A melodic greeting between women in Burundi is at risk of being lost

A melodic greeting between women in Burundi is at risk of being lost
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Emelyne Nzeyimana, left, and Prudencienne Namukobwa, perform akazehe outside her home in Ngozi, Burundi, on Sept. 20, 2024. (AP)
A melodic greeting between women in Burundi is at risk of being lost
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Prudencienne Namukobwa, 85, left, entertains her guests with akazehe, a Burundian traditional form of musical greeting performed exclusively by women, outside her house in Ngozi, Burundi, on Sept. 20, 2024. (AP)
A melodic greeting between women in Burundi is at risk of being lost
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Women listen to Prudencienne Namukobwa, not pictured, as she performs akazehe outside her house in Ngozi, Burundi, on Sept. 20, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 25 October 2024
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A melodic greeting between women in Burundi is at risk of being lost

A melodic greeting between women in Burundi is at risk of being lost
  • Akazehe, a traditional form of musical greeting among Burundians, is performed exclusively by women on a range of occasions
  • But akazehe is fading, despite its unique status in this central African country that is better known for its world-famous percussionists

NGOZI, Burundi: The hug between the two women looked like it would last forever. A spirited 85-year-old had embraced a younger woman she hadn’t seen for months, and she chanted a number of questions in the peculiar yodeling routine of her ancestors.
How are you? How is your husband? How are the kids? How are your cows? Are you on good terms with your neighbors?
And so on.
Prudencienne Namukobwa paused in the melody to allow the younger woman’s rhythmic affirmation, a pattern she has mastered over the decades.
“Ego,” Emelyne Nzeyimana replied over and over in the local Kirundi language. “Yes.”
A group of neighbors watched in amazement. Many were seeing their first performance of the traditional form of musical greeting, known to Burundians as akazehe. It is performed exclusively by women on a range of occasions.
But akazehe is fading, despite its unique status in this central African country that is better known for its world-famous percussionists. That’s according to cultural officials, teachers and others who say the practice is worth preserving.

 

They cited the threat from public health measures that discourage unnecessary contact during disease outbreaks, in addition to the perceived failure to promote akazehe among school-going youth.
Among young Burundians, it is hard to find people who know what akazehe means and even harder to find someone who can perform it.
“At a certain time, unfortunately, it was abandoned,” said Sandrine Kitonze, a culture adviser in the office of the governor of Ngozi province.
She said akazehe and its minutes-long embrace “made you feel that the person who greets you loves you.”
Some academics have noted akazehe’s potential role in fostering social cohesion in Burundi, which is now largely peaceful after a period of deadly civil war followed by political instability.
Annonciate Baragahorana, a teacher in the province of Bujumbura, which includes the commercial capital, told The Associated Press that while she was not born in a place where akazehe was widely practiced, she was astonished as a young girl when women embraced and addressed her in the polyphonic way during visits to other regions.
“The women who often did this lived in the central plateau provinces. When we went there during the holidays, a woman from the interior of the country kissed you strongly while wishing you wonders and she hugged you for a long time,” she said with a chuckle. “I wanted her to finish quickly, even if it was sweet words to hear.”
Baragahorana said she feared “tenderness in social relationships will disappear” among Burundians amid threats from contagious diseases such as COVID-19 and Mpox.
“People greet each other from a distance for fear of contaminating each other,” she said. “This will contribute enormously to the demise of akazehe.”
In Ngozi, a hilly province in Burundi’s north, akazehe remains familiar to some locals, and women such as Namukobwa are impressive at performing it.




