Africa Is a Country

Eastern Highlands

Eastern Highlands

By
Serginho Roosblad

This Weekend Music Break features a number of strong women performers: Nosiwe, Rina Mushonga, Alicious Theluji, and the 95 year old Tututa Evora, who just passed away.

Austin Neill, via Unsplash.

We kick off this Weekend Music (Number 67) break with an artist who has been away from the scene for a while: Cape Verdean rapper Vieira Nkosi. This week he uploaded a short freestyle video (in Dutch) entitled “I Am Legend“. Vieira was forced to take it slow, due to an illness, but judging by this video, he’s doing much better, and his new album “Kralienge State of Mind” is finished, he says. We’re happy he’s back.

There’s never a shortage of songs from Naija. Burna Boy released his video for “Na So E Suppose Be.”

South Londoner Kwabs, originally from Ghana, is on about everybody’s ‘who to watch in 2014’ list, which is not so surprising when you listen to him. This track “Wrong or Right” will be featured on his EP that’s coming out this weekend.

DRC’s Alicious Theluji had a smash hit in 2012 with her single “Mpita Njia” together with Ugandan singer Juliana Kanyomozi. But she is fully capable of doing it on her own as she proves on her zouk track “Posa ya Bolingo.”

We’re expecting a lot from Zimbabwean-Dutch singer Rina Mushonga in the near future. Her highly anticipated first album is supposed to come out in February 2014. “Eastern Highlands,” from her self-titled EP she released last year, is promised to be an indicator of what we can expect. We’re counting the days.

An inspirational song from Kenyan rapper Octopizzo, featuring his little daughter Tracy singing the chorus on “Blackstar.”

Three years ago Kenya’s Just a Band shot a video for their single “S.W.E.E.T”. At the time they weren’t happy with the result so they left if for what it was. They seem to have changed their mind, and showed the world what they initially rejected, so you can judge yourself.

Norwegian-South African Nosizwe is no stranger to the music industry. Her brother Tshawe had a smash hit a few years ago with the track “Beggin” as part of the duo Madcon. Nosizwe has taken a different, more alternative route. Her track “The Beat” proves that the musical talent really runs in the family.

To end: this week, Cape Verde, and the world, lost piano legend Epifânia de Freitas Silva Ramos Évora, better known as Dona Tututa or Tutura Evora. She died at the beautiful age of 95. We’d like to pay homage to her with this performance recorded in 2009 on the occasion of her 90th birthday. R.I.P.

Further Reading

A power crisis

Andre De Ruyter, the former CEO of Eskom, has presented himself as a simple hero trying to save South Africa’s struggling power utility against corrupt forces. But this racially charged narrative is ultimately self-serving.

Cinematic universality

Fatou Cissé’s directorial debut meditates on the uncertain fate and importance of Malian cinema amidst the growing dismissiveness towards the humanities across the world.

The meanings of Heath Streak

Zimbabwean cricketing legend Heath Streak’s career mirrors many of the unresolved tensions of race and class in Zimbabwe. Yet few white Zimbabwean sporting figures are able to stir interest and conversation across the nation’s many divides.

Victorious

After winning Italy’s Serie A with Napoli, Victor Osimhen has cemented his claim to being Africa’s biggest footballing icon. But is the trend of individual stardom good for sports and politics?

Breaking the chains of indifference

The significance of ending the ongoing war in Sudan cannot be overstated, and represents more than just an end to violence. It provides a critical moment for the international community to follow the lead of the Sudanese people.

The magic man

Chris Blackwell’s long-awaited autobiography shows him as a romantic rogue; a risk taker whose life compass has been an open mind and gift to hear and see slightly into the future.

How to think about colonialism

Contemporary approaches to the legacy of colonialism tend to narrowly emphasize political agency as the solution to Africa’s problems. But agency is configured through historically particular relations of which we are not sole authors.

More than just a flag

South Africa’s apartheid flag has been declared hate speech by a top court. But while courts are important and their judgments matter, racism is a long and internationally entrenched social phenomenon that cannot be undone via judicial processes.

Resistance is a continuous endeavor

For more than 75 years, Palestinians have organized for a liberated future. Today, as resistance against Israeli apartheid intensifies, unity and revolutionary optimism has become the main infrastructure of struggle.

Paradise forgotten

While there is much to mourn about the passing of legendary American singer and actor Harry Belafonte, we should hold a place for his bold statement-album against apartheid South Africa.

The two Africas

In the latest controversies about race and ancient Egypt, both the warring ‘North Africans as white’ and ‘black Africans as Afrocentrists’ camps find refuge in the empty-yet-powerful discourse of precolonial excellence.