A few months ago, a friend sent me this link to Youtube clip showing a group of girls at a talent contest doing a routine to ‘run the world’ by Beyonce. My initial reaction was to think nothing much of it. It looked to me like girls having fun. But as I watched these 8 year olds walk onto the stage scantily dressed, performing a sexually provocative number that would put the diva to shame, I felt a slight cringe and asked myself is this normal.
As you know we are very passionate about children’s animated content from Africa. Some of you have asked us if we know of any other projects like ours. There are a few projects in development or that are finished that we know of so we will list them here for you. The list is by no means complete as sometimes it is hard to get news about them. Where possible we try to show content produced in Africa with an educational slant. So here is the list and we’ll do our best to keep it up to date. Let us know of any you know as well.
Abeba and Abebe
Abeba and Abebe' is an animation series made in Ethiopia with kids, for kids, about… kids! Abeba and Abebe is the first ever animated series to be made in Ethiopia by and for Ethiopians. It follows a standard kids series format of 52 x 7 min episodes (that’s one story a week for a year!) and is aimed at an audience of 6 - 12 year olds. Here is the website.
At the risk of sounding like a pompous, self-righteous, grumpy old man I’m about to have another rant about messing up children's minds by bombarding them with adult images. Occasionally I see something that I feel crosses the line. Something that makes me scream like a mad man scaring innocent citizens. Recently I wrote about Pittbull being invited by Nickleodeon for their children’s awards and D’banj being played at children’s parties. Now another example has turned up that makes that look like child's play.
Meet Ozzy Bosco A.K.A Wonder Kid who is supposed to be Nigeria's next music superstar. He is 6 years old.
Ok hold up. Before everyone gets their knives out after looking at the image above just wait……take a deep breath…..and calm down. We took this picture whilst in a shop in Abuja, Nigeria. The scene surprisingly isn’t that uncommon in Nigeria and I’m sure many other African countries. But this was the first time I had seen this in a major nationwide shopping chain. Usually I see it in small toy shops. However, seeing an aisle in a major shop in the capital of the largest black nation full of white dolls just made me stop for a second.
Pitbull at the Nickleodeon Awards Ceremony
I suppose as one gets older it’s natural to say things like ‘What are children watching nowadays?’ or ‘The music kids listen to isn’t really for kids.’ I wouldn’t class myself as particularly old or conservative but I had one of those moments last week when I saw the image above. It is from the recently held Nickelodeon’s 26th Annual Kids' Choice Awards. There’s nothing wrong with it. Well apart from one thing. The man in the shades standing next to Christina Aguilera is an artist called Pitbull. I’m sure many of you know him. If you don’t, here’s is a taste of the type of music he does.
Cartoon Network Africa Website
Take a look at the picture above of the Cartoon Network Africa website. Notice the lack of actual African shows? I did this over 4 years ago and got angry about it. I’ve had a chance to calm down since then! The situation is still pretty much the same. Nickleodeon Africa and Cartoon Network Africa still have little or no African made shows for children on them. I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is the ‘Africa’ tag attached. At least that is what I HAD a problem with.