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 Culture / Re: Mixed People Arent Black- Must Listen by anonymous6(f): 6:36pm On May 15 |
PAPA AFRICA: and as far as i know this only happens in the Americas, Africans don't claim mixed raced people. i read an interview of a old Nigerian artist and james brown had come to visit and they asked him why his wife was white but she was actually mixed and James began to cry claiming that she aint white. she wasn't but to the Nigerians all half castes were white. c/s 100% you are right, the one drop rule doesn't exist in Nigeria or in Africa in general. If somebody is mixed, in west africa, particularly Nigeria they are labeled half-caste, mixed race, or white. For example former president of Ghana Jerry Rawlings who contributed to Ghana's progression has been called half-caste or mixed race racially despite the fact that he is Ghanian by nationality(and culturally to a extent) and respected by most Ghanians politically. Or Sade, many Nigerians are fans of her music, and despite the fact she was born in Nigeria(but raised in England), she is consider mixed race by Nigerians. I don't know why somali5 put this topic in this forum 4 Likes |
| Celebrities / Re: Angelina Jolie Bans Her Kids From Listening To Rihanna's Songs by anonymous6(f): 6:31pm On May 14 |
lalaosky: Good for her but I am a little surprised |
| Celebrities / Re: Angelina Jolie Reveals Double Mastectomy (Bosom Removal) by anonymous6(f): 6:28pm On May 14 |
Kudo's to angelina, a beautiful and good actress. She chose her health for her sake and for the sake of her children(so they won't go through what she went through when she lost her mother). |
| TV/Movies / Iroko's Jason Njoku Is Creating The Next Netflix In Nigeria by anonymous6(f): 6:22pm On May 14 |
He was just a poor kid from London, but Jason Njoku has masterminded the African equivalent of Netflix. "Four years ago, Jason Njoku sat down with his old friend Bastian Gotter and told him about an investment opportunity in Nigeria, a precious resource that was sitting there, just waiting to be exploited: movies. Despite their crude quality and cruder distribution system, Nigerian films are wildly popular in Africa, yet they are dirt cheap to acquire and distribute. Njoku proposed buying the rights and streaming the films online. He only needed some money to get started. "I was thinking, This sounds like one of those emails," Gotter says--the kind from a princeling who promises you easy riches as soon as you give him your bank account number. Most investors wouldn't dare venture onto the continent, for all the obvious reasons: instability, corruption, rampant piracy, substandard infrastructure. Njoku, in fact, was nearly as nervous as his friend. "It was like, Danger, danger, this is pretty crazy," he recalls. But he and Gotter ignored the perils and created Iroko Partners, one of the first successes of Nigeria's embryonic tech scene--a startup that aspires to be Africa's Netflix, but without red envelopes, or real competitors. By the time I first met him in 2011, at his cramped and sweaty Lagos headquarters, Njoku (pronounced in-JOKE-oo), a burly, boastful 32-year-old, had become the talk of Nollywood, Nigeria's movie industry. His office, decorated with giant photos of Nollywood stars, was crowded with young employees at flat-screen computers, busily assembling a database of the site's offerings, titles such as Campus Girls and Lord of the Game. As we talked, an assistant interrupted frequently and handed Njoku stacks of videos, and he would scribble out a check or produce a wad of Nigerian bank notes: content acquisition, African style. He was buying up entire catalogs from local movie producers. "Under a very thin veil of creativity, it's about 'I need to get my money,'" Njoku said. "We will shout, we will scream, we will have arguments. But there are deals to be done." Indeed there are, and Njoku isn't the only one trying to make them. The poorest continent lags the rest of the world by every measure of development, but to a brave and growing band of tech entrepreneurs, it represents a last frontier. Internet access is expanding rapidly in Africa, especially in Nigeria, which, along with the country's oil-fueled economic growth, has made it a destination for investment. The technology sector is also drawing strength from a recession-driven influx of young returnees with Nigerian roots like Njoku, who was born in Britain. As local technology entrepreneur Ayo Alli says, "Things are moving very fast in Lagos." Given the difficulty of obtaining reliable financial information of any kind in Africa, it's hard to know exactly how much money Nollywood generates. In 2011, the World Bank came up with an estimate of $500 million in annual legal revenue--a tiny sum compared to the $16 billion that the bank said Hollywood contributes to the California economy in a year, but enough to make the movie industry Nigeria's fourth-largest economic sector. Yet the report also estimated that distribution failures and piracy were costing Nollywood hundreds of millions a year in revenues, consigning the country's moviemakers to a vicious circle of low budgets and artistic frustration. Njoku says he knows how to fix this problem. Raised by a single mother in a council flat in southeast London (he never knew his father), Njoku dresses like a techie and talks like a character in a Guy Ritchie film. He left London to study chemistry at the University of Manchester, where he shared a flat with Gotter, a classmate from Germany. "I've never met someone with such infinite belief in himself," Gotter says. Gotter went on to help Njoku with a few of his early enterprises, including a party-promotion venture in nightclubs and a magazine called Brash, which touted itself as "Manchester's quintessential guide to frolicking and fashion." After the magazine died, Njoku started a network of blogs intended to appeal to upwardly mobile professionals; it had the