All of the party

A mix of French hip hop and smooth R&B dominates this installment, Number 5, of music from the French capital. Paris is a Continent.

David Beckham playing at his last club, LA Galaxy in the MLS (Anna Enriquez, via Flickr CC).

Not sure what it says about France that the headlines in Paris are dominated by stories that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who sexually assaulted an African woman working as a cleaner in a New York City hotel, is being portrayed as a victim of a conspiracy. To top it all, David Beckham, a semi-retired 36-year-old English player is entrusted with bringing back glamor to French club football (he signed with Paris Saint Germain).

Meanwhile, a mix of French hip hop and smooth R&B dominates this installment of music from Paris.  This week is a short offering since I am going on vacation today.

First up,  the Tunisian rapper Sniper featuring Sexion d’Assault on “Blood Diamondz.” (You may remember that Sexion d’Assault was, until recently, known more for their homophobic outbursts than their music. They claimed to have left hate behind.)

For now, here are two: first, Marseille-born singer Kenza Farah featured on the song “Tous de la Fête” by Dibi Dobo (his family comes from Benin). Kenza Farah’s family is Kabyle from Algeria. Their collaboration features the pan-African spirit that exist among Africans, whether from North and Sub-Saharan Africa, in France.

Then there’s Evanz, a singer discovered by La Fouine, and her song “Ton Silence,”  The song features rapper Soprano.

 

Further Reading

Coming home

In 1991, acclaimed South African artist Helen Sebidi’s artworks were presumed stolen in Sweden. Three decades later, a caretaker at the residential college where they disappeared found them in a ceiling cupboard, still in their original packaging.

Imaginary homelands

A new biography of former apartheid homeland leader Lucas Mangope struggles to do more than arrange the actions of its subject into a neat chronology.

Business as usual?

This month, Algeria quietly held its second election since Abdelaziz Bouteflika was ousted in 2019. On the podcast, we ask what Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s second term means for the country.

The complexities of solidarity

Assassinated in 1978, Henri Curiel was a Jewish Egyptian Marxist whose likely killers include fascist French-Algerian colons, the apartheid South African Bureau of State Security, and the Abu Nidal Organization.

From Naija to Abidjan

One country is Anglophone, and the other is Francophone. Still, there are between 1 to 4 million people of Nigerian descent living in Côte d’Ivoire today.

De Naïja à Abidjan

Un pays est anglophone et l’autre est francophone. Quoi qu’il en soit, entre 1 et 4 millions de personnes d’origine nigériane vivent aujourd’hui en Côte d’Ivoire.