NollyCulture

Happinezz Iz Everytin, Tonto Dike

Tonto Dike recently posted this on her Instagram page: I waz asked Wat I wntd to b wen I grew up, I replied I WANT TO b HAPPY* Dey looked at mii n said Child 'YOU DNT UNDERSTAND D QUEZTION* I Smiled n Replied "NO ITZ YA'LL WHO DON'T UNDERSTAND LIFE** #HAPPINEZZ IZ EVERYTIN 

Nollywood Creates 2 Million Jobs in 20 Years

Zulu

The Association of Movie Producers in Nigeria (AMP) says the film industry in Nigeria has created two million jobs plus in the last twenty years.

In a "Friends of Nollywood" award ceremony held on Saturday by the Abuja Chapter of AMP, the associations's President Zik Zulu said the upsurge in jobs in the billion-dollar industry has had a substantive impact on the nation's economy and its growth.

“Today, you have an industry that is worth over two billion dollars, employing over two million Nigerian youths, helping in a way to check the restive situation in the country,” Zulu told the audience, made up of industry players and sponsors.

Zulu further suggested that the Nigerian film industry has had a significant role in the shift in image that has taken place for Nigeria internationally. “This is a department of life that has done a lot to change the impression and the image of this country positively,” he said.

Zulu implores the government to continue to consistently fortify efforts to support Nollywood and acknowledge its impact on Nigeria. “I think the federal and state governments, and the private sector in Nigeria have to do more for Nollywood, because this is a department of this country’s life,” he said.

iROKOtv Exists for Nollywood to Survive, iROKOtv Boss

Abi Ishola, Co-host of Culture Shock: Nigerians in America, spoke to Jason Njoku, the founder and CEO of iROKOtv, at the company's office in New York City. Jason speaks on why he founded iROKOtv, discusses the $8 million investment he received to expand iROKOtv, explains how the money will benefit his company and the entire Nollywood industry, and also gives advice to young entrepreneurs in search of investment deals. And just how much is iROKOtv worth? Analysts say $30 million. Find out what Jason says.

Nollywood and Nigeria's Rebased Economy

The Time Of The Gross Domestic Producers By Okey Ndibe

That Nigeria has passed South Africa as Africa’s largest economy—when calculated by Gross Domestic Product—is almost old news.  The coverage of that feat afforded Nigeria’s image a rare shining moment in the foreign media. As Uri Friedman wrote in The Atlantic, “Something strange happened in Nigeria on Sunday: The economy nearly doubled, racking up hundreds of billions of dollars, ballooning to the size of the Polish and Belgian economies, and breezing by the South African economy to become Africa's largest. As days go, it was a good one.”

But many Nigerian pundits were far from impressed. Some were skeptical about the whole “re-basing” rhetoric. Some went as far as suggesting that Abuja fudged and rigged its way to first place. Others sought to restore perspective to the triumph by drawing attention to Nigeria’s perennial and persistent woes—among them a dismal infrastructure, scant electric power supply, run-away rates of unemployment, and miserable wages for the lowest brackets of workers.
 


In a piece provocatively titled “Okonjonomics Or When a Finance Minister Turns Money-Doubler,” Ogaga Ifowodo, a poet, professor, lawyer and political activist, cut to the heart of the matter. He wrote: “So if Nigerians went to bed in the night of Saturday, 5 April 2014, with N42.4 trillion naira in their collective pocket, and woke up the next day to their statistician-general’s revelation that they had grown richer by N37.8 trillion while they slept, wouldn’t they be fools to believe it if they remain as hungry and angry, homeless and jobless, as they were when they closed their eyes the night before? 

Writing in Igbo Language

Writing in the Igbo Language: Standards and Trends, by M. C. Onukawa

1.0      Preamble

Before the advent of Christian Missions in Igboland (through whose efforts the Igbo language was reduced to writing) Igbo, like several other Nigerian languages, had no written form. The Igbo language, literature, and culture were transmitted orally from parents to their children, adults to young ones, generation to generation. 

Children “were taught the history, geography, literature, civics, etc., of their people through stories, songs, myths, legends, and even contact with the environment” (Nwadike, 2008, p. 2). They were also taught different traditional trades and spheres of life in practical terms. 

The Igbo, however, had some esoteric sign writings through which they kept some accounts and records, and also preserved and transmitted some information (particularly secretly). There was also the NSIBIDI sign writing that was popular among the Igbo and their Ibibio neighbours.

1.1      Some Facts of Orthography

Orthography consists of the letters (i.e the alphabet) used in writing the sounds, as well as the rules that govern the spelling of words, phrases and sentences in a language.  A good orthography should therefore provide the following: the alphabet, the spelling rules, the punctuation marks and the rules governing their use. There are five recognized principles

that make a good orthography: accuracy, consistency, convenience, harmonization, and familiarity (Williamson, 1984).

Ramsey Nouah On Nollywwood, Career & More

SaharaTV crew caught up with Nollywood actor and director, Ramsey Nouah on the set of a movie shoot in Lagos. In this interview, Ramsey speaks about a range of issues including piracy, conflicts in the actors' guild, politics, his niche as "lover boy" character, controversy about his father and his educational background.

Pope Francis Shares Top 10 Secret To Happiness

Pope Francis smiles as he celebrates Mass at the Royal Palace of Caserta in Italy on July 26.

In an interview published in part in the Argentine weekly "Viva" July 27, the pope listed his Top 10 tips for bringing greater joy to one's life:

1. "Live and let live." Everyone should be guided by this principle, he said, which has a similar expression in Rome with the saying, "Move forward and let others do the same."

2. "Be giving of yourself to others." People need to be open and generous toward others, he said, because "if you withdraw into yourself, you run the risk of becoming egocentric. And stagnant water becomes putrid."

