Comments on: Michael Jackson

By: Noel - Best Acoustic Strings

Noel - Best Acoustic Strings — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 05:01:12 +0000

I first saw “Thriller” MV when I was still in primary school. It was so huge and everybody was buzzing about it. We miss you, Michael.

By: zappatista

zappatista — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 03:25:45 +0000

Why don't you like me? - Frank Zappa

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 03:07:26 +0000

Charles, more or less, yes. But Central African, not West African.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 03:03:41 +0000

And when i say Lingala, I mean KiNgwana. (Sorry, I was thinking of “Lingala” for entirely different reasons).

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 02:59:18 +0000

Bwana is “mr” or “sir.” Bwana Ndege is “Mr Bird,” a name given to this individual from his days as an accountant on a plantation. They used quill pens, and he kept the quill behind his ear.

The pluralizations are all screwed up because this is not really KiSwahili, but rather a dialect called Lingala.

By: Charles Evo

Charles Evo — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 02:57:14 +0000

By Afro Pop music do you specifically mean the fast-paced Soukous guitar music?

Because weren’t Afrobeat and Juju music kind of big in West Africa in the 1980s?

Although maybe Afrobeat was more 1970s, I do remember King Sunny Ade being quite popular in the 1980s. Well, at least among us African pop music aficionados in the States he was.

By: Charles Evo

Charles Evo — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 02:38:51 +0000

Google translates Swahili to English (sort of).

For “Mara ingine! Mara ingine! Tena tena tena tena!” it offers “Other times! Other times! Again again again again!”

Well, that’s close enough.

And for “Bwana Ndege” it gives us “Lord Birds”.

By: aratina cage

aratina cage — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 01:54:11 +0000

It's a sweet story, Greg. The first memory I have of watching him was at Captain EO in Disneyland, also the first 3-D movie I ever saw.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 23:46:08 +0000

Mara Ingine = Anther Time and Tena = Again.

So, basically, the exact opposite of what your niece said.

By: mattb

mattb — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 23:39:53 +0000

Last year after MJ died I asked my niece if she had ever watched Thriller. She hadn’t. So I download it to my iphone. We’re going to share a beautiful moment. We start the video and a few minutes in Michael starts turning into a werewolf. My niece screams and throws my iphone. “Why didn’t you tell me that was going to happen!” She bursts into tears. I felt terrible. I forgot, it’s a little scary.

So what does it mean? “Mara ingine! Mara ingine! Tena tena tena tena!”