare and excitement of March Madness and the NFL playoffs with the artistry and beauty of world-class performances,” the statement continued.

“The American Song Contest is a competition that happens to be televised, rather than a contest created to make a television show. And it’s open to all singers with a song, whether they are amateur artists or already signed to a major record label. No one is excluded from the competition.”

Source: AFP

A court in Los Angeles has made Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver’s divorce official 10 years after they separated following the actor-turned-politician’s infidelity, US media reported Wednesday.

Celebrity news site TMZ said the pair’s divorce proceedings took a particularly long time because of the number of financial assets to negotiate.

Shriver, a journalist and the niece of former US president John F. Kennedy, first filed for divorce in July 2011.

Weeks later, the “Terminator” star admitted to having an affair with the family nanny, Mildred Baena, with whom he had a son in 1997.

“After leaving the governor’s office I told my wife about this event, which occurred over a decade ago,” Schwarzenegger, who was governor of California from 2003 to 2011, said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times when he and Shriver separated.

Shriver cited “irreconcilable differences” in the divorce filing.

The couple, who met in 1977 and were married in 1986, have four children together.

Source: AFP