AfricaIs aCountry

TV Heads

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

TV Heads

By
Tom Devriendt

‘Kichwateli’ (‘TV head’ < Swahili) is one of the many chapters in the BLNRB project. Contributors are Just A Band (read Siddharta Mitter’s profile of the Kenyan trio here), street collective Maasai Mbili and the German electronic artists Modeselektor. The video was created by Bobb Muchiri (around the 5:00 mark neatly juxtaposing Nobel peace prize winner Obama’s statement on the killing of bin Laden with the image of the late Kenyan Wangari Maathai — you connect the dots). No, TV Head’s Kibera doesn’t quite have the air of More’s Utopia yet, referenced in the introduction, nor does Nairobi’s CCTV monitored city center.

Further Reading

Atayese

Honored in Yorubaland as “one who repairs the world,” Jesse Jackson’s life bridged civil rights, pan-Africanism, empire, and contradiction—leaving behind a legacy as expansive as it was imperfect.

Bread or Messi?

Angola’s golden jubilee culminated in a multimillion-dollar match against Argentina. The price tag—and the secrecy around it—divided a nation already grappling with inequality.

Visiting Ngara

A redevelopment project in Nairobi’s Ngara district promises revival—but raises deeper questions about capital, memory, and who has the right to shape the city.

Gen Z’s electoral dilemma

Long dismissed as apathetic, Kenya’s youth forced a rupture in 2024. As the 2027 election approaches, their challenge is turning digital rebellion and street protest into political power.

A world reimagined in Black

By placing Kwame Nkrumah at the center of a global Black political network, Howard W. French reveals how the promise of pan-African emancipation was narrowed—and what its failure still costs Africa and the diaspora.

Securing Nigeria

Nigeria’s insecurity cannot be solved by foreign airstrikes or a failing state, but by rebuilding democratic, community-rooted systems of collective self-defense.