We are very pleased to re-release Ramona Africa: 1992 for YouTube.com. Originally released in April 2001 in QuickTime format, this piece is one of the earliest African-related and African-produced multimedia presentations to appear on the Internet.
We were well aware of the historical nature of this technical achievement and the work was meant to be clarion call to the masses to use present “multimedia” content on the Internet using the Internet itself. This was a far cry from the style of traditional media who, until the acquisition of YouTube.com by Google, publishes over the Internet instead of publishing with the Internet.
The production budget for Ramona Africa: 1992 was deliberately microscopic to ‘prove’ that the only barriers to publishing on the Internet were cultural and based on ignorance. The explosive growth of YouTube.com is the ultimate proof of our assertion. The heart and soul of this work is based on an old-school, magnetic cassette tape that was digitized and mixed with images from the Web and the original photography of Darryl Allan Smith and Jacob Holdt. See the “Credits” track for more details.
Words and Flow by . . . . . . . Ramona Africa
Video Segments by . . . . . . . Bryan Wilhite, SonghaySystem.com
Archival Audio by . . . . . . . R/Kain Blaze, Freeman Manifestation
YouTube.com Production Line by . . . . . . . R/Kain Blaze, FullOnBrawl.com
Original Photography by . . . . . . . Darryl Allan Smith
Original Photography by . . . . . . . Jacob Holdt, American-Pictures.com
ActionScript and PHP by . . . . . . . Bryan Wilhite
CSS, XML and XSLT by . . . . . . . Bryan Wilhite