misfortune to launch the week that Lehman Brothers collapsed. Njoku was forced to move back into his mother's apartment. "It was largely acknowledged," he says now, "that I was an absolute, complete failure." But defeat led to a revelation. Njoku says he noticed a change in his mother's television viewing habits. When he was growing up, she mostly watched British soaps; now she was avidly consuming entertainment from her home country--Nollywood movies. During the 2000s, the Nigerian industry had exploded, becoming the largest in the world measured by number of releases. The films, which are produced almost exclusively for the video market, feature histrionic acting and overwrought plots involving infidelity, murder, and witchcraft. "My first impulse was 'These production values are just terrible,'" Njoku says. When he looked past the melodrama and the poor quality, Njoku recognized a business opportunity. The Nigerian video distribution system is incredibly inefficient. It starts at a rambunctious outdoor market on the fringes of Lagos called Alaba, where so-called marketers--wholesaler dealers who sometimes double as movie financiers--sell discs in bulk to a network of regional traders. They, in turn, pass the discs through the supply chain until they end up with street-corner hawkers, who retail them for the equivalent of a dollar or two. The discs his mother watched arrive at London's African groceries in overstuffed suitcases or via a rudimentary overseas rights market controlled by small-time DVD merchants. Outside of Africa, though, Nollywood releases were often hard to find, so movie fans in the overseas diaspora had taken to sharing movies on YouTube, chopping them into 10-minute increments to get around time limits the service then imposed. The uploads violated copyright, but no one in Nollywood was complaining, because YouTube didn't reach their African consumers. Poking around, Njoku could see that the unauthorized streams were getting tens of thousands of views. He wondered: What if he served this audience, but legally, and sold ads against the content? That's when he persuaded Gotter to give him a few hundred pounds, and he flew to Lagos to search for movie producers. Despite his parentage, Njoku had visited Nigeria only a few times. As a newcomer, he was stunned when he wandered into Alaba market. It was an entertainment bazaar, its stalls piled high with both Nigerian movies and pirated American films and TV shows. Early on, he learned that Nollywood is a close-knit business--"lots of brothers and cousins and people who come from the same village," Njoku says. As word spread that he was paying cash for content, marketers started showing up at his office, carrying shoeboxes and plastic bags filled with Nollywood classics. He presented himself as a friend, not a competitor, because his audience was abroad. Even more important, he could offer them another revenue stream in a world of rampant piracy, where new releases are knocked off almost immediately, rendering them almost worthless within weeks or even days. It's often hard to tell the genuine discs from the bootlegs, and they are priced comparably, because legal content must sell cheap if it wants to compete. As a consequence, the idea of a long-tail business had never occurred to anyone at Alaba. Njoku was able to acquire 200 titles, paying marketers between $100 and $1,000 a title for licenses of varying duration. He launched a website called Nollywood Love and struck a content partnership with YouTube, which hosted his streams and inserted commercials into them, giving Njoku a murkily defined cut of the ad revenue. To get bigger, Njoku needed real money. He got a break in 2011, when technology writer Sarah Lacy visited Njoku and produced a hair-raising account of his interactions with the volatile Alaba crowd for the blog TechCrunch. Shortly afterward, Njoku heard from Nazar Yasin, an executive at multibillion-dollar hedge-fund firm Tiger Global Management. Tiger Global invested primarily in technology--it was an early backer of Facebook--and it was looking for opportunities in Africa. The hedge fund's team visited Njoku's Lagos headquarters and liked what they saw. The result was an $8 million financing round, which also included the Swedish investment firm Kinnevik. Njoku used around $5 million of the money to amass the rights to some 5,000 films--what the company claims is "the largest legally assembled library on planet Earth" of Nollywood content. Not everyone in Lagos sees Iroko's strategy as benevolent. "They bleed us white!" shouts Paul Obazele, a veteran actor and producer, when I ask him about Njoku's website. Like many on the creative side of Nollywood, he equates all video streaming with piracy. And while Obazele speaks in Nollywood-style hyperbole, he points out a real conflict. Nigerian law is ambiguous about who retains ownership of a movie's copyright--the producers who created the film or the marketers who financed it--though as a practical matter the financiers usually end up holding the master copy and thus control of the film. Most Nigerian movie deals are oral agreements anyway; an academic described the industry to me as "Hollywood without contracts." As a result, producers and financiers can, and often do, make competing claims on the same intellectual property, with little chance for legal redress. Many Nollywood tycoons started out by selling black-market copies of Hollywood releases; shooting their own movies was simply an inexpensive way to acquire fresh content. Legitimate marketers also produce a continual flood of new titles in an attempt to outmaneuver pirates. But though original fare now represents the lion's share of Alaba's business, the legal and illegal markets still coexist. Within Nigeria, disputes about rights are usually handled informally, through cash payments or muscle, but in the developed world, legitimacy, ironically enough, brings legal hassles. So before it acquires a