Africa Is a Country

Weekend Music Break No.69

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

Weekend Music Break No.69

By
Boima Tucker

Still from Red Red's "Ghetto" Video

A general round-up of tunes that caught our ear this week at Africa is a Country, in no particular order.

Martinique-born Jazz composer and pianist, Chassol returns home to film a Carnival-inspired video for his song “Reich & Darwin,” off of his album Big Sun.

Here’s one for the DJs: UK-based Hagan is back with another EP for Italian-Liberian duo Pepesoup’s label Soupu Music. This one I’m pretty sure samples one of those Angolan Kuduro can players.

Liberia’s David Mell moved from Monrovia to Minnesota in the past year, but that didn’t stop him from producing Afropop heat!

South Africa’s Kid X has been turning heads in Africa is a Country circles.

Ghanian “AfricanEDM” duo Red Red release a video with Sarkodie and some great dancers in what looks like Jamestown.

Percy gives “Bonnie and Clyde” a Nigerian update.

The Very Best released their new album Makes a King last week. They have two videos already out from songs on the album. Here is one.

Nigerian rapper Kelvin King filmed a video (called “Freestyle”) in Johannesburg. It’s seems Pan-Africanism is contagious.

Stromae is endlessly pursued by a blue bird.

Last but not least, one big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Africa is a Country founder, Sean Jacobs!

Further Reading

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.

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.

Energy for whom?

Behind the fanfare of the Africa Climate Summit, the East African Crude Oil Pipeline shows how neocolonial extraction still drives Africa’s energy future.

The sound of revolt

On his third album, Afro-Portuguese artist Scúru Fitchádu fuses ancestral wisdom with urban revolt, turning memory and militancy into a soundtrack for resistance.

O som da revolta

No seu terceiro álbum, o artista afro-português Scúru Fitchádu funde a sabedoria ancestral com a revolta urbana, transformando memória e militância em uma trilha sonora para a resistência.