Prudencienne Namukobwa, 85, left, entertains her guests with akazehe, a Burundian traditional form of musical greeting performed exclusively by women, outside her house in Ngozi, Burundi, on Sept. 20, 2024. (AP)

She lives in a decaying house set in the side of a verdant hill. One recent morning, she was sitting on a mat outside when she glimpsed Nzeyimana, the visiting daughter of a former neighbor. She overcame her bad hip to rise and welcome the woman, whom she addressed as if she were her biological daughter.
“I felt that the first love she had when I was just a girl is kept until now,” said Nzeyimana, a broadcaster in Ngozi. “This means that I am still her daughter.”
Akazehe can seem like a race to perfect accord, a search for harmony, in the interwoven vocalizations. While most questions are routine, some can be unexpected. Nzeyimana said afterward that she had been anxious over possibly facing a question for which she was not ready with a positive response. There was none.
Serena Facci, an Italian scholar at the University of Rome Tor Vergata who has written about akazehe, said that even by 1993, when she went to Burundi for research in ethnomusicology, “this beautiful female greeting wasn’t very common in the ordinary life.” Its continuing disappearance could be due to changing lifestyles, she said.
A custom such as akazehe should be preserved at all costs because of its role in protecting families, said Isaac Nikobiba, an anthropologist in Bujumbura. Among communities that practiced it, women could alert mother figures to any turbulence at home, triggering supportive measures from the extended family, he said.
Nikobiba called the potential disappearance of akazehe symptomatic of wider cultural losses stemming from modernization.
“Normally, before starting a home in traditional Burundi, the girl would first receive advice from her paternal aunt who would tell her, ‘I will come to greet you after a certain time. If you notice an anomaly in the home, you will have to tell me everything,’” he said. “In short, if she does not find someone to whom she can confide her marital intimacies, she spends all the time in a very bad psychological atmosphere.”
Floride Ntakirutimana was among the small group of women who gathered to witness the spectacle of Namukobwa greeting Nzeyimana. She said she grew up in a farming community where no mother could perform akazehe, and only heard of it through radio programs.
The exchange she watched left her feeling she wanted to learn akazehe herself.
“I feel better, and I saw that it was good,” Ntakirutimana said.
 


Starbucks reports drop in comparable sales, earnings as global demand suffers

Starbucks reports drop in comparable sales, earnings as global demand suffers
Updated 30 October 2024
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Starbucks reports drop in comparable sales, earnings as global demand suffers

Starbucks reports drop in comparable sales, earnings as global demand suffers
  • The Seattle-based company’s strategy to drive demand through promotions and improved loyalty program offers fell flat
Starbucks on Wednesday reported a 7 percent drop in global comparable sales for the fourth quarter as the coffee chain struggles to revive demand for its pricey lattes in the key US and China markets.
Last week, Starbucks reported preliminary fourth-quarter results and suspended its annual forecast through the next fiscal year as new CEO Brian Niccol tries to steer the company toward the path to growth.
The Seattle-based company’s strategy to drive demand through promotions and improved loyalty program offers fell flat in the face of muted spending from cost-conscious consumers.
Starbucks is also facing an uphill battle in China, where it is dealing with a choppy macroeconomic recovery and stiff competition from local brands.
Comparable sales in China, the company’s second-largest market after the US, declined for three straight quarters, falling 14 percent in the fourth quarter.
Investors, however, are betting on seasoned industry veteran and ex-Chipotle Mexican Grill head Niccol to simplify the company’s leadership and operating structure, and reinvigorate the coffee-house culture at Starbucks’ US stores.
Shares of the company have risen about 26 percent since Niccol replaced Laxman Narasimhan as CEO in a surprise announcement in August. They were down about 1 percent in extended trading on Wednesday.
International comparable sales fell 9 percent in the fourth quarter, compared with expectations of a 6.5 percent drop, as per data compiled by LSEG.
Starbucks’ loyalty program growth was also tempered in the fourth quarter, with 90-day active members in the US remaining flat sequentially. That compares with a 3 percent sequential rise reported in the third quarter.
The company’s net income fell to $909.3 million, or 80 cents per share, from $1.22 billion, or $1.06 per share, a year earlier in the fourth quarter ended Sept 29.