movie, Iroko requires the seller to produce proof that he owns the copyright, and it videotapes the transaction, just in case things end up in court. "We try as much as possible to document as much as possible," says Tope Lucas, Iroko's Lagos-based attorney. She recalls one impostor who went so far as to splice his name into a movie's opening credits as executive producer. The company busted him, and Lucas contends that Iroko has dealt with only a handful of infringement claims. Nollywood insiders are skeptical that Njoku can catch every fraudulent assertion of ownership, given the industry's careless standards and the country's endemic corruption. "They take the cash, and they sign something," says one entertainment industry investor. "But where's the chain of title?" Njoku says his rights are unassailable, and he has been aggressive in defending them. He began by trying to remove unauthorized clips from YouTube and other sites, filing notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). When a competitor started a copycat website called irokotvmovies.com, Njoku filed a complaint with the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization, which shut down the site for trademark infringement. And last year, he brought a suit in U.S. federal court alleging that a Nigerian living in Georgia was illegally streaming movies owned by Iroko. (The competitor claims he had obtained rights to the content.) Njoku says that his targets have retaliated with dirty tricks, such as filing spurious DMCA notices, causing problems with his web hosts and occasionally disabling Iroko's ads. At the same time, Njoku was struggling with YouTube, his distribution partner. Although his site generated 150 million views in 2011 and $1.3 million in advertising, Njoku felt that YouTube executives treated him with indifference, and he was annoyed by the heightened scrutiny of any transaction involving a Nigerian IP address. So last year, he decided to build his own platform. The move was daring. Going it alone meant Iroko would have to give up YouTube's built-in audience and replace infrastructure that Google had provided for free. The company refuses to disclose its page views or revenue as a stand-alone site, but Gotter does say that storing movies in the cloud brought new back-end costs of more than $1 million a year. Still, the gamble could pay off if Njoku can expand his reach in Africa. Around 90% of Iroko's traffic today comes from the estimated 30 million African emigrants spread throughout the world. Njoku aims to reverse that proportion. The obstacle, as usual, is infrastructure. Only a tiny fraction of consumers in Africa have broadband connections, or their own computers, for that matter; many rely on Internet cafes. And the pipes to carry the video streams back to Africa from overseas, where Iroko has its servers, aren't yet robust enough for heavy traffic. Yet the history of the Internet in the developed world suggests the rewards go to companies that position themselves when the technology is still impractical. And Njoku feels the trends are in his favor. A study by McKinsey & Co. estimates that the number of Internet users in sub-Saharan Africa has more than doubled since 2008, to 118 million. Telecom companies are also investing billions to bring undersea fiber-optic cables ashore, with capacity expected to triple or quadruple soon, so streaming videos stored abroad should become more feasible. Along with the move toward self-reliance, Iroko has shifted from a free-content business model to a subscription-based hybrid. "The industry cannot be built on free. People need to pay," Njoku tells me, sounding every bit the content entrepreneur, as we have lunch on the Lower East Side in New York. His new site still has thousands of free titles but offers a Netflix-style premium option for $5 a month, giving users access to first-run movies. The company has opened offices in Johannesburg, New York, and London; for the moment, at least, the developed world is where the money is--Iroko's venture capital and customer base alike. Njoku is now hurrying to adapt to new channels. Just as Africans leapfrogged landlines--65% are mobile subscribers--most experts expect them to skip over PCs and consume video exclusively via mobile. Last April, Nigeria's dominant cell phone service, the South African giant MTN, began promoting an Android app called Afrinolly, which directs users to free movie streams on YouTube and other sites. Njoku says Afrinolly has infuriated his partners, the marketers, who make nothing from the arrangement and are discovering that their consumers are loath to pay for content that they can find for free. His response? The threat of another lawsuit. He accuses Afrinolly of "illegally building their business on our content." (Afrinolly declined to comment on the claim.) Njoku says he is only protecting the interests of the industry, which cannot continue to produce the content he relies on without the revenue it generates primarily from physical sales. That sentiment hasn't kept him from experimenting with iPhone and iPad apps, which are still in development, as well as launching a platform for Nokia devices. If Iroko's future is in Africa, it's also in mobile, meaning that someday soon Njoku, too, will be competing with the anarchic marketplace of Alaba. Three years after arriving in Lagos, an outsider in all but name, Njoku is now a Nollywood mogul. In August, he married actress Mary Remmy, star of the hit comedy Blackberry Babes, and he talks of expanding the Iroko brand into in-flight movies, satellite television, music, and other forms of entertainment. "No one is close to being our equal in Africa," Njoku says. During our lunch, when I casually mention his Netflix model, he corrects me. He's now thinking bigger. "Viacom," he says. "We love content, and we want to figure out the best ways to do it. The Internet is just the easiest." He feels no need, anymore, to apologize for being an African company. "They always paint us with a guilty Nigerian brush, so we have to say, just look at our numbers," Njoku says. "What happens if a billion people come online? What happens to our numbers then?" http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/174/the-netflix-of-nigeria |
