Africa Is a Country

Billy Bang

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

Billy Bang

By
Siddhartha Mitter

Bang, was a free jazz violinist and composer, whose music reflected on his involvement as an American conscript in the Vietnam War.

Billy Bang.

I am very sad to learn that Billy Bang has died at age 63. He was a beautiful musician who struggled with mental illness and other woes from the trauma of his service in Vietnam until he processed it in his music. I was introduced to his work by Butch Morris. Two years ago I was privileged to have a long conversation with him and Yusef Komunyakaa—this is the radio edit. Condolences to all who knew him.

“The amazing Billy Bang” (Bob Travis, Flickr Creative Commons).

Further Reading

After the coups

Without institutional foundations or credible partners, the Alliance of Sahelian 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.

Sovereignty or supremacy?

As far-right politics gain traction across the globe, some South Africans are embracing Trumpism not out of policy conviction but out of a deeper, more troubling identification.

From Cape To Cairo

When two Africans—one from the south, the other from the north—set out to cross the continent, they raised the question: how easy is it for an African to move in their own land?

The road to Rafah

The ‘Sumud’ convoy from Tunis to Gaza is reviving the radical promise of pan-African solidarity and reclaiming an anticolonial tactