Africa Is a Country

Asking for a friend

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

Asking for a friend

By
Africa is a Country

This week’s 20 questions from our friend:

Can Idris Elba’s acting save the Netflix movie ‘Beasts of No Nation’?

Why do African national teams do so well in FIFA age group competitions (Nigeria and Mali play each other in the Under 17 World Cup Final today in Chile) but fail so spectacularly at senior level? (A former Mexico coach–they lost to Nigeria in the semifinal–has a theory.)

Will the child refugees who are the subjects of this New York Times Magazine/Google ‘real time’ storytelling app be able to see it?

Who will win Uganda’s presidential election in 2016?

You know that President Paul Kagame can technically rule Rwanda until 2034? Think about it: North West Kardashian will be 21 and D’Banj will be 54.

Is Africa’s best footballer Yaya Toure mad at John Obi Mikel?

Will the Italian newspaper La Republica at some point explain to the rest of us why it decided to make a blackface film?

Is Bono also your go-to person on global poverty and Ethiopian history?

What is Nigerian Senator Patrick Obahiagbon saying?

Who should we blame for the pitiful state of commercial rap music?

Is Drake Zambian?

Is “Our Brand is Crisis” (the fictionalized movie version with Sandra Bullock of the revealing 2006 documentary film) as bad as we assume it is?

Why is Fareed Zakaria still allowed to make stuff up?

Does the  movement have its own soundtrack?

Have you gotten your copy of “Apartheid Israel: The Politics of an Analogy“?

What was NPR thinking?

Who believed Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte (Order of the Blackface) when he pretended to know very little about his country’s deep historical ties to South Africa?

Did the City of Johannesburg take Burning Spear’s advice about social living literally?

Why do US public representatives take their foreign policy advice (on the Democratic Republic of the Congo) from Nicole Ritchie and Ryan Gosling?

Don’t we all miss Brenda Fassie right now?

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.