| Foreign Affairs / Re: Least Visited Countries In The World by anonymous6(f): 6:17pm On May 14 |
*Kails*: Jamaica is too beautiful to be in the list, I even knew that Nigeria wouldn't be in the list. Some of the countries they mentioned I am not surprised though, sad but true |
| TV/Movies / Re: 'why Can't Black Filmmakers In The USA Adopt The Nollywood Model' Question by anonymous6(f): 3:52pm On May 13 |
omar22: Nollywood is still progressing so to judge them as if they are hollywood doesn't make sense |
| Culture / Re: What Are The Top 5 Black Cultural Foods/Cuisines To You? by anonymous6(f): 3:49pm On May 13 |
| Foreign Affairs / Re: First Woman To Be In America's Most Wanted Terrorist List by anonymous6(f): 11:19am On May 03 |
wales774: Assata shaukur that's tupac shakurs god mother, usa pls leave her alone,abeg.. Do know ow many blacks did d government killed that time So true, I think America should concentrate on people that are actually going to harm them. |
| TV/Movies / Re: 'why Can't Black Filmmakers In The USA Adopt The Nollywood Model' Question by anonymous6(f): 11:16am On May 03 |
baby-boy: I guess what we can agree on is we have different taste and preference's when it comes to Nollywood |
| Culture / Re: Was Mansa-musa Really A Great Man? by anonymous6(f): 11:39pm On May 02 |
pleep: There is hardly a black man on this earth who can keep money past 2 generations. Black men like Aliko Dangote are showing that is changing |
| Foreign Affairs / First Woman To Be In America's Most Wanted Terrorist List by anonymous6(f): 8:16pm On May 02 |
"NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — The reward for the capture and return of a fugitive member of a black militant group convicted of murdering a New Jersey state trooper was doubled to $2 million Thursday on the 40th anniversary of the bloody gun battle. The FBI also announced it has made Joanne Chesimard, now living in Cuba as Assata Shakur, the first woman on its list of most wanted terrorists. "She continues to flaunt her freedom in the face of this horrific crime," State Police Superintendent Col. Rick Fuentes said at a news conference Thursday. Fuentes called the case "an open wound" for troopers in New Jersey and around the country. The Justice Dept. has maintained a $1 million reward for information leading to her capture. The additional money is being put up by the state of New Jersey through civil and criminal forfeiture funds and won't fall on taxpayers, state Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa said Thursday. Chesimard, a member of the violent Black Liberation Army, was convicted of the 1973 murder of state trooper Werner Foerster during a traffic stop. The BLA was responsible for killing more than a dozen police officers in the 1970s and 80s, said Aaron Ford, special agent in charge of the FBI's Newark division. According to Fuentes, Foerster and his partner stopped a car carrying Chesimard and two cohorts on the New Jersey Turnpike for a broken tail light. When the troopers approached the car, a gunfight ensued and both troopers were injured. Chesimard then allegedly took Foerster's gun and shot him twice in the head as he lay on the ground. She was convicted in 1977 but escaped from prison in New Jersey in November 1979 with the help of accomplices. She spent the next few years living in safe houses, two of which were in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, before surfacing in Cuba in 1984, Fuentes said. In Cuba, Chesimard has continued to espouse her anti-U.S. views in speeches advocating "revolution and terrorism" and may have connections to other international terrorist organizations, Ford said. "She is a domestic terrorist who murdered a law enforcement officer execution style," he said. "And while we can't right the wrongs of the past, we can and will continue to pursue justice no matter how long it takes." Chesimard is believed to be one of dozens of American fugitives living in Cuba, many of them one-time members of U.S. militant groups. Cuba doesn't haven an extradition agreement with the U.S. due to the chilly relations between the two countries over the last five decades, but the climate appears to be slowly changing. In recent years, Cuba has deported some fugitives back to the U.S., including one man convicted of mail fraud and another sought on child Indecency charges. This month, the country returned a Florida couple accused in a custody dispute of kidnapping their two children and sailing to Cuba. Authorities said Thursday they hope the increased attention and reward will convince someone to come forward. "Our resolve to capture Joanne Chesimard does not diminish with the passage of time," Chiesa said. "Instead, it grows stronger with the knowledge that this killer continues to be free. Our hope is the augmented reward will spur action that will bring Joanne Chesimard back to face the justice she has evaded for far too long." http://news.yahoo.com/nj-troopers-killer-named-most-wanted-terrorist-150014544.html |
| Celebrities / Re: Doris Simeon Exclusive Interview by anonymous6(f): 8:13pm On May 02 |
kokoye: A lady with common sense...and she's pretty too another issue entirely, I wouldn't blame God for it, but yes you are right she is pretty and deserves better |
| Celebrities / Nollywood actress Funke Akindele Signs Multimillion Deal by anonymous6(f): 8:04pm On May 02 |
