October 8^th 20.00, Kulturhuset Oceanen

The young British jazz band Sons of Kemet must be experienced live. As newspaper The Guardian wrote about their latest album from 2015, Lest We Forget What We Came Here To Do: “Sons of Kemet related his audience already two years ago, and they do it even better now.

There are influences from Africa and the Caribbean, there are classical jazz, ther’s dub, there’s rock, there are references to literature and political awareness. This super band won in 2013, the same year as the debut album Burn came, “Best Jazz Act” at The Music of Black Origin Awards. They have nominated to Urban Music Awards and Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Awards. And 8^th of October, they come to Gothenburg for an intense, energetic and intimate gig at Oceanen.

Two of Sweden’s most challenging DJs, Elena Wolay and Mai Nestor will open and close the evening. Elena is a record mogul of the highest order and has probably rooted in most vinyl crates south of Kiruna. Jazz is her god, punk is her satan and electro is something in between. In addition to the abuse of vinyl, she runs her club fanzine and record label Jazz är Farligt (Jazz is Dangerous). Her DJ set pry your ears out of place, and recalls that the music can be dangerous, ugly and totally sick and most wonderful. Mai with a taste for the obscure and early electro, she offers a wide range of genres in her eclectic DJ sets and mixtapes. She is also the second half of synthduo Facit.

Mbongwana Star, 18 August 2016, hrs 19.30-20.45, Kungstorget, Göteborg.

In a few hours it’s time for Waed Bouhassoun’s concert at Bottna Kulturkyrka. We will walk there together from Botnik Studios. Jorge Alcaide will lead the way with his flute, meeting point is the installation Fl g Tr nsp r nt in the middle of Botnik Studios. See you there at 23.00!

In 2008 the blogger and Journalist Afrah Nasser from Yemen became the first female reporter at the Yemen Observer. As she wasn’t allowed to write about politics she started a blog which adressed the situation in Yemen. The blog lead to persecution and threats, and finally forced her to leave Yemen. Afrah Nasser now resides in Gothenburg where she was granted political asylum, and where she recently received her Masters in Communication.

Afrah Nasser has been awarded the Dawit Isaak-award as well as the “Pennsskaftspriset” for her work for democracy and freedom of speech. In 2015 Arabian Business ranked her as  15 out of the 100 most powerfull people in the Arab world and CNN has called her blog one of the ten most important in the Middle East.

On Thursday she joins artist Juan delGado in stage for a conversation about movement, identity and art as a political tool.