Artists I Like: Andrew Dosunmu

If you bump into this guy on the streets and he doesn’t have his panama hat on, assume that his signature look is incomplete. An unassuming man, Andrew Dosunmu is a creative with a thirst for creativity and travelling. Although he currently resides in New York, Andrew was born and raised in Nigeria. He started his career as a design assistant at Yves Saint Laurent (we see you going green with envy!), and moved onto other projects in the creative field- but what he’s really well known and respected for is his photography. His images have been featured in magazines across the world (Fader, Clam), and he’s also directed an award winning documentary titled Hot Irons, which featured hairstylists as they prepared for a hair competition. If you’re South African, the controversial TV show must be really familiar to you; he directed several episodes of Yizo Yizo. He’s been art director for album covers for various artists (Erykah Badu, Public Enemy) and has also directed music videos for Isaac Hayes (yes!), Angie Stone, Common, Wyclef, Kelis, Aaron Neville, Maxwell and Tracy Chapman.



Andrew is a streetstalker of note; he clearly has a love for the streets across the world. The style of a lot of his images is simply based around creating or putting glamour on the streets of the “developing world”. The photographer will put an attractive and well styled subject against this backdrop, and the results are amazing. I would venture to say that his style preference is a clue to Andrew’s character; he has deep affection for the continent and other “developing” countries and nations, and believes that beauty can be found everywhere.

Melbourne Rectangular Stadium

With soccer fever bursting around the world and locally in anticipation of the 2010 Soccer World Cup, we thought that only South Africa was building monster stadia! Well, the Australian city of Melbourne will be opening the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium in 2010- pffff talk about shining on S.A’s shine! Anyway- hate aside, the Australians are huge sports fans and we have no doubt that it’ll be put to great use. The $200-million rugby and soccer stadium was designed by Australian outfit COX Architects, and has a capacity of 31,000.


A short walk from the Melbourne city center, the stadium is expected to add to the wonderment of the city’s Olympic Spots Park and Entertainment Precinct. The roof will be covered with thousands of LED lights that can shine in many colors. They will be programmed to follow patterns that mimic the crowd’s energy during a match- soccer with Victory or rugby with Storm- or any other game or event.

Check for more pics at designboom

Santi on Norah Jones' The Fall

Soooooo…I love Santogold. Santigold. Ok, Santigold. Just in case you haven’t received the memo, she had to change her name to Santigold because an 80’s throwback named Santo Gold called and wanted his name back. Really, he wanted to sue. It’s not so bad though, because her real name is Santi anyway. Whatever you want to call her, I was really happy to hear that she’s remixed a track for Norah Jones’ upcoming album fourth album The Fall.

While I’m on the topic of Norah Jones, I cannot wait to get her album because she’s worked with some prolific artists for this project; keyboardist James Poyser (Erykah Badu, Al Green), guitarist Marc Ribot (Tom Waits) and quite a few more. There also remixes that will be done by Beck and The Beastie Boys. Can’t wait!

Artists I Like: Takashi Miike

In the cinema world and amongst film fundis, the name Takashi Miike needs no introduction. He rose to international fame in ’00 when two of his films (Dead or Alive and Audition) blew up on an international platform, thanks to film festivals. He is a director with well over 60 films under his belt, and is often called out for not sticking to what is considered “normal” and he has a penchant for the OTT. This is a man that doesn’t limit himself to the horror genre of ‘the unknown’ but more towards the horror of what people are capable of. Though he prefers not to classify himself under any genre- the horror genre you may find him under is what he’s been classified as, but he doesn’t see himself that way.

"I'm happy that my films were discovered by chance by foreign film festivals. That makes me realise more that there is a world outside Japan too. For me, it's an occasion to meet many people and to experience directly the response of international audiences to my films. But for me as a director, my attitude towards making films hasn't changed with the fame. I feel it's not good to change as a person anyway" - Takashi Miike

In a 2001 interview, he explained that his directing style often includes collaboration with the actors and actresses in which he is more of an “arranger” than a director. In other words, he puts scenes and situations together, makes suggestions to the actors/actresses and they would interpret it for themselves- I think this style allows for his movies to be a little more organic in their nature than a lot of other films. Takashi Miike is also very well known for including (or portraying) people from nationalities other than Japan in his characterisation or in his film crews- as opposed to sticking to a traditional Japanese crew and mix of characters. This is a really important element of his work, as it becomes more inclusive of people from other walks of life, making him more international in his appeal.

Above: The different faces of Takashi Miike

Takashi is not short of emotion or imagination for his work; he is well known for the sometimes gory scenes in his works, as he is always trying to push the envelope regarding societal norms in the cinematically conservative Japanese landscape. If you’re a horror buff and can’t place where you’ve seen Takashi’s face before, you probably spotted him in his cameo scene in Hostel (as Miike Takashi), which he did as a favour for his buddy Quinton Tarantino.

So next time you're craving a good horror movie, go to your nearest good video store and pick up some Tashaki Miike dvd's, you won't regret it!