"2013 is already looking promising for actress, Funke Akindele as she has signed an endorsement deal with Nigeria’s top jobs search website Jobberman. HVP gathered that the deal was signed last December and would last for one year. Funke, popularly called Jenifa will act as brand ambassador for the IT company. It was not immediately ascertained how much she was paid, but those who were in the know said, it was a mouth-watering deal. ‘Being Nigeria’s number one Jobs website, we realised that there is a need to reach out to a set of people that are not aware of the existence and usefulness of Jobberman’, said an official of the company. ‘With over 500,000 registered users, a large number of active users of the internet are aware of Jobberman but the set of people we are targeting now basically visit Facebook and check mails only’. Akindele, 36, is expected to appear in TV commercials and record radio ads. She will also make appearances at her Jenifa Foundation as well as Jobberman events." http://theafricaneconomist.com/funke-akindele-nollywood-actress-signs-multimillion-deal/#.UYK4VEpv6RM |
| TV/Movies / Re: 'why Can't Black Filmmakers In The USA Adopt The Nollywood Model' Question by anonymous6(f): 7:43pm On May 02 |
NOLLYWOOD MOVIES THAT HAVE PROGRESSED: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBmbd2-7zAI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKNF_xJfLpE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC_un9NgnG0 |
| TV/Movies / Re: 'why Can't Black Filmmakers In The USA Adopt The Nollywood Model' Question by anonymous6(f): 7:40pm On May 02 |
baby-boy: yup but these movies are black ameircan movies, for americans not Nigerians or africans in general. Different strokes for different folks, Nollywood is still progressing and is better then how it was decades ago. I'd rather watch yoruba movies then boys N the hood. |
| TV/Movies / Re: 'why Can't Black Filmmakers In The USA Adopt The Nollywood Model' Question by anonymous6(f): 7:38pm On May 02 |
baby-boy: Nigeria's Nollywood eclipsing Hollywood in Africa "It's a paradox. As cinemas close across Africa, homegrown blockbusters are actually eclipsing Hollywood on the African market as for the first time in 13 years an African feature competes for the top award at Cannes. This weekend, "A Screaming Man" by Chad director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun joins 18 other movies selected to contend for the prestigious Palme d'Or, awarded May 23 at the close of the 12-day film festival. Yet cinemas across the continent are pulling down screens, converted to pentecostal churches, night clubs or warehouses. The average rate of closure is estimated at one a month - an endemic trend blamed on ticket prices too high for the average African as well as on the proliferation of cheap pirated DVDs at any street corner. Around 50 cinemas remain in business - most in South Africa and Kenya with a few in Nigeria - thanks to mushrooming city shopping malls. In Ivory Coast, west Africa's cultural crossroads, "cinema is dying, if it is not dead already", said award-winning producer Roger Gnoan M'Bala. In Senegal, home to some of the continent's most renowned early filmmakers such as the late Ousmane Sembene, cinemas have all but shut down. "Senegal is one big black screen," said local weekly La Gazette. A vestige of film resistance in West Africa is the Oscars' equivalent, FESPACO, Africa's biggest film festival held every two years in Burkina Faso. But Africa's most populous country Nigeria 18 years ago burst into production with affordable movies now shot with digital cameras that shun the more expensive classical 35mm format. Known as Nollywood, the Nigerian movie industry has in recent years galloped ahead of Hollywood to be ranked second in the world in production terms after India's Bollywood. A UNESCO study last year placed Nollywood second to Bollywood in terms of the numbers of films produced, with Hollywood trailing in third position. In 2006 for example, Nigeria churned out 872 productions against 485 in the United States. Film-makers say the digital camera has helped boost African film production, with Nigerians releasing what some dub "microwave" movies that can be ready in under a month. Nollywood "has taken over completely" from Hollywood, said Nigeria's film producer and director Teco Benson, saying it is the latest "superpower" in the movie industry. "It's Africa's new rebranding tool". The good news is that African film-lovers go for Nollywood. "Africans watch more Nollywood than Hollywood," commented another local director and producer Zeb Ejiro. Most Nollywood movies depict societal ills - corruption, fraud, drugs and human trafficking, love triangles and witchcraft - and almost all go for happy endings. One reason for Nollywood's popularity lies with South Africa-based pay television MultiChoice. It has four 24-hour channels dedicated to African content, predominantly Nigeria productions. Two of the channels run movies in two of Nigeria's main languages, Yoruba and Hausa. But in poor neighbourhoods, shacks with old TV screens placed on dusty alleys or verandas pass for video viewing centres. Bootleg copies sell for a couple of dollars across the continent. In central Africa, Nollywood movies are the only ones sold by market vendors as "African movies", with the Nigerian productions dubbed into French in such countries as Cameroon and Gabon. In Kenya, Nigerian films are also a hit - many of them broadcast on terrestrial networks - but face competition from Bollywood due to a historic large Indian population in the eastern African country. Nollywood films are also immensely popular in Sierra Leone, to the extent of choking the growth of the country's own movie industry, said Thomas Jones, a radio play scriptwriter. "Nollywood has hampered the growth of the local film market because my contemporaries have just resigned themselves to watching these films from Nigeria," he said. More affluent South Africa on the other hand has seen a growth in its movie sector since the end of apartheid, and Neill Blomkamp's science fiction "District 9" was this year nominated for an Oscar. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nollywood is "very popular on television" after being dubbed into the local Lingala dialect, according to Petna Ndaliko, a local organiser of the five-year film festival in the eastern town of Goma. And even in the tiniest of African countries such as Gambia, "Nollywood is ahead of Hollywood", said Nigerian businessman Barnabas Eset, who since 2000 has been renting out both Nollywood and Hollywood movies." http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/nigerias-nollywood-eclipsing-hollywood-in-africa-1974087.html |
