The idea is simple: go to 1 place, ask 50 people 1 question, film their answers and get a glimpse of how marvelous life is. “Fifty People, One Question” is a wondeful video project I just discovered. It is about us, our lifes, our wishes, dreams and fears. It is about getting to know people without really knowing them, it is about feeling for and with each other.

It is beautiful. The editing is amazing, the music grabs your heart. I fell in love with the individuals in the clips, with their honesty. This just made my day!

I met Melanie about a month ago. I interviewed her for my radio show on Fritz and was really surprised how nice and cool she was as soon as I came in. While I was fixing my stuff, you know mic and recorder, I hear her make a really funny noise. I turn around and ask her if she was okay. She looks at me with her big eyes, points at my wrist and asks me if that was a tattoo. I glance down at the little red heart with the black outlines, look at her again and say “Yes. Why?” Then, without really giving me an answer, she lifts her arm and shows me a little tattoo on HER wrist. It’s a little HEART!

As you can imagine a real interview was almost impossible to do, we wanted to talk. Where did you get it? When? Why? Do you have any others? Turns out she doesn’t have any other tattoos (like me) and that she doesn’t want any others (like me). I took her and her crew out to party that night, we had major fun, so when I got an email from her early this week telling me about a show case she was going to play I was all happy to meet her again.

Melanie is a really talented singer. She has opened concerts for Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco and Keri Hilson.  Her voice is incredible and her presence on stage is amazing. That girl really needs to be up there. Her album is called “The Bridge” and if you ever have the chance to see her live – DO IT!

The location: Box at the Beach/Tiergarten

Nori and me before the gig

Melanie in full effect

Heart sisters!

…tout vas bien! The key sentence in one of my favorite movies of all times: La Haine!

This fantastic film is from 1995. It was directed by the amazing Matthieu Kassovitz with the young and incredible Vincent Cassel playing the lead!

I watched this movie a while ago and was reminded of it by an ad I saw in Vogue. It was for the new Yves Saint Laurent men’s fragrance with Vince as the testimonial! It’s fascinating to see what has become of him. Married to Monica Belluci he is still as mesmerizing as he was 14 years ago!

Really? There’s not much more I can say to this movie but that it’s brillant! If you haven’t watched it, please do so!

I am a proud Eritrean. Very proud. Thus, I am a proud African. Media coverage about “my” continent makes me sick sometimes, because it comes in two extremes: 1. Africa is a horrible place (and I really do mean place, because most people don’t even bother to distinguish countries) full of wars, hunger and diseases. And 2. it is a wretched place full of poor and underpriviliged people that don’t know how to help themselves. Africans always need help. Preferably from the great West and its noble and famous idols. We remember Madonna in Malawi, George Clooney in Darfur, Brangelina everywhere and I of course remember Steffi Graf in Eritrea. I’m not even going to mention Bono and Bob Geldof.

My friend Maria send me this article today that summed up all the negative feelings charity work by celebrities stirs up in me. The question of how to evaluate this sort of engagement is something that I haven’t come to answer yet, but being part of the media world I never trust staged or orchestrated media events where good looking stars walk through overcrowded, sordid refugee camps. But at the same time, it’s probably the only reason any news team would ever visit that camp or Lieschen Mueller would ever be interested in that topic at all. One could argue it’s win-win. But is it really? I just don’t think so.

Prominente in Afrika: Die Ausbeutung des Hungerkontinents (FAZ)