Friday Music Break, N°10

By: Sean Jacobs

British based Nigerian rapper Modenine starts off our weekly Friday Music Break. Here’s four more.

No we’re not including the video just below just because Flint, Michigan-born Tunde Olaniran is half Nigerian. Yes we are. But he is also talented. (Detroit MC Miz Korona makes a feature appearance.)

Nigerian pop gets a French makeover

More pop rap from West Africa: Veteran (yes, they’re been around for a while now) rappers VIP, from Accra, are now flogging fantasy, cars and girls. Computer graphics come in handy.

From about a year ago: rapper Pharoahe Monch gets help from the Miguel Atwood-Ferguson Ensemble (or it’s the other way around).

See you Monday.

Three footballers walk into a stadium

Maher Mezahi

What the presence of an unlikely trio of football icons at AFCON tells us about migration, African identity, and the histories that continue to shape the modern game

12.27.2025

The Senegalese paradox

Cherif Sadio

How Senegal rose to become one of the most fertile grounds in African football, and why this success still struggles to transform the local football economy.

12.27.2025

Le paradoxe sénégalais

Cherif Sadio

Comment le Sénégal est-il devenu l’un des viviers les plus prolifiques du football africain, et pourquoi ce succès peine-t-il encore à transformer l’économie du football local.

12.26.2025

Sounds of the Africa Cup of Nations

Maher Mezahi

What it sounds like on the ground in Morocco at the 2025 edition of Africa Cup of Nations.

12.24.2025

AFCON and the politics of Africanhood

Brahim El Guabli

In Morocco, football has become a site for the slow re-Africanization of the country’s national identity.

12.22.2025

The myth of Nigerian football exceptionalism

Garhe Osiebe

The Super Eagles don’t suffer from a shortage of talent, but represent a country unwilling to admit that greatness is not a birthright.

12.21.2025

Salah in isolation

Maher Mezahi

Distanced at club level, and scrutinized at home, there is no player with more to prove at this Africa Cup of Nations than Mohamed Salah.

12.21.2025

The boys are back in town

Njabulo Ngidi

Bafana Bafana’s resurgence has been forged where South African football always lives—between brilliance and the bizarre.

12.20.2025

A giant chance

Maher Mezahi

An African Cup of Nations at home for red hot Morocco is a chance to put past trauma aside and charge on to the world stage.

12.19.2025

On the pitch

William Shoki

This year, instead of taking a publishing break, we will be covering the African Cup of Nations. To transition, we consider why football still matters in an era of enclosure, mediated presence, and thinning publics.

Culture

12.18.2025

What does a museum mean here?

Achille Tenkiang

A dispatch from Benin City tells the unfinished story of the Museum of West African Art.

Culture

12.17.2025

Has digital feminism peaked?

Ifedayo Ward

The scandal around Ezra Olubi has exposed the contradictions of Nigeria’s middle-class, online feminism.

Culture

12.16.2025

Mapping Johannesburg’s wounds

Phokeng Setai

In his latest exhibition, Khanya Zibaya charts the psychic and spatial terrain of a city where homelessness, decay, and human resilience sit uneasily together.

Politics

12.15.2025

The missing voices of Western Sahara

Zahra Rahmouni

At the UN’s annual Western Sahara debate, everyone gets heard except the Sahrawis themselves.

Culture

12.12.2025

Whose museum is it anyway?

Afolabi Adekaiyaoja

The dispute over Benin City’s museum project shows that returning stolen art does not settle the question of ownership.

Culture

12.11.2025

Minnesota was promised to us

Faisal Ali

Somalis have answered Trump’s latest racist tirade not with outrage but with a tidal wave of trolling.

Culture

12.10.2025

The golden light of Pops Mohamed

Atiyyah Khan

From Actonville to global stages, Pops Mohamed blended tradition, futurism, and faith—leaving behind a musical archive as luminous as the spirit he carried.

12.09.2025

Pints and powerpoints

Keith Ang'ana

From IMF history to astrophysics, Nairobi’s Drunken Lectures turn casual drinkers into an engaged public.

Politics

12.08.2025

Guinea’s bet on iron ore

Daniel Ekonde

A $20 billion iron ore mega-project is reshaping Guinea’s economy and politics, but communities in Simandou say they still lack water, electricity, and accountability.

Politics

12.05.2025

Khartoum, the most selfish city: if we let it be

Lina Abushouk

Khartoum’s recovery is not a national recovery. Until Sudan confronts the violence that has long been concentrated outside the capital, ‘liberation’ will remain a hollow word.

AfricaIs aCountry