Africa Live: Liberia uncovers 40,000 illegal civil servants - BBC News
Africa Live: Liberia uncovers 40,000 illegal civil servants - BBC News
(32 minutes later)
DJ Edu
That's all from the BBC Africa Live team for this week.
Presenter of This Is Africa on BBC World Service
Until we're back, there'll be an automated service here, plus you can get the latest news on or website or listen to our podcasts - Africa Daily and Focus on Africa.
A reminder of Friday's wise words:
A man who hangs around a beautiful girl without saying a word ends up fetching water for guests at her wedding."
Click here to send us your African proverbs.
And we leave you with this of Tyla signing autographs for fans in South Africa - it's one of our favourite photos of the week:
Rotimi is a busy man.
The Nigerian-American has a
successful career as an actor and is best known for roles in US TV dramas Boss
and Power.
But he’s also a musician with a string of hits under his belt, and
it’s music that is his first love – not including his lady, that is….
His
latest release is a catchy Afrobeats number called Sade featuring fellow
Nigerian Mayorkun and South African rapper Nasty C.
"Me,
I’m proper African American and so I wanted to bring the Afrobeats vibes, the
R’n’B vibes, the Amapiano vibe all in one record, it was just me, who I am.
These guys just helped complement it beautifully," he said.
Rotimi
says it was when he finally became at ease with his mixed identity that he
became able to make great music.
"I’m
half Igbo, half Yoruba, and also being light skinned it was tough growing up,
even coming back [to Nigeria] because they called me white man.
"It was always
about proving [myself], until I said I have nothing to prove to anyone. I am
who I am. Once I lived in that space, that’s where the records came, that’s
where the In My Bed came, that’s where Love Riddim came, and all these big
records."
The
acting came about as a way of funding the music. Rotimi’s manager noticed he
was natural on camera during video shoots and suggested he put himself forward.
"I
got thrown into acting, a broke, hungry kid who just happened to be gifted in
something he didn’t know he was gifted in. Power and all these things
wasn’t my goal, it was always music, it’s always been music," he said.
Luckily,
being the only child of ambitious parents has given Rotimi the drive and
experience to do multiple things at once.
He’s had to work superfast in studio
because of the time demands that come with being in a long-running TV show:
"I
would go to set and they’d be like 'your call time is 6am', and I’d be finished
at 11pm at night, and the label’s like 'listen bro' you have two hours to give
us something'. In those two hours I would make a hit like In My Bed, records
that happen to be platinum records now."
Rotimi
now has to fit his partner, Tanzanian singer songwriter Vanessa Mdee, and their
two small children into his schedule. The couple met when they were performing
at Essence festival and it was love at first sight.
"It
was like a movie, the lights get dim, and she’s sitting on a pool table, she kind of looks at me and it’s like oh, what is going on!"
Rotimi
knew he was smitten when he found himself juggling the eight-hour time
difference with East Africa and hanging on the phone late into the night.
"'No,
you put the phone down! No, you put the phone down, you hang up',
I’m doing all that stuff… What the hell? I’m a player baby, I don’t do all
this, I’m a sex symbol!"
Rotimi
and Vanessa Mdee very deliberately share their lives on social media because
they are conscious of the need for role models.
"We
both know there’s not a lot of examples of black strong love and being able to
be in the industry like this and have a family and represent these things. We
feel like it’s a responsibility for us to show that it can be done - and still
be fly and still be cool, and still be sex symbols, baby!"
Rotimi’s
sense of responsibility extends to his music career,
"I’m
able to tour the Caribbean and I have a concert in Amsterdam, and doing an
Australia tour and have one of the biggest records in Nigeria, so like to
represent Africa around the world is the goal."
He adds: "The
challenge now that you have a little leverage is to know how to say no, and to
not sacrifice your morals, knowing how to discipline self, knowing how to block
out negativity from people. Getting up every day and trying to better and
better and better."
Facebook
Facebook
Twitter
Twitter
ShareView more share optionsShare this postCopy this linkRead more about these links.
ShareView more share optionsShare this postCopy this linkRead more about these links.