Polyvore Sets: High End Shit

I love this set, the nike glad's are funk, Married to the Mob always has cool ladies tees and these shorts are just begging to be found by me. I'm on a search, and if all else fails, I'm making a call to a certain lady to sew them for me. Peep the flask.

High End Shit by yummytumz featuring Nike shoes

My Confession

I'm listening to Savage Garden. I found myself singing Truly, Madly, Deeply and then remembered how much I loved the group when I was much younger. I went to Youtube and looked some of my favourite tracks and I'm not totally geeking in the office. I really shouldn't be doing this, but I love it so much; this is definately the Tumi that people get surprised at when they get a peek. Baw! People make so many judgements based on appearance... Anywho, I know some of my friends will never let me live this moment down and for the next two years, I will hear about how I was bumping Savage Garden after I turned 17 - but honestly, I knew nothing about the meaning behind To The Moon and Back, I Want You or even Tears of Pearls at that age. And now I know....a little bit more. So bite me!

District 9 Signals a New Day for (South) African Cinema

So I wrote this piece about two months back, and since the TILTT website is under going maintanance, I decided to put it up here. And why not? :)


I always get upset when The Next Big South African Movie begins to garner local and international attention- and then it turns out to be a film about crime or hiv/aids. It’s not that I don’t think that they are good films- we’ll put it down to personal preference. The thing that gets me though, is that I begin to question whether the only thing that we can use to get the world to look at South Africa is by making the same kind of movies over and over again. Cinema audiences like to be challenged. We want to see ourselves in different genres, not just semi realistic accounts of African suffering in film form used by celebs to find a new cause to up their profiles. South African audiences want to see themselves in romance, comedy, drama and sci-fi. As a relatively new lover of sci-fi, I have always been irritated that none existed in a mainstream South African context so I’m sure you can understand how excited I was in ‘06/’07 when I discovered a short South African sci-fi on youtube. Alive in Joburg (directed by Neill Blomkamp) explored various themes of apartheid- and almost prophetically, zenophobia. I thought this was a great departure in terms of sci-fi, as most sci-fi’s seem to historically challenge issues such as racism, human rights and religion (don’t laugh but I only found out in recent months that Star Trek was a huge challenger of racism, sexism and all those bad isms. I already told you that I’m new to the genre). In this case, Alive in Joburg seemed to me like an honest introspection regarding apartheid, its role and legacy in creating today’s South African society. The documentary-style imagery and visual effects used in the film stayed with me for a long time, and also made me believe that maybe different kinds of films are on the way for South Africa, and Africa.

Fast forward to 2009: I’m doing some regular e-street stalking and I bump into talk of this extraordinary South African film that is being launched to an international audience. At this point, I’m not excited because I’m seeing flashes of Tsotsi, Yesterday and the embarrassing inaccuracies of Jerusalema in my mind’s eye. Oh no. Ah, the film is called District 9. Bleh. Being the curious soul that I am, I googled the title and was incredibly excited when I recognized the style of the film- the lightbulb went off in my head to Alive in Joburg. Produced by sci-fi nerd Peter Jackson (he produced the Lord of the Rings Trilogy), District 9 is Blomkamp’s feature film that weaves various themes and elements established in Alive in Joburg. In District 9, alien refugees (real aliens, of the extraterrestrial variety) find themselves stranded in Johannesburg. Although the alien race had first made contact with earth years before they landed on earth, they arrive not as enemies out to take over the earth (as humans always seem to be very afraid of), but rather as refugees and the last survivors of their planet. The human government is nice enough to set them up in a refugee camp (District 9) managed by a private company while the governments figured out what to do with them. The plot thickens as one of the employees of said private company develops a peculiar virus that begins to change his DNA, he is then ostracized and forced to hide in District 9- with the oppressed black population (the film is set during apartheid South Africa) and the aliens. Without saying too much about a film that I haven’t actually seen (though I am taking the lead from Alive in Joburg), it seems to me that one of the bigger themes that will be explored in the film is how we treat one another within our ‘rainbow nation’- and maybe even address the never-to-go-away question of whether aliens (if they exist) are definitely without a doubt missioning to take over our planet.

I’m not too sure what local funding – if any was used for this film (once again the argument of a lack of available local financing for local stories comes to mind), but I think it’s a good sign if international funders are also looking at different genres and refreshing stories to come out of Africa. I think it’s encouraging to the South African film industry when films that don’t fall within the AIDS/crime spectrum of the South African film sphere get international funding and more especially, attention (the District 9 trailer was released with film X-Men Origins: Wolverine). Peter Jackson is also finally fulfilling his sci-fi nerd dream of presenting his film at the sci-fi nerd convention Comic-Con this year when he promotes District 9. As a South African, it will be refreshing to see my country from a slightly different lens, even though very serious themes are being explored- and I’m sure that many other South Africans will also be very excited to look at their country from the lense of a different genre, finally. I can’t wait to watch this movie and you can be sure that I will score tickets to the premier and I hope the scripting and acting is just as good as the visual work!
P.S Another really cool thing about this movie is the Official Site- it simulates segregation much in the way that the Apartheid Museum does. I really can’t wait!