3. "Proceed calmly" in life. The pope, who used to teach high school literature, used an image from an Argentine novel by Ricardo Guiraldes, in which the protagonist -- gaucho Don Segundo Sombra -- looks back on how he lived his life.

And Then, Finally, Death Spoke... By Segun Adeniyi

Segun Adeniyi

Heralded in by drummers, it was clear to all those who were already seated, important dignitaries in their own rights, that the new entrant was a class above them. That was because for the first time, the master of the house, the great Death himself, stood up to receive a visitor whom he allowed to sit on the throne beside his.

Apparently worried that he might have lost his preeminent place in the Kingdom of Death, Terrorism stood up to speak: “Your Majesty, High Chief Prophet Death, Grand Commander of the Earth and all things beneath, I salute you. As all my colleagues here are quite aware, since 2009 when I scaled up my operation in Nigeria, nobody has given you as much blood as I have done yet I have never received the kind of attention you gave this JJC. In recent days, I have brought in the blood of several Nigerians: From the twin-bomb attack in Kaduna to my operations in Kano and Adamawa, now I serve you blood minute by minute. While I am not aware of the area of expertise of this agent who just came in, one thing I am sure of: In the territory called Nigeria, nobody has served your interest as diligently as I have done in the last couple of weeks...”

“Point of Information my Lord, Your Excellency”, someone interjected.  It was Strike. With Death nodding his spectre, Strike knew he had the permission to speak. “My advice is to Terrorism. He should please stick to what he knows. Yes, he has killed many Nigerians in recent days; I concede that to him. I even understand that he is now gradually turning one section of the country against another such that at the end of the day the people themselves would begin to do his job for him on a massive scale. That is very clever. But if he is talking about the amount of blood made available to Your Majesty in the last two weeks, I deserve commendation. Now that I have medical doctors working in public hospitals on my side, I supply more blood to this kingdom. Terrorism may kill with guns, knives, cudgels etc but the fact that he helps editors to sell their newspapers doesn’t mean he has done more harm in Nigeria than me. Unlike him, I do my work quietly and I do not inflict needless pains; I simply allow Nigerians to die on the hospital beds and they do so in droves without their people paying much attention. My formula in Nigeria today is simple: From the hospital ward to the mortuary--a seamless journey!”

Don't Be A Follower, Don Jazzy

Don Jazzy

In recent interview with Yes Classics, multiple award-winning Nigerian music producer and CEO of Mavin Records, Don Jazzy advises young artistes to invest time in building their individual brands.

Yes Classics: Where do you think that most up and coming artistes get it wrong; where do you think they miss the point?

Don Jazzy: Nowadays, their [up and coming artistes'] eyes are too big (laughs). They have big eyes; they don't want to crawl before they start running. They want to jump straight from birth to university; they don't want to go to nursery school, primary school, secondary school. They just want to graduate instantly and it doesn't work like that. 

All fingers are not equal. Some people might get it right from the word go, but almost everybody they see they think that oh, they just came into the industry and made it. They don't know how much struggle they've put in behind the scene before they made it. They just assume, but it's not that easy. 

So, they should try as much as possible to study the entertainment industry a bit more before they just jump in and they should also perfect their craft. Don't try to copy people, don't be a follower, reinvent yourself--be somebody that is going to start a trend, don't just jump on another's trend. You'd just be the second best. 

What else? They believe the hype too quick. Just because you put your download link on Twitter and the people in your [housing] estate download your music and they hail you in the morning when you come outside doesn't mean the person in Surulere knows who you are. And you expect to go to the club and fight the bouncer because he doesn't recognize you. "You no know me? I'm the person that put up this download link yesterday" (general laughter).

RMD Receives "Dike Oha na Nollywood" Title

Veteran Nollywood actor and Delta State Commissioner for Culture and Tourism, Richard Mofe-Damijo (RMD), will be honored with the “Dike Oha na Nollywood” chieftaincy title at the 2014 4th Nollywood Igbo Film Festival in Asaba, Delta State.

The founder of the festival, Nze Harris Chuma said RMD deserves the "people's warrior" title, having paid his dues as one of the celebrated actors in Nollywood.

According to Chuma, the three–day festival which holds from August 27th through 30th is designed to “help film makers reach the broadest possible audience, enable the international film community and general public to experience the power of cinema and promote Asaba city in Delta State as a major filmmaking centre.”

NollyCulture Launched

Welcome to the NollyCulture blog, the discourse arena for everything Nollywood, everything Africa. NollyCulture explores the critical socio-cultural questions at the intersection of media, religion, and culture, with particular emphasis on contemporary Africa (continental and Diaspora) as framed and portrayed by Nollywood--the Nigerian film industry.

In little over its twenty-years existence, Nollywood has become Africa's most dominant and transnationally accessible expression of popular culture, telling African stories, with African voices, to African (and growing global) audiences.

Africans are said to be notoriously religious; and religion plays complex roles within cultures. NollyCulture therefore concerns itself primarily with how Nollywood articulates, frames and portrays Africa and the Diaspora through the creative tension within and between religion and culture.

Sometimes it's subtle and at other times brazen in its representations, raising for itself admirers and critics in equal measures. But Nollywood never shies away from its message: religious and socio-cultural normative forms underpin the framing of the discourse, the language, and the representation of gender, class, and power in Africa.

Let's talk Nollywood then--its movies, narratives, and stakeholders (actors, producers, marketers, audiences, etc.). Let's discuss Africa--its peoples, cultures, and societies. Bring your passion for Nollywood and for Africa. Have your say. Express your opinions. Show some love. Agree. Disagree. But don't hate on anybody.