Africa Is a Country

The World Carnival Sound

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

The World Carnival Sound

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Hipsters Don't Dance

Once a month Hipsters Don't Dance will bless Africa Is a Country with their top 5 World Carnival tunes.

This is the beginning of our new partnership with Africa is a Country. We are a London-based, British DJ crew Hipster’s Don’t Dance. We have Trinidadian (Kazabon) and Nigerian (Hootie Who) origins  respectively and aim to represent the Atlantic music world to the London massive with our regular parties, and reflecting our London scene to the world. See our blog, DJ mixes, and DJ edits. Taking a cue from the lively West Indian Carnival in London, we try to inject other faces of London’s immigrant cultures into the scene, and cultivating what a “World Carnival Sound.” Starting this month, we will be doing a regular round up of our top five World Carnival tunes here on Africa is a Country. Here is our top five for July 2014:

Moelogo – The Baddest (feat. Giggs)

Currently the biggest song out and it has a sneaky chance to be the song of the summer. By adding Giggs , and his incredible voice, to this track it has given this song an even bigger audience. P.S. congrats to Moelogo on signing his major label deal.

Wizkid – Show You The Money

Wizkid when will you release an LP?  There are a ton of us that would really like that to happen. Instead he is chilling in LA with Chris Brown and Ty Dolla $ign, this will be placed alongside his other Wizkid classics like Jaiye Jaiye and Caro.

Edem – Wicked and Bad (feat. 4 x 4)

Some Ghanaian dancehall that instantly connected with a lot of DJ’s, it will be interesting to see this work in the club. This could have a big crossover appeal with dancehall and U.K. club heads.

Dj Hassan – Early Momo (Feat. Patoranking)

Its been a busy month for Patoranking, between this, the Girlie O remix, and his anti-bleaching cover of Loyal he really is setting himself up to be the man of the moment. Having a cut on the incredible Bam Bam Riddim can’t hurt either.

Dr Sid – Baby Tornado (feat. Alexandra Burke)

Continuing the theme of odd Afropop collaborators (Idris Elba, Diana King, Olivia, etcetera) this one works really well. The video is glossy enough to make it on to UK music channels as well, which is probably the best way into everyone’s homes these days.

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.