| Culture / Re: Why Many Nollywood Movies Cannot Make Hollywood Box Office by anonymous6(f): 7:37pm On May 02 |
tpia@: Drugs & murder was involved in the storyline but it wasn't the synopsis of the story, the synopsis of the story was about the struggles of two african sisters from Nigeria, and their journey to America, and how America isn't as milk and honey as people think, and one sister paid for it. I never got to watch the movie but based on the research i read about the movie that is what I concluded. here's the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBmbd2-7zAI |
| Celebrities / Re: Last Name Drama: Kanye Sad Over Kim K's Refusal To Change Her Last Name. by anonymous6(f): 6:07pm On May 01 |
Kim kardashian did the samething with Kris Humphries and stated her reasoning for it on national TV so this shouldn't be a surprise to Kanye. Maybe their child he can have power on the last name but on Kim he is wasting his time. Don't feel sorry for him, and I don't see their relationship lasting but lets hope they are good parents and role models to their future child. |
| Celebrities / Re: My Happiest Moment Was The Birth Of My Daughter, Destiny – Bisi Ibidapo-obe by anonymous6(f): 5:57pm On May 01 |
Congratulations to her, now I would like her to settle down and be in more movies |
| Celebrities / Re: Gwyneth Paltrow Voted World's Most-Beautiful Woman by anonymous6(f): 5:56pm On May 01 |
It makes you wonder who makes these decisions on who is most beautiful because Gwenyth paltrow is far from that title as far as I am concerned |
| TV/Movies / Re: 'why Can't Black Filmmakers In The USA Adopt The Nollywood Model' Question by anonymous6(f): 2:03pm On May 01 |
omar22: Just because we Nigerian accept rubbish, doesnt mean the rest of the world should do it.... everybody is entitled to their opinion, the article says otherwise from what you are saying, nobody here said Nollywood is perfect but some blacks in America are looking towards Nollywood way. and for a article to bring up this topic that means many other people are feeling that to. |
| Celebrities / Re: Prince William and Kate Middleton! What They Could Look Like In The Next 50 Yrs! by anonymous6(f): 4:35am On May 01 |
William I can see it but the picture for Kate is over-exaggerated, she will still look youthful looking to me |
| Celebrities / Re: Tyra Banks Talks About Her Relationship With Boyfriend John Utendahl by anonymous6(f): 4:29am On May 01 |
Orikinla: Tyra Banks is the Most Popular Model On Social Media interesting thanks for the info |
| Celebrities / Re: Barack Obama Dislikes His Daughters Watching The Kardashian Reality Show by anonymous6(f): 4:23am On May 01 |
oluwadare26: But likes his daughters when they watch Beyonce perform semi-unclad kulyie: abi o,talking about hypocrisy and double standard.am sure beyonce is a better role model than kim,that reminds me some 2 or 3 years back i saw beyonce's Unclad body here on nairaland,its a pity i cant find it,ill have posted it here.she was completely Unclad,no pant no bra.i was shocked to my bones.i saw another picture of her where she was entertaining her audience sitting down and she spread her 2 legs so wide for her audience to see what jay.z is browsing.am not bringing beyonce down but if you say you dont want your kids watching 'keeping up with the kardashians' because its not educative,is beyonce's 'irreplacable song and ,single ladies etc' are they informative,do they add to the intellect seeing semi Unclad women dancing,shaking their bom bom for the camera and opening their legs.abeg spare me joor if you were even saying you allow your kids to only watch cnn,bbc,aljazera,religious stations and disney cartoons,e for don better you guys have a point, but I guess since beyonce and jay-z raised money for his campaign for his second term he has a little biased view towards beyonce then kim |
| Celebrities / Re: Who Are The Top Ten Richest Nollywood Actresses? by anonymous6(f): 4:15am On May 01 |
ok, I wanted to make a updated list of the richest Nollywood actresses RIGHT NOW(2013) based on sources, how you interpret it is up to you: it has been reported Funke Akindele is the richest Nollywood actress as of 2013: http://www.osundefender.org/?p=84801 in 2012 it was reported Kate Henshaw was the richest Nollywood actress in the top ten list: http://allafricancinema.com/list-of-top-earning-nollywood-actresses-2012/ BUT there was a recent list of the top ten richest nollywood actresses of 2013, and guess what, I saw Kate Henshaw as number one again not Ini Edo: http://answersafrica.com/10-richest-nigerian-nollywood-actresses.html Now I am assuming that Kate must the richest for the english nollywood industry, while Funke Akindele is the richest in the yoruba nollywood industry, the richest between the two I don't know but I would assume Funke Akindele. |
| Celebrities / The Richest Nollywood Actress Of 2013? by anonymous6(f): 4:00am On May 01 |
