Africa Is a Country

Friday Bonus Music Break, N°27

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

Friday Bonus Music Break, N°27

By
Tom Devriendt

Azonto and its growing global reaches… Somebody should write a book about it. ‘Tribal Azonto’ above: Ghana via the UK — sampling South African electro? Next, from Accra proper, a rap convo with Trebla, Hotjam, EL and Stargo (and many other cameos):

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

Rap from a different kind and country: here’s a new video for Milk Coffee & Sugar (that’s Edgar Sekloka and Gaël Faye):

Nigerian D.i.s Guise’s track ‘Mr Bambe’ now has a video:

And one last rap. The video is older, but Tanzanian collective X Plastaz released the long (and excellent) Shule mixtape this week. Ziggylah’s ‘Bang Bang’ is on it:

‘Mabone’ is a dance tune by Lesotho-born Refiloe “Chocolate Soul” Thoahlane. It comes with a glorious video:

We haven’t included too many Mozambicans here recently. A pretty wild video for Dama do Bling’s poppy ‘Champion’:

More pop, from Uganda come Radio and Weasel (remember their 2010 classic ‘Heart Attack Vuvuzela’ — they’ve upped the production quality of their music videos since):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZpinLkjyi8

Meanwhile in London: DJ Yoda, Afrikan Boy and Soom T throwing a party on a bus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azvirURDc1

And Melina Matrsoukass shot the video below in Jamaica for Chicago dance-hall duo Wild Belle’s (brother and sister in fact) track ‘Keep You’. It has elicited some interesting YouTube comments:

H/T’s to @zach_rosen, @TIholie (via @nemesisinc), @ianbirrell, @Tribalmagz, @25toLyf and @Birdseeding.

Further Reading

On Safari

On our annual publishing break, Gaza’s genocide continues to unfold in real time yet slips from public grasp. This is not just a crisis of politics, but of how reality is mediated—and why we must build spaces where meaning can still take root.

The battle over the frame

As Hollywood recycles pro-war propaganda for Gen Z, Youssef Chahine’s ‘Djamila, the Algerian’ reminds us that anti-colonial cinema once turned imperial film language against its makers—and still can.

Fictions of freedom

K. Sello Duiker’s ‘The Quiet Violence of Dreams’ still haunts Cape Town, a city whose beauty masks its brutal exclusions. Two decades later, in the shadow of Amazon’s new development, its truths are more urgent than ever.

When things fall apart

Against a backdrop of global collapse, one exhibition used Chinua Achebe’s classic to hold space for voices from the Global South—and asked who gets to imagine the future.

The General sleeps

As former Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari’s death is mourned with official reverence, a generation remembers the eight years that drove them out.

The grift tank

In Washington’s think tank ecosystem, Africa is treated as a low-stakes arena where performance substitutes for knowledge. The result: unqualified actors shaping policy on behalf of militarists, lobbyists, and frauds.

Kagame’s hidden war

Rwanda’s military deployments in Mozambique and its shadowy ties to M23 rebels in eastern Congo are not isolated interventions, rather part of a broader geopolitical strategy to expand its regional influence.