African Music Concerts Week of Feb 6 - Feb 12

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences regularly screens award winning movies. This month they are featuring documentaries. Opening is Asylum which traces the troubles of a Ghanaian woman seeking asylum in the US to avoid a forced marriage and genital circumcision. She falls into trouble when the US discovers she has a faked passport. The feature is The Lost Boys of Sudan which also concerns the emigration of Africans to America. In this piece Sudanese boys have trouble adapting to suburban life in Houston, Texas.

My prediction for show of the year falls to one of the first events in 2005. I saw Vusi Mahlasela for the first time last year and was awed by his raw talent. He has a beautiful voice, guitar mastery and was an outspoken critic of apartheid. He became a symbol of the people's struggle, and paid for it dearly.

The group made famous in the US by Paul Simon's Graceland CD, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, is the main event with the large array of vocalists and their a cappella singing. Get your tickets early!