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Dutch museum exhibition showing Beyoncé dressed as Queen Nefertiti stirs Egyptian outrage

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An exhibition by a Dutch museum where American singer, Beyoncé was seen dressed as Ancient Egyptian Queen, Nefertiti has caused serious outrage in the North African country.

The “Kemet” exhibition at Leiden’s Rijksmuseum van Oudheden National Museum of Antiquities has enraged Egypt, which had previously banned the museum’s archaeologists from carrying out excavations in the country following an earlier controversy.

Egypt’s Antiquities Service in a statement, said the museum was “falsifying history” with its “Afrocentric approach which seeks to appropriate Egyptian culture.”

An Egyptian Professor at University of Amsterdam, Dr Ali Hamdan, a specialist in political geography with a regional focus on the Middle East and North Africa, said:

“From what I can see, it has been sort of viewed in a very particular light by the government back in Egypt. I think it’s important for us to say it kind of move away from this more Eurocentric perspective through which Egypt’s history has been viewed.”

The museum, in its defence, said the exhihition which was meant to be an empowering celebration of “Egypt in hip-hop, jazz, soul and funk” has instead become a culture war.

It also lamented the barrage of criticisms and attacks it had been getting through comments on social media that were “racist or offensive in nature” after the row blew up in Egypt.

“The exhibition explores music by black artists including record album covers, photographs and contemporary artworks,” the curator of the exhibition, Daniel Soliman, who claims to be an egyptologist, said.

“There are walls of album covers showing the influence of ancient Egypt on artists including Tina Turner, Earth Wind and Fire and Miles Davis, and a special interactive video installation.

“It’s not only about kind of African Americans taking Egyptian culture, it’s about a very wealthy commercial project that is to say Hollywood and other kind of related industries doing that.

“So the perception is that there are these wealthy Hollywood elites who are kind of taking advantage of Egyptian culture and kind of rewriting how they view their own identity right. So there are a lot of layers to this I think that are worth keeping in mind,” Soliman said.

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Ghanaian rapper Sarkodie fires shots at Davido, Wizkid, Burna Boy, Asake in new single ‘Brag’

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Ghanaian rapper, Michael Owusu Addo, popularly known as Sarkodie, has sparked a new round of storm after he fired shots at Nigerian Afrobeats singers, Davido, Wizkid, Burna Boy and Asake in his new single, “Brag.”

In the single which dropped on Friday, May 10, Sarkodie boasted about his 2016 sell-out performance at the O2 Arena, claiming he paved the way for the Nigerian acts.

The Ghanaian rapper said he laid the light for Nigerian Afrobeats top artistes and as such, they should be grateful to him and his pioneering role in projecting their careers.

The “Painkiller” hitmaker boasted about selling out the O2 in 2016, long before the Nigerian stars and created the platform they are now enjoying.

He went on to place himself in the same league as Grammy Award-winning Burna Boy and Ghanaian rapper, Black Sherif.

Sarkodie also stated that his main competitors in the music industry were American rappers Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole, noting that he wasn’t on the same level as African rappers.

A line from the song goes:

“Wizkid came, I was already doing it, Davido started, I was improving it, then Odogwu came through Black Sherif & Asake.”

The release of “Brag” has however, elicited controversy and heated debates within the African music community, with fans weighing in on Sarkodie’s bold assertions and the perceived rivalry between him and the mentioned Nigerian artists.

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Kenyan officials arrest four Tiktokers for filming robbery prank video outside police station

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Kenyan Police authorities have arrested four young Tiktokers for filming a robbery prank outside a police station in the Kilifi North Sub-county.

Local media reports that the four young people who were aiming for social media fame, were arrested after filming and publishing on Tiktok a fake robbery outside the police station.

“The four young people, one of whom is 17 years old, made a video titled ‘wezi mbele ya police station’ (robbery outside a police station), and posted it on the popular video platform. However, police didn’t take it lightly,” one report wrote.

“In the video, a seemingly drunk man exits the Administration Police (AP) canteen and gets robbed by two others on a motorcycle.

“The 18-year-old cameraman was among those arrested. Police identified them through CCTV footage at the AP canteen. The youths were arrested at their homes in Kilifi, with the oldest being 27 years old,” another report said.

The Kilifi North Sub-county Police Commander, Kenneth Maina, who confirmed the incident and arrest of the suspects, said investigations are still ongoing, and the suspects will face charges, including cybercrimes.

“The viral video of a daylight robbery at the Kilifi Administration Police canteen in Kilifi was not real but a prank by a group of youths creating content for their TikTok account,” Maina said.

Maina said they were pursuing another suspect who was still at large, adding that the youths revealed they only wanted to attract followers to their TikTok account.

“There were five youths and we managed to arrest four of them and the other one we have a crucial lead that will lead us to an arrest,” the Police Commander said.

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