Battle hymns
By: G.P. | ABUJA. This article was originally published by The Economist.Protest music in Liberia GIRLS in tight skirts and bright tops hold bottles of beer as they weave their way down the sandy lane towards Bernard’s Beach in Monrovia, Liberia's capital. A throng of young Liberians have gathered at one of the year’s biggest parties and most revellers are celebrating the growing popularity of Hip Co, a musical movement in the long-troubled West African country. The beach stage is propped up against a skeletal building, a memory of more than a decade of civil war. The performers face out to [...]
Accountability in Liberia: How the music industry is creating change
By: Blair Glencorse, Executive Director of the Accountability Lab and Nora Rahimian, an organiser who uses the power of music to effect change. This blog post was originally published by the ONE Campaign. “If we don’t speak up against the ills in society, who will?” asks Takun J, Liberia’s Hip Co King, in front of thousands of screaming fans at a concert in Monrovia. He then launches into “Police Man” a song about police corruption, which several years ago had the artist arrested and beaten by the authorities. Hip Co – which emerged in the 1980s – blends hip hop with Liberian English. Born in the [...]
Accountability Lab Creates Network of “Hip Co” Accountability Ambassadors in Liberia
Last month, Accountability Lab launched “Hip Co for Accountability” – an initiative to use the hugely popular and uniquely Liberian genre of music, Hip Co, to spread awareness and empowerment to a much wider segment of the Liberian population, particularly the younger generation and those less able to read and write. Twelve of the most influential Hip Co artists in the country have agreed to join a network of Accountability Ambassadors: Takun J, Nasseman, JB Soulfresh, Shining Man, Lil Bishop, Dr. C, Pochano, Picardo, JD Donzo, Uncle Shaq, Blackest 305, and Santos. After receiving training on the fundamentals of accountability, [...]
The Lab Receives Grant from the Case Foundation for Anti-Corruption Film Schools
At the Be Fearless NGen-Case Foundation event in New York City, Executive Director Blair Glencorse presented his idea for an anti-corruption film school for women and girls in Liberia. The proposed project would involve five-week, hands-on training sessions in Liberia’s two largest cities, Monrovia and Buchanan. The schools will build understanding of corruption, accountability and conflict issues, and provide the participants with the skills to direct, produce and edit short, low and no-budget documentaries about important problems in their communities. The project aims to empower women and girls, who in many ways are excluded, as a corrupt system skews access [...]
Accountability Lab Hosts an Accountability Film Festival in Liberia
On Tuesday, Accountability Lab held Liberia’s first festival, showcasing five short but powerful documentaries created by students of the Lab’s recent 5-week accountability filmmaking training program. After an introduction by the Accountability Lab Liberia team, attendees were given the first public viewing of the five new Liberian documentaries: “Dark Sunlight” by Hashim Pabai; “The Future” by Dyfan Massaquoi; “Say it” by Dorcus Pewee; “The Desert Island” by Arthur Wahwehlee; and “Whose Job” by Morris Sherif. Each film depicted a different accountability issue commonly faced by Liberians: electricity shortages, child labor, sexual exploitation of women, and water and sanitation problems. These [...]
Rajneesh Receives Youth Action Fund Grant to Build Anti-Corruption Network
Nepali Accountapreneur Rajneesh Bhandari received a generous grant from Open Society Foundations’ Youth Action Fund for a project to build a network of investigative journalists to fight corruption in Nepal. The objective of the project, “A call to accountability: Voices of corruption fighters in Nepal,” is to use the Right to Information (RTI) Act to investigate, produce and promote five multimedia stories on corruption in various sectors in Nepal. These stories aim not only to inspire people, but also to provide them with the information they need to join the fight against corruption. Rajneesh will partner with the Accountability Lab [...]