AfricaIs aCountry

Acoustic Guitar Break

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

Acoustic Guitar Break

By
Sean Jacobs

We thought it would be nice to compile a Bonus Music Break centered on acoustic guitar music. First up is Toronto-based Ghanaian Kae Sun with “Lion on a Leash”:

Another Ghanaian: Kesse (made his breakthrough on Ghana’s version of American Idol) was profiled by The Fader last year:

Then there’s German-Nigerian Ayo:

And video of a 23 minute live set by Asa, France-based Nigerian (credits: “Fire on the Mountain,” “Mr Jailer,”), recorded in San Francisco:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II668alI00g

Bez, the young Nigerian (remember him?) will be in New York City next week (Society HAE has the details)

You can’t say acoustic guitar music and not include Michael Kiwanuka, Ugandan-born British crooner. He is a big part of our regular Twitter #musicbreaks.

Stateside, there’s Cody ChesnuT. (BTW, while below he slows things down, I’ve seen him crank it up with The Legendary Roots Crew):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTuj3jYehtE

And Gary Clarke Jnr with a stripped down version of my favorite tunes (remember him?)

Further Reading

The people want to breathe

In Tunisia’s coastal city of Gabès, residents live in the shadow of the phosphate industry. As pollution deepens and repression returns, a new generation revives the struggle for life itself.

After Paul Biya

Cameroon’s president has ruled for over four decades by silence and survival. Now, with dynastic succession looming and no clear exit strategy, the country teeters between inertia and implosion.

Leapfrogging literacy?

In outsourcing the act of writing to machines trained on Western language and thought, we risk reinforcing the very hierarchies that decolonization sought to undo.

Repoliticizing a generation

Thirty-eight years after Thomas Sankara’s assassination, the struggle for justice and self-determination endures—from stalled archives and unfulfilled verdicts to new calls for pan-African renewal and a 21st-century anti-imperialist front.

The king of Kinshasa

Across five decades, Chéri Samba has chronicled the politics and poetry of everyday Congolese life, insisting that art belongs to the people who live it.

Drip is temporary

The apparel brand Drip was meant to prove that South Africa’s townships could inspire global style. Instead, it revealed how easily black success stories are consumed and undone by the contradictions of neoliberal aspiration.