Australian police recover 40,000 stolen coins based on the children’s animated series ‘Bluey’

Australian police recover 40,000 stolen coins based on the children’s animated series ‘Bluey’
Updated 30 October 2024
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Australian police recover 40,000 stolen coins based on the children’s animated series ‘Bluey’

Australian police recover 40,000 stolen coins based on the children’s animated series ‘Bluey’
  • A police statement said on Wednesday 40,061 coins were found on Tuesday afternoon in a self-storage business in Sydney
  • Police were notified on July 12 that 63,000 of the coins had been stolen from a Sydney warehouse

SYDNEY: Australian police said on Wednesday they had recovered more than 40,000 stolen limited-edition coins based on the hit children’s animated series “Bluey.”
The Bluey coins, with a face value of one Australian dollar (65 US cents) each, were found on Tuesday afternoon in a self-storage business in the Sydney suburb of Wentworthville, a police statement said.
Bluey is the name of a blue heeler puppy whose adventures with her cattle dog family living in the Australian city of Brisbane, where the series is produced, have become popular among children around the globe.
The series premiered in Australia in 2018 and began streaming on Disney+ in 2020.
The 40,061 recovered coins were still in the Royal Australian Mint plastic bags that they had been stolen in three months earlier, police said.
Police were notified on July 12 that 63,000 of the yet-to-be-released series of coins produced by the national mint in Canberra had been stolen from a warehouse in the Sydney suburb of Wetherill Park, not far from where the coins were recovered on Tuesday.
Police formed Strike Force Bandit to investigate. Bandit is the name of Bluey’s dad.
Three people have been charged over the theft.
A 27-year-old woman whom police allege drove two accomplices to the July burglary was arrested on Tuesday hours before the coins were recovered.
Two men had earlier been charged over the theft and police were a searching for a fourth suspect.
Police raided a Sydney property on July 31 and recovered 189 of the coins. They discovered the dealer selling them was a legitimate coin collector who had innocently bought them for AU$1.50 (98 US cents) each. He was paid no compensation for the seized coins.
A Royal Australian Mint spokesperson was not available for comment on Wednesday.


Hello Kitty – the cute, enigmatic character – turns 50 on Friday

Hello Kitty – the cute, enigmatic character – turns 50 on Friday
Updated 30 October 2024
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Hello Kitty – the cute, enigmatic character – turns 50 on Friday

Hello Kitty – the cute, enigmatic character – turns 50 on Friday
  • The simple design of the character – who is not a cat, but a little girl from London according to Sanrio – has mileage as a money-spinner for years to come, experts say

