Caroline Mose reviews Mwenda Ntarangwi's 'East African Hip Hop – Youth Culture and Globalization', a book she regards as a 'welcome addition to the scanty but growing academic work on popular music and popular culture in East Africa'.

Hussein M. Adam reviews Iqbal D. Jhazbhay's 'Somaliland: an African Struggle for Nationhood and International Recognition', a book he finds to be 'highly original, relevant, valid and timely'.

Lamenting the apparently greater importance accorded the recent Algeria–Egypt World Cup qualifying match than Palestinians' ongoing difficulties, Haidar Eid wonders why the prayers muttered by football supporters have far surpassed those for families in Gaza suffering 'till the last day of Israel's last and continuing genocidal war'.

cc Badilisha

Badilisha! Poetry X-Change ° produced by the Africa Centre°, is an international poetry project based in Cape Town, South Africa. For the past 5 years poets from around the world and across the African continent have been featured at our annual festival engaged with wider audiences and local poetry networks via dynamic interactions in the form of workshops, discussions and multi-media collaborations. Badilisha! Poetry X-Change is now proud to announce a brand new dimension to the live poetry project. We are soon to launch Badilisha!

could have aptly been renamed 'Secrets of the African Streets'; especially after having watched CNN's presentation of Joburg's 'prostitutes' in light of the forthcoming World Cup. It is a powerful poem and congratulations in order. What is probably lacking in the general discourse is how state failure leads to such cultural decadence.

Measures to reduce loss to follow-up in antiretroviral treatment programmes such as abolishing user fees, paying transportation costs, providing meals and improving staff training would be cost-effective even if they prevented less than half of patients from failing to return to the clinic, according to projections based on data from Côte d’Ivoire.

Jacana Media announces the publication of 'Becoming Zimbabwe', a new book edited by Brian Raftopoulos and Alois Mlambo. The book 'tracks the idea of national belonging and citizenship and explores the nature of state rule, the changing contours of the political economy, and the regional and international dimensions of the country’s history.'

Kofi Akosah-Sarpong reviews and praises the scholarly work 'Reforming Leadership in Africa', by J. William Addai.

Roland Bankole Marke reviews 'The Candy Girl' by Marcella Camara-Macauley, a book he would recommend 'to every child around the world, and adults too'.

In this week’s Pambazuka News, Okello Oculi comments on the fact that although the local post-election violence tribunal in Kenya has experienced delays in its creation, the dreaded time for the perpetrators and the political figures who encouraged the post-election violence has come. Furthermore, Oculi argues that although in the past the Anti-Corruption Commission was limited due to the fact that it had no legal mandate, this is not so with the new tribunal. In this inspiring piece, Oculi tells us that although justice has been slow, it is coming through Kofi Annan’s pan-African reform vision.

Roderick Bush's new book, 'The End of White World Supremacy', is now available from .

Patricia Daley reviews Aernout Zevenbergen's 'Spots of a Leopard: on being a man in Africa' in this week's Pambazuka News. If the book suffers for the absence of non-violent male figures and an unclear focus towards its end, Zevenbergen's work successfully debunks myths and provides a springboard for discussion around the 'destructive effects of redundant traditionalism', Daley concludes.

‘Can you really re-member Afrika in the images, symbols and languages of the master? Can you really dream the dreams of liberation in the language of the oppressors?’ These are among the questions raised in a new book by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Re-membering Africa, Issa Shivji writes in Pambazuka News. In a commentary shared at the launch of the book, Shivji says that wa Thiong’o’s latest work ‘captures an important intellectual moment in the long struggle of African people to re-claim and recover our collective memory.’

Hamudi Majamba reviews Professor Issa Shivji's book, . 'Contentious issues notwithstanding', Majamba finds it 'a valuable and welcome addition to the literature on the history of Zanzibar from legal and political perspectives, that provides 'thought-provoking insights on efforts to revitalise Pan Africanism'.

Football's popularity in Africa belies the harmful socio-cultural and economic effects of the global game, argues McEdwin Ifeanyi Obi in this week's Pambazuka News. Once a sporting pastime for which the issue of money extended only as far as having kit to play in, the global brand of football under the power of the English Premier League and the UEFA Champions' League is now an all-consuming drain on Africans' intellectual and financial resources, Obi stresses.

In its endeavor to change society’s perception of non heterosexual people and to promote understanding of different identities within this community, Lesbian, Gays and Bisexuals of Botswana (LEGABIBO) has produced a booklet unraveling, among others, issues of coming out, the paths to self realisation and challenges faced by this community. True-life Stories and Poems that may change your perceptions, Dancing to the Beat of a Different Drum, is the title of the booklet which contains life stories of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender Batswana from a variety of backgrounds.

5 to 10 October promises to be a stirring week of words, rhymes, performance and ideas, as the 13th Poetry Africa international poetry festival ignites Durban with poetry from around South Africa, Africa, and the world. Hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Centre for Creative Arts, Poetry Africa's intensive week-long programme kicks off with a pre-festival showcase of Durban-based poets at The Workshop Shopping Centre's Amphitheatre on 4 October at 11h00.

The Art and Social Justice conference aims to explore the role and relevance of the arts in addressing issues of social justice. In line with the objectives and principles of the conference organizers, Art for Humanity, the concerns of this conference are primarily directed towards advocacy. The conference serves as a platform for art practitioners and organizations to share experiences drawn from a variety of international contexts to discuss mutual concerns and find solutions to commonly experienced challenges.

A new community library in Mpumulanga is seeking hardcover and paperback books for people of all ages.

The coherence of Jonathan Glennie’s is ‘impressive, given the complexity of the topic he has tackled,’ Lucy Corkin writes in this week’s Pambazuka News. The volume ‘adds its voice to a growing body of literature criticising the global aid architecture and its agents, the rich country donors.' What is interesting in Glennie’s account, says Corkin, is that his analysis ‘includes the role of aid advocacy groups and campaigners’ – a ‘bold step considering his own campaigning background’.