Africa Is a Country

Friday Bonus Music Break, N°25

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

Friday Bonus Music Break, N°25

By
Tom Devriendt

This summer’s Fuse ODG #ANTENNADANCE competition (“one person controlling the other using azonto movements”) courtesy of the Antenna smash hit resulted in some wild entries (Google it; H/T Jacquelin Kataneksza). Above: #TeamLONDON. And more good moves in the video for Congolese artist Lexxus Legal’s ‘Petits Congolais’ (off his “music record for kids”):

Early Sages Poètes de la Rue member Zoxea, repping Benin (his dad, Jules Kodjo, used to play for the national football team):

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

A collaboration between Danay Mariney and Kobi Onyame, who grew up between Accra (where he was born) and London, now based in Scotland. Video was shot in South Africa:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Or4nw2OykQ

Tapping that London connection, here’s a dreamy video for Maka Agu (aka Ti2bs):

From Queijas (Portugal), new material by video artist, slam poet, MC and beatmaker Alexandre Francisco Diaphra (who goes by many names and claims many locations, among them Pecixe Island, Guinea-Bissau):

Promo video (interviews + outtakes) for the recently released Fangnawa Experience album, a collaboration between Burkina Faso-born Korbo (and his French music collective Fanga) and Moroccan Gnawa master Abdallah Guinéa (with his band Nasse Ejadba):

There’s also a new video for the Sierra Leonean Black Street Family, shot in Freetown. Hustling and tustling:

And to slow it all down a bit: two singer-song writers to end. A new video for South African Nomhle Nongoge’s ‘Ubuntu Bhako’ (references: soul, Eastern Cape, Simphiwe Dana, Zahara):

And Birmingham-based Laura Mvula’s live session for Hunger TV makes us look forward to hearing her debut album:

Further Reading

Kenya’s vibe shift

From aesthetic cool to political confusion, a new generation in Kenya is navigating broken promises, borrowed styles, and the blurred lines between irony and ideology.

Africa and the AI race

At summits and in speeches, African leaders promise to harness AI for development. But without investment in power, connectivity, and people, the continent risks replaying old failures in new code.

After the uprising

Years into Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict, the rebellion faces internal fractures, waning support, and military pressure—raising the question of what future, if any, lies ahead for Ambazonian aspirations.

In search of Saadia

Who was Saadia, and why has she been forgotten? A search for one woman’s story opens up bigger questions about race, migration, belonging, and the gaps history leaves behind.

Binti, revisited

More than two decades after its release, Lady Jaydee’s debut album still resonates—offering a window into Tanzanian pop, gender politics, and the sound of a generation coming into its own.

The bones beneath our feet

A powerful new documentary follows Evelyn Wanjugu Kimathi’s personal and political journey to recover her father’s remains—and to reckon with Kenya’s unfinished struggle for land, justice, and historical memory.

What comes after liberation?

In this wide-ranging conversation, the freedom fighter and former Constitutional Court justice Albie Sachs reflects on law, liberation, and the unfinished work of building a just South Africa.

The cost of care

In Africa’s migration economy, women’s labor fuels households abroad while their own needs are sidelined at home. What does freedom look like when care itself becomes a form of exile?

The memory keepers

A new documentary follows two women’s mission to decolonize Nairobi’s libraries, revealing how good intentions collide with bureaucracy, donor politics, and the ghosts of colonialism.

Making films against amnesia

The director of the Oscar-nominated film ‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’ reflects on imperial violence, corporate warfare, and how cinema can disrupt the official record—and help us remember differently.