Rolling to “A-Free-Ka”: Seeing and Hearing the Transmedia Screen Worlds of Kahlil Joseph's “Cheeba”
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Published:April 2025
Joe Jackson, 2025. "Rolling to “A-Free-Ka”: Seeing and Hearing the Transmedia Screen Worlds of Kahlil Joseph's “Cheeba”", Contemporary African Screen Worlds, Lindiwe Dovey, Añulika Agina, Michael W. Thomas
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Kahlil Joseph is a multi-award-winning filmmaker based in Los Angeles. He has collaborated with the likes of the musicians Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, FKA Twigs, Flying Lotus, and Sampha as well as large-scale organizations Kenzo, O2, and Vans. His music video “Cheeba” (2010)—one of director’s earliest projects—promotes the first single from the multi-instrumentalist Shafiq Husayn’s debut solo project En’ A-Free-Ka (2009). This chapter explores how the “Cheeba” video constructs complex formations of Africa (or “A-Free-Ka”) through transmedia screen worlds that oscillate between divergent media forms and disparate cultural affiliations. In turn, the chapter argues that the collaboration between Kahlil Joseph and Shafiq Husayn offers new opportunities for understanding how contemporary diasporic creatives interact with and navigate different cultures and settings, both including and beyond African contexts.