It’s time again for another Weekend Music Break with Africa is a Country! Enjoy this round of tunes and visuals from the continent and its sphere of cultural influence.

The music thing that excited me most all week was coming to find out that Booba joined Sidiki Diabate on stage last December in Paris during his rendition of “Inianafi Debena“, and launched into a live mashup of that song and “Validée“, making all right in the world of Africa-Europe sampling/inspiration/dedication relations; another Bambara-themed hip hop collaboration, Kinté, Le Prince Héritier and Zarkawi Djatta are a revelation out of Cote d’Ivoire (h/t Afropop); Saharawi singer Aziza Brahim releases a video for “Calles de Dajla” to promote her latest album, and to celebrate her people still forced to live outside of their rightful land; A more explicit call to political action is embedded in the video for Jackson Wahengo’s “Eliko la Namibia”; Sammus delivers a sermon on higher education (and mental health) that I’m sure some Africa is a Country readers can relate to; Show Dem Camp, show up with a sunny love-pop video; Throes + The Shine add a third leg to their team up in the form of DRC via Montreal rapper Pierre Kwenders, on their song “Capuca”; the remix of YCEE’s monster hit “Jagaban” featuring Olamide, gets its own video to go alongside the original; I missed the video for this Samini and Popcaan collaboration from two years ago, so here it is now!; and finally, Runtown last year teamed up with Uhuru for a really smooth Naija and South Africa collaboration to take you into Sunday morning!

Happy Weekend!

Further Reading

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.

After the coups

Without institutional foundations or credible partners, the Alliance of Sahel States risks becoming the latest failed experiment in regional integration.

Whose game is remembered?

The Women’s Africa Cup of Nations opens in Morocco amid growing calls to preserve the stories, players, and legacy of the women who built the game—before they’re lost to erasure and algorithm alike.