TOKYO: Hello Kitty, the cute, enigmatic character that adorns everything from handbags to rice cookers, turns 50 on Friday – still making millions for her Japanese creators.
The simple design of the character – who is not a cat, but a little girl from London according to Sanrio, the company behind Kitty – has mileage as a money-spinner for years to come, experts say.
One woman in the US state of California has amassed so much Hello Kitty merchandise that her husband built her a pink so-called “she-shed” to keep it in.
Stuffed inside are thousands of toys and other items featuring Kitty and her eye-catching red bow, including rows of sunglasses, a swivel chair and novelty gumball dispensers.
“People my age, you know, we are told many times, ‘Hello Kitty is for little kids,’ and I laugh at that,” said Helen from Riverside County, conceding she is “50 plus.”
Helen, who drives a Hello Kitty-decorated SUV and runs the local fan club “Hello Kitty SoCal Babes,” has been “obsessed” with the character since its 1970s US debut.
Her vast collection of Hello Kitty plushies “make me feel warm,” she said, describing spending hours among the soft toys, many of them rare, on a regular basis.
“Something in my inner child gets healed,” she said.
Hello Kitty started life as an illustration on a vinyl coin purse.
It has since appeared on tens of thousands of products – official and unofficial – including tie-ups with Adidas, Balenciaga and other top brands.
The phenomenon shows no sign of slowing, with a Warner Bros movie in the pipeline and a new Hello Kitty theme park due to open next year on China’s tropical Hainan island.
Sanrio’s share price has soared more than seven-fold, pushing its market cap over one trillion yen ($6.8 billion), since young CEO Tomokuni Tsuji took over from his grandfather in 2020.
“We’d be foolishly cynical to say that we don’t need these soft, fluffy, pink things,” Christine R. Yano of the University of Hawaii said.
In fact, “given the fraught nature of our contemporary lives, perhaps we need it now more than ever,” said Yano, author of the book “Pink Globalization” about Hello Kitty.
“This is not a phenomenon that has died or is going to die, at least soon.”
Unlike other Japanese cultural exports such as Pokemon or Dragon Ball, there is minimal narrative around the character, whose full name is Kitty White.
She has a twin sister Mimmy, a boyfriend called Dear Daniel, and a pet cat of her own, Sanrio says. She loves her mother’s apple pie and dreams of becoming a pianist or poet.
The rest is left to fans’ imaginations – just like her “abstract, bare design that can speak with a kind of simplicity and elegance to more people,” Yano said.
“I call her a ‘pure product’,” the researcher added.
Some feminists say Hello Kitty’s lack of mouth is a symbol of disempowerment, but Yano counters that by not depicting it, “she has a greater range of expression.”
Famous Hello Kitty fans include Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry, and her appeal extends to royalty: Britain’s King Charles wished her a happy birthday this year.
And on Hello Kitty’s TikTok account – whose bio is “CEO of supercute” – sardonic memes and footage from “Hello Kitty Day” at US baseball games delight 3.5 million followers.
Hello Kitty is the epitome of Japan’s “kawaii” – cute – soft power, and she is the mascot of a campaign promoting good tourist etiquette in Tokyo.
Posters celebrating the 50th anniversary are on display at Sanrio Puroland theme park, where businesswoman Kim Lu from Manila had brought her four-year-old niece on their holiday.
“This really is our priority here in Tokyo,” she said.
“To be honest, we really don’t know” the reason for Hello Kitty’s ineffable popularity, said Lu, 36.
“I think it’s the kawaii charm.”
Sanrio owns the copyright to hundreds of other popular characters, and Hello Kitty now accounts for 30 percent of profits, down from 75 percent a decade ago.
But Kitty is still a favorite of 23-year-old Rio Ueno, who took an overnight bus from Japan’s northern Niigata region to visit the park with a friend.
“I’ve had Kitty goods around me since I was a small child,” said Ueno, dressed in a fluffy Hello Kitty sweater, sporting a Kitty bag, and clutching a Kitty doll.
“She is someone who is always close to me, and I want it to stay that way.”


’I’m terrified’: French auteur Audiard hits Oscars trail for ‘Emilia Perez’

’I’m terrified’: French auteur Audiard hits Oscars trail for ‘Emilia Perez’
Updated 30 October 2024
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’I’m terrified’: French auteur Audiard hits Oscars trail for ‘Emilia Perez’

’I’m terrified’: French auteur Audiard hits Oscars trail for ‘Emilia Perez’
  • Now French director Jacques Audiard is steeling himself for the next, arduous stage — a glitzy yet grueling campaign as an Oscars frontrunner

LOS ANGELES: His film “Emilia Perez” won multiple prizes at Cannes, and was snapped up by Netflix. Now French director Jacques Audiard is steeling himself for the next, arduous stage — a glitzy yet grueling campaign as an Oscars frontrunner.
“I’m terrified,” Audiard told AFP in an interview in Los Angeles, before the surreal musical about a transgender Mexican drug lord hits limited US theaters this Friday, before streaming on November 13.
“Mass success is something very unsettling — it’s not real life.”
With his movie a favorite for the best picture Academy Award, and tipped for nods in categories from best actress to best director, the 72-year-old Audiard will be shuttling back and forth from France to the United States for the next several months.
Modern Oscars campaigns involve a swirl of galas, press conferences, screenings and smaller awards shows, each offering chances to press the flesh with mercurial Hollywood voters in an expensive and crowded marketplace.
Netflix, which has come to dominate Hollywood’s vital streaming sector but has yet to win the coveted best picture Oscar, intends to use all its considerable heft in promoting Audiard’s 10th feature.
Following North American festival appearances in Telluride in August and Toronto in September, “Emilia Perez” opens The American French Film Festival (TAFFF) in Los Angeles this week.
The campaign promises to be much more intense than in 2010, when Audiard’s film “A Prophet” was nominated for an Oscar in the lower profile though still highly prestigious best international film category.
“It’s like going from a provincial competition to the Olympics,” said Audiard, a Parisian dandy, who wore a leopard-print shirt and a scarf around his neck under his blue suit.


