I am currently working on a project on Benga and was wondering if you could share the sources for the biography on him? Hello, Anna. I'm afraid I don't keep records of source material. And, after six years, I really don't remember where I might have found the material on Benga.
I'm sure I did what I always do: scour the internet looking for the subject's name, and finding only scraps of information that I then work into some sort of whole. I try to be very careful - extremely careful - that the story I share is factual, leaving off anything that doesn't sound quite right, or at least wording things to signify when I'm not - entirely - certain of the veracity of some bit of information I'm sharing.
But it's one of the blessings in being a mere blogger and not a published historian that I don't have to keep the records, quote resources. I'm also able to sometimes revisit a post, to add information or make corrections, either because of further study on my part or because of the wonderful input of my readers. Sorry not to be any help with this. Good luck with you project!
And please check back in if you find I've gotten anything wrong here - I'd so appreciate that! Life And The Arts From A Retrograde Perspective. He was the illegitimate grandson of one of the richest landowners in Dakar, his father had been educated by Catholic missionaries in France, and his uncle was a successful lawyer in Paris.
The latter soon became well known as a dancer, himself, an exotic and erotic male counterpart to Baker. It appears that he, like Baker, well understood the commodification of black culture and the black body and his marketability as an object of desire, in his case, particularly in artistic and homosexual circles.
