Africa Is a Country

Music Break. Simphiwe Dana

Music Break. Simphiwe Dana

By
Tom Devriendt

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=829dg3GN7aM&w=500&h=307&rel=0]

Does it matter whether we know where a music video was shot? Probably not, but watching this first clip for Simphiwe Dana’s new album Kulture Noir, I can’t help but stare at the steel barred windows of the police holding cells in the background. Daily, around that corner, you find people on the sidewalk exchanging messages with their imprisoned friends or family members.  It thus makes for a weird block party in Cape Town’s City Bowl. Fortunately, there is the music. That’s London-based South African bandleader Adam Glasser on the harmonica, by the way.

Further Reading

Writing while black

Percival Everett’s novel ‘Erasure’ raised questions about Black middle-class complicity in commodifying the traumas of Black working-class lives, but the film adaptation leaves little room to explore these tensions.

The Mogadishu analogy

In Gaza and Haiti, the specter of another Mogadishu is being raised to alert on-lookers and policymakers of unfolding tragedies. But we have to be careful when making comparisons.

Kwame Nkrumah today

New documents looking at British and American involvement in overthrowing Kwame Nkrumah give us pause to reflect on his legacy, and its resonances today.