Since we’re back to our Independence Day meme, yesterday was Guinea-Conakry’s day. (Yes, Sean’s fault again.)

Looking south from where I live, it’s tempting to think of, say, DJ Oudy as being the big star. But that’s because Paris lies somewhere in between here and Guinea. And the Guinean diaspora does a good job at clouding the French perception. Europe offers them all the right studios, the marketeers and the bling. And the resulting videos are quite something. (You must have seen ‘Tchoumakay’ by now). In Guinea though, they’re listening to Tiranké Sidimé:

Les Jumeaux:

And Momo:

I’m going for the Guinean sounds. Here’s to a fair election later this year.

Further Reading

Goodbye, Piassa

The demolition of an historic district in Addis Ababa shows a central contradiction of modernization: the desire to improve the country while devaluing its people and culture.

And do not hinder them

We hardly think of children as agents of change. At the height of 1980s apartheid repression in South Africa, a group of activists did and gave them the tool of print.