The film recovers for the present a detailed history of Sankara's brief four-year rule and his revolutionary program for African self-reliance as a defiant alternative to the neo-liberal development strategies imposed on Africa by the West, both then and today. This film should go a long way towards explaining why Sankara is still venerated on his own continent as the 'African Che,' a legendary martyr like Patrice Lumumba or Amilcar Cabral. "As Africa looks desperately for leaders of integrity and vision, the life and ideals of Thomas Sankara seem more and more relevant and exemplary with the passage of time. 2012 marks the 20-year anniversary of Audre Lorde's passing. For the first time, Dagmar Schultz's personal archival video- and audio-recordings reveal a significant part of the private Audre Lorde as well as her agenda - to rouse Afro-Germans to recognize each other.
BLUES ALBUM DS 2434 GENRE ARCHIVE
Previously unreleased archive material as well as present-day interviews explore the lasting influence of Lorde's ideas on Germany and the impact of her work and personality. It chronicles Lorde's empowerment of Afro-German women to write and to publish, as she challenged white women to acknowledge the significance of their white privilege and to deal with difference in constructive ways. The film explores the importance of Lorde's legacy, as she encouraged Afro-Germans - who, at that time, had no name or space for themselves - to make themselves visible within a culture that until then had kept them isolated and silent. Audre Lorde, the Berlin Years 1984 to 1992, documents an untold chapter of Lorde's life: her influence on the German political and cultural scene during a decade of profound social change. The resulting project feels noncommittal: DS4 is caught between the woozy, floating sounds of WUNNA and an older, heavier-hitting sound, yet nails neither.Audre Lorde's incisive, often-angry, but always brilliant writings and speeches defined and inspired the US-American feminist, lesbian, African-American, and Women-of-Color movements of the 1970s and 1980s. While there are some obvious outliers - the Metal Gear-like "Poochie Gown," the crunchy "Mop" - much of DS4's production falls too far into cliché, be that the tedious guitar-trap of "So Far Ahead > Empire" and "Flooded" or the bland chord progression of "Life of Sin" and "Die Alone." And no matter how hard Drake tries, there's no saving the garish '90s sex-skit revival of "P Power." After tunnelling into a very specific avenue for WUNNA, DS4 loses focus, instead spreading the rapper thin across a much wider smattering of styles. Clumsy, half-thought-out choruses on "Alotta Cake" and "Poochie Gown" do a disservice to the tracks' slick verses, "Thought I Was Playing" is a dry imitation of Gucci and Shiesty's "Like 34 and 8," and "Idk That Bitch" feels utterly inoffensive. Unfortunately, the rest of this project feels like Gunna on autopilot. "Pushin P" - which has already done the rounds on the meme circuit - sees Gunna and Thugger rattle through the "P" section of the dictionary to deliver one of the year's most bizarrely entertaining anthems.
The relentlessly flowing "South to West" is tinged with a horizon-gazing importance, opening track "Private Island" catches a sleek melodic pocket, and the Young Pluto back-to-back of "Too Easy" is like a "2.0" of Future's already-excellent "Riding Strikers." A weirdly comedic angle appears in some of Gunna's writing here and makes for a refreshing surprise, given the rapper's distant, money-driven persona. That's not to say there's not plenty to enjoy here.
It can't help but feel a little like a step back. This time, the drums come with a little more punch, with rhythms urged forward by frantic beeps and whomping 808s. While its predecessor honed the spacey "Skybox" soundscapes of the rapper's late-2010s output, DS4 pulls back to the more generalized approach of his earlier work.
BLUES ALBUM DS 2434 GENRE SERIES
The follow-up to 2020's WUNNA, DS4Ever occupies the same grey area as Chief Keef's Bang 3 and Lil Baby's Harder Than Ever, being both Gunna's third studio album and the fourth instalment in his formative Drip Season (DS) series of mixtapes.