"The popular Funke Akindele is a talented Yoruba movie actress who rose to fame in ‘I Need To Know’, a TV series that enlightened youths about HIV/AIDS. However, the Nollywood star cemented her stardom in the Nigerian film industry with her amazing performance in her rib cracking movie ‘Jenifa’. This movie cuts across all social groups with the street parlance in it becoming the mode of communication at social gatherings. Many folks now says ‘Yelz’ instead of Yes, ‘Big Gehs’ instead of Big Girls, ‘Parry’ instead of Party, etc. So far, Funke has earned over 56 Million Naira, netting about 20 Million Naira in 2012 alone. Her movie ‘The Return of Jenifa’ brought 35 Million Naira to her coffers. ‘Maami’ (Starring Funke Akindele, Ayomide Abatti and Wole Ojo. Produced by Tunde Kelani ) made 11 Million naira. Funke was also the lead for the flick ‘Married But Living Single’ which grossed 9.9 Million Naira. Another movie which she’s part of is the upcoming ‘A Wish’ and industry buffs are already hoping it will become a box office success. With all these facts and numbers, the question about Funke Akindele being the richest Yoruba actress can be said to have been addressed. Funke is undeniably very rich and to cap her success, the highly creative actress got married in 2012! " http://www.osundefender.org/?p=84801 Funke Akindele  |
| Celebrities / Re: Who Are The Top Ten Richest Nollywood Actresses? by anonymous6(f): 3:34am On May 01 |
bbexcel: So you all believe this crap of a list. Una no reason am say no right thinking. Nollywood actors/actress would actually reveal how much they are worth. You want armed robbers to start chasing them abi? If am to believe the list Omotola should be at the number one spot. I go by the source and that source was back in 2011, the same source that mentioned about famous people like Aliko Dangote and genevieve Nnaji, so that source seems reliable to me, so I guess I will believe that list you call crap. I don't want any armed robbers to be chasing them but if the media is already reporting this all to millions of people, they already have spread the news, so me posting this on nairaland back then would make no difference. So maybe you should complain to every media outlet reporting this then me posting it on nairaland. Based on your thinking I guess you are going to be angry with CNN and other news outlets that talked about Aliko Dangote, and question or accuse people who post what the media says about them of attracting robbers to them, lol If you want to believe Omotola is number one well OK, but I go by facts not what I feel should be the number one, here is the source, that I posted when I did this thread back in 2011, where you can complain to them: http://allafrica.com/stories/201009270858.html and another: http://showbiz.peacefmonline.com/movies/201109/71446.php p.s. check out the year it was done 2011 for the second source |
| TV/Movies / Re: 'why Can't Black Filmmakers In The USA Adopt The Nollywood Model' Question by anonymous6(f): 3:31am On May 01 |
baby-boy: off topic, and that has happened in Bollywood and the early days of hollywood and still happening to a extent so whats your point HAHAHA |
| Culture / Re: What Are The Top 5 Black Cultural Foods/Cuisines To You? by anonymous6(f): 3:29am On May 01 |
| Celebrities / Re: Doris Simeon Exclusive Interview by anonymous6(f): 3:20am On May 01 |
Doris Simeon  1 Like |
| Celebrities / Doris Simeon Exclusive Interview by anonymous6(f): 3:17am On May 01 |
I Wish My Mum Married Someone Like Dangote – Doris Simeon "Edo State-born actress, Doris Simeon, talks about her life in an interview with ‘Nonye Ben-Nwankwo Why do you concentrate more on Yoruba movies? I have done a couple of English movies. But I do more of soaps and TV series. But there is a new movie, The Nanny, in which I played the lead character. But I still do English movies. How did you become a part of the Yoruba movie industry? I actually started with Papa Ajasco and Co. I went for the auditioning. My purpose for going wasn’t to get auditioned. I went there to see if I could sight some stars and mingle with them. I never had in mind that I would get auditioned. But fortunately, I was given a script to audition and I did well. I met a director on that set and he was the one that brought me into the Yoruba movie industry. Do you remember the first movie you featured in? Yes. The title of the movie was changed twice. But funny enough, the movie wasn’t released early enough and some other movies I featured in after it came out before it. When it was eventually released, I think the title was Ten Million Naira or something like that. When was this? This was in year 2000. The Papa Ajasco sitcom I featured in was in 1999. I have stayed some time really. Did you think, back then, that you would get to the level of playing lead roles? Sincerely, it wasn’t my goal. I wanted to be behind the camera. When I was coming up and I saw how fans almost mobbed my senior colleagues, I had a rethink. I said I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes. I would rather wish that people would know the name and not the face. But I was told it didn’t work that way. I also realised that you make more money being in front of the camera than being behind it. I decided to go for it. I didn’t plan it this way but I thank God. In everything you have to thank God. But you have started producing your movie, why? It is not about trying my luck being a producer. It is not every time your luck will shine. It is about what you have inside and also the passion you have. You would want to do something people would appreciate and learn from and not only to get entertained. But it is not only actors that produce movies, directors also produce movies and even act in the movie. It is just what you have inside you and you don’t want it to die so you try and explore it. Money can come out of it, yes but let the passion be the drive for becoming a producer. Talking about money, we hear that the Yoruba movie actors are paid peanuts… That is what most people will always come up with. But this industry is not about fixed prize. We have our different ways of negotiating. It all depends on the way you carry yourself. If you want to do for me and I do for you, nobody will query you. If you want to do a job and collect your money, that is also fine. This is not a salaried job that anybody will sack you or tell you he won’t pay you at the end of the month. If they pay them so fantastically well in the English movie industry, most of them wouldn’t have gone into producing movies as well. It is about choice. Do you have a fixed amount you charge? No, I don’t. Can you tell us the highest amount you have pocketed? Hmm… let it be inside my pocket. But I am comfortable and I thank God for that. I am good. Why do you reject scripts? At this point in my career, there are some scripts you would read and try to advice the producer especially when it has the potential of tarnishing the image of the actors. If you can’t go with my advice, I reject the script. I have been building my career for a long time. I wouldn’t want to do a movie and I tarnish this image I have been trying to build in a good way. So if the script to me is not what people would wish to see me in, I reject it. Actresses in Nigeria live above their means, do you do same? I don’t do that. I am myself. You have to accept me the way I am. I don’t do things to impress anybody, no policeman will arrest me. But I have some other businesses I am doing. I want to venture into TV presentation and some other stuff. I don’t bite more than I can chew and that is a fact. How was growing up? It was fun. It was just the typical Nigerian child growing up. We were told not to watch TV but read our books. During my time, parents wanted their children to be doctors and lawyers and engineers. But fortunately, my parents were free minded. I told them I wanted to be a news caster or a radio presenter. I used to watch TV a lot. There was a day my mother beat me black and blue. She sent me on an errand and I went and got the wrong thing because I was watching Indian movie in my neighbour’s place. My parents gave me their blessings. They supported me. One woman was so angry with my mother and asked her how she could allow me to become an actress. She told my mother that actresses sleep around and all that. But it was that same woman that came back years later and was begging my mother that her niece wanted to be an actress and my mum should help her talk to me to help her. What kind of home did you grow up in? I came from a polygamous home. We fight and settle and fight again and settle. It was so much fun. Now, I remember all we did and I laugh. My parents were wonderful, God rest their souls. So your parents are late? Yes. I am an orphan. I am actually looking for an orphanage where I can move to if they have a bed space for me. (laughs). I miss them a lot anyway. Every young girl will always remember her first boyfriend, do you remember yours? I remember that I did ‘shakara’ a lot when I was growing up. ‘Toasting’ then was just writing letters. But when I was growing up, the guys I liked never asked me out. The ones I didn’t like would always flock around me. I don’t think I remember having a first boyfriend. It was actually when I started acting that I started having boyfriends. But afterwards, those ones I liked started coming and I told them it was too late. There was this guy, in his mind, I was his girlfriend. He came to Lagos for his youth service. He used to take me out to eateries. So I would say he was my first boyfriend but we didn’t date. We didn’t even kiss. Why? He said he was very patient and he would wait for me till I was ready. So who eventually became your first ever boyfriend in the real sense? He is in the UK. We dated for two years. I was grown up then and I realised that I couldn’t stand distant relationship. He liked surprising me. He would come around and wouldn’t tell me he was coming. He is still based in the UK. A lot of people may think you are arrogant… I thank God that I am not. I had parents that brought me up in a great manner. My mum was a very beautiful woman and sometimes, I asked her how she got married to my father. I would ask her why she didn’t marry somebody like Dangote. She would tell me that if you have a fine face and you don’t have a good character, nobody will come after you. I don’t take life so hard. When you die, it will all be vanity. It is better you are humble and be yourself. Your lifestyle has to be decent. But you should feel bad that your marriage didn’t work out few years after you got into it? There is always time to be happy and time to be sad. There is time to reflect and think and learn from your life. You make mistakes to learn. You don’t make mistake and go back to it or dwell in it. But will you get married again? Hmmm. I don’t know what to say. I am not taking life so hard. You don’t say some things when you are happy because you might regret it. I want to go the way life goes. But are you in a relationship again? Yes. I am in a relationship with God and my son. Is God not male? My son is also a man. He is my boyfriend now. Would you say it was your fault that your marriage broke up? I just thank God. I thank Him for everything. How do you cope with the scandal your marriage generated? You have to accept life the way it is. At least I am alive and people talk about me. Some people are alive and they are not known. Even if I die today, people will talk about me. What if your ex wants his son back? He is his son. It is not all the kids that you train that will remember you. You just do your own and leave the rest to God. What is your greatest desire? I won’t say I want to be like God, but I want to touch lives. I want to make an impact so that people will never forget me. What if your husband comes back to you and begs you for forgiveness? I leave it to God. (sings) I am married to Jesus, Satan leave me alone… But you look so happy… I am so happy. Do you know that one of my colleagues died recently? I am older than Bisi Komolafe and she is dead now. I can provide for myself. Why should I be sad? That is why I am not taking life so hard. You don’t know when you can slump and die." http://www.punchng.com/feature/saturday-people/i-wish-my-mum-married-someone-like-dangote-doris-simeon/# |
| Culture / Re: What Are The Top 5 Black Cultural Foods/Cuisines To You? by anonymous6(f): 6:00pm On Apr 29 |
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