Nigerians win Ericsson App awards

Ericsson unveiled the winners of the Ericsson 2014 Applications award held  at the Ericsson studio in Kista Sweden. 

The company category was won by Team SOP from Nigeria, who created an app that analyses the availability of electricity in a given area, the jury outlined their reasons for choosing SOP, saying in a joint statement: “Team SOP presented a strong case of using technology in a way that anyone could understand, value and would invest in. They cleverly combined consumer, society and business benefits around lifting transparency of power delivery in a well designed package.”

Toks Ogun of Team SOP says: “This award means we can continue to expand and develop our app, which monitors electricity supplies. We can see a market in parts of North America, in South America and in India and we will continue to develop our idea.”

Taking home the honors inthe student category, Team workmode from South Africa creatd an app that helps workers collaborate by allowing them to see the real time work context and tasks of colleagues.

Beyonce & Jay-Z ,Will & Jada at the 64th Annual Tony Awards

Beyonce & Jay-Z posed with fellow power couple Will & Jada during the 64th Annual Tony Awards show 

In case you’re wondering  The powerful duos executively produced the Broadway show “Fela”, which is based on the life of Nigerian Afro-beat pioneer Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.

Jay and Will congratulate each other on a successful production.

“Fela” won 3 Tony Awards last night in the Best Sound Design of a Musical, Best Choreography, 

                                          and Best Costume Design of a Musical categories.

 

"FELA" THE BROADWAY SHOW, WINNER OF THREE TONY AWARDS

FELA! is the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical that tells the true story of the Nigerian musician Fela Kuti, whose soulful Afro-beat rhythms ignited a generation and inspired the world.

 

 

 

 

FELA ANIKULAPO KUTI

Fela was born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti on 15 October 1938 in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria into an upper-middle-class family. His mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, was a feminist activist in the anti-colonial movement; his father, Reverend Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, a Protestant minister and school principal, was the first president of the Nigeria Union of Teachers. His brothers, Beko Ransome-Kuti and Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, both medical doctors, are well known in Nigeria. Fela was a first cousin to the Nigerian writer and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, the first African to win a Nobel Prize for Literature.
Fela was sent to London in 1958 to study medicine but decided to study music instead at the Trinity College of Music. While there, he formed the band Koola Lobitos, playing a fusion of jazz and highlife. In 1960, Fela married his first wife, Remilekun (Remi) Taylor, with whom he would have three children (Femi, Yeni, and Sola). In 1963, Fela moved back to Nigeria, re-formed Koola Lobitos and trained as a radio producer for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation. He played for some time with Victor Olaiya and his All Stars.
In 1967, he went to Ghana to think up a new musical direction. That was when Kuti first called his music Afrobeat. In 1969, Fela took the band to the United States where they spent 10 months in Los Angeles. While there, Fela discovered the Black Power movement through Sandra Smith (now Sandra Izsadore), a partisan of the Black Panther Party. The experience would heavily influence his music and political views. He renamed the band Nigeria '70. Soon, the Immigration and Naturalization Service was tipped off by a promoter that Fela and his band were in the U.S. without work permits. The band immediately performed a quick recording session in Los Angeles that would later be released as The '69 Los Angeles Sessions.

Steve McQueen Out, 'Mother Of George' Helmer Andrew Dosunmu In To Direct 'Fela Kuti' Biopic

When we caught up with "12 Years A Slave" director Steve McQueen in Toronto he told us he wanted to do something a bit different for his next movie. "I'll do a musical next. I want to do a musical, that's what I want to do," McQueen said, so naturally our thoughts turned to "Fela Kuti," the long developing biopic of the afrobeat legend. McQueen had been attached to this one for a while, even before he shot "Shame," with talk of his 'Slave' star Chiwetel Ejiofor taking the lead role. But it looks like things are changing.
The Wrap reports that Andrew Dosunmu, director of the recently released "Mother Of George," has taken over helming duties on the flick. Based on Michael Veal's book "Fela: The Life and Times of an African Musical Icon," the film has seen Nigerian poet Chris Abani and Focus Features CEO James Schamus tackling the the most recent drafts of the screenplay, which the latter promises "will not be a standard biopic." Which is certainly heartening news given the electric life Fela Kuti lived, which not only found him transforming music, but also politics, in particular ruffling the feathers of the Nigerian regime. His personal life was equally storied, with Fela claiming up to 27 wives at one point, but his lasting legacy is surely his dynamic, inimitable music which still grooves pretty damn hard today.
And the choice Dosunmu is a pretty great one. While of course, we'd love to see what McQueen would've done with it, "Mother Of George" provides ample evidence of Dosunmu's skills behind the camera, both with actors and in creating a vibrant, very visual onscreen world. And that combined with Fela's music cold be a pretty powerful pairing.
No word whether Ejiofor is still being considered for the lead, or even when this is aiming to shoot, but hopefully we're not waiting too much longer. Until more details arrive, turn up your speakers

DAUGHTER OF NIGERIAN IS THE FIRST BLACK MARCHIONESS

Emma McQuiston daughter of Nigerian Oxford graduate and Oil mogule, Ladi Jadesimi.

is the first black Marchioness

Beautiful, accomplished and with an impeccable pedigree, she is every inch the aristocratic wife.

And Emma McQuiston made history when she married the Viscount Of Weymouth, she is the Viscountess of Weymouth

THE NIGERIANS HAVE ARRIVED AND LONDON'S PAYING ATTENTION

 

  

                                                              By David Jenkins
 
 

Richard Vedelago is 29 years old and worth more millions than he's prepared to tell. 'Money talks, but wealth whispers,' he says with a smile, sitting back in the bar at Claridge's - his idea - and lazily sipping an elderflower juice. That whispering is not, the oil, gas, property, telecoms and menswear tycoon goes on, typical of a Nigerian mindset: 'Very loud, quite brash, larger than life -even if you're just having a family meal, everything's over the top all the time. So it's quite fun.' Real fun, he should have said. Nigerians all say they work hard and party hard, believe that they're better at anything than anyone else, collect PhDs like confetti and are intensely entrepreneurial. 'When mankind finally gets to Mars,' chortles Ateh Jewel, who has both a film production company and a beauty business, 'they'll finda Nigerian already there, cutting a deal.'

You don't have to go to Mars, or Lagos, to see the fruits of that in action. Misan Harriman - whose father, Chief Hope Harriman, was one of the founding fathers of modern Nigeria - 'practically lives on Mount Street', eating in Scott's, going to George all the time and making his way down to 5 Hertford Street with his business partner, Boris Becker ('I'm like the other woman in his marriage'). You'll find 44-year-old Kola Karim, the boss of Shoreline Energy International, playing polo with the Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry at Lord Lloyd-Webber's private estate; see old Wykehamist Anthony Adebo, who sprinted and fenced for England, having breakfast at Colbert and late nights at Boujis; hear Kessiana ('Kessie') Edewor-Thorley roaring with laughter over drinks at Bluebird as she mockingly says that for moneyed young Nigerians in London, it's Cirque du Soir on a Monday, 'that awful place Dukebox' on a Tuesday and Loulou's on a Thursday. Meanwhile, Florence ('Cuppy') Otedola, the 20-year-old ex-King's School Canterbury daughter of Femi Otedola, one of Nigeria's richest men, studies business and French at King's College London, while DJing at Privé, Jalouse, District, Funky Buddha and D'Den, a truly Nigerian club in Finchley Road.