AfricaIs aCountry

Still Hip Hop

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Still Hip Hop

By
Sean Jacobs

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woHMTgvfs_E&w=500&h=307&rel=0]

Hip hop now has its own museums, honors shows on basic cable, and rap beats drive car commercials.  So I am surprised when good hip hop happens again, whether from trusted sources or from artists you’ll never hear from on the radio.  Like Jay Electronica recent “The Ghost of Christopher Wallace.” If you missed his “Exhibit A” and “Exhibit C”–I prefer the Mos Def remix for the latter–google it and take a listen.

— Sean Jacobs

Further Reading

Slow death by food

Illegal gold mining is poisoning Ghana’s soil and rivers, seeping into its crops and seafood, and turning the national food system into a long-term public health crisis.

A sick health system

The suspension of three doctors following the death of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s son has renewed scrutiny of a health-care system plagued by impunity, underfunding, and a mass exodus of medical professionals.

Afrobeats after Fela

Wizkid’s dispute with Seun Kuti and the release of his latest EP with Asake highlight the widening gap between Afrobeats’ commercial triumph and Fela Kuti’s political inheritance

Progress is exhausting

Pedro Pinho’s latest film follows a Portuguese engineer in Guinea-Bissau, exposing how empire survives through bureaucracy, intimacy, and the language of “development.”

The rubble of empire

Built by Italian Fascists in 1928, Mogadishu Cathedral was meant to symbolize “peaceful conquest.” Today its ruins force Somalis to confront the uneasy afterlife of colonial power and religious authority.