Audiard’s genre-hopping film — winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes — is the story of the repentance of Manitas, a powerful Mexican drug lord.
Trapped in a violent, macho world, Manitas employs a lawyer (Zoe Saldana) to arrange a deep, lifelong aspiration — to become a woman, named Emilia.
Finally free to be herself, Emilia begins a crusade to help victims of the narco gangs. She also reconnects with her former wife (Selena Gomez) and children, who believe she is dead, by posing as a distant relative.
Playing both Manitas and Emilia, Karla Sofia Gascon is heavily tipped to become the first openly transgender actress ever nominated for an Oscar.
Indeed, Gascon heavily shaped the role. Audiard had originally envisioned a younger heroine, but upon meeting the Spanish star who transitioned at 46, he quickly reworked the script.
A younger character would not have suffered enough to be credible, he told AFP.
“I tried hard to make it work, but it didn’t add up,” said Audiard.
“When Karla Sofia appeared, it was a revelation. It was like the Virgin appeared before me — it was so clear.”
“When you transition at 46, I can’t even dare to imagine what her experience was like before... what was her life and her pain?“
This epiphany helped Audiard give more substance to his transgender heroine, who was first inspired by the Boris Razon novel “Ecoute.”


Borrowing stylings from opera, “Emilia Perez” is billed as a musical drama but stands at the crossroads of multiple genres — narco-thriller, Latin American telenovela, and LGBTQ drama, among others.
That unique combination was, for Audiard, the “obvious” way to embrace his heroine’s transition and the many contradictory facets of her personality.
The film’s “kitsch” trappings insolently address social issues, such as when choirs sings the refrain “Rhinoplasty! Vaginoplasty” in a hospital-set dance sequence, he said.
“It had to absorb everything. It’s a film that has to be embarrassing,” Audiard said. “We are singing about things that are improbable.”
Those unlikely ingredients have combined to make a work hailed in the American press as one of the leading Oscars contenders, with nominations set to be revealed in January. The ceremony takes place on March 2.
Success would be a crowning achievement for Audiard’s award-winning career, in which he has repeatedly put diverse outsiders at the center of his films.
“Dheepan,” which won the Cannes top prize Palme d’Or in 2015, followed the lives of Tamil refugees in a Paris suburb. “Rust and Bone” chronicled an orca trainer who lost her legs in a horrific accident. “A Prophet” delved into the world of prison violence.
“I am a curious person,” said Audiard.
“I’m fascinated by people who are difficult to categorize.”


Adidas reaches settlement with rapper Ye

Adidas reaches settlement with rapper Ye
Updated 29 October 2024
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Adidas reaches settlement with rapper Ye

Adidas reaches settlement with rapper Ye
  • Adidas and Ye had been embroiled in multiple lawsuits for the past two years, since the German company ended a partnership with Kanye West

LONDON: Adidas has reached a settlement with rapper Ye to end all legal proceedings between them, the sportswear brand said on Tuesday, without giving a value for the deal.
Adidas and Ye had been embroiled in multiple lawsuits for the past two years, since the German company ended a partnership with the rapper previously known as Kanye West over antisemitic comments he made.
“There isn’t any more open issues, and there is no... money going either way,” CEO Bjorn Gulden told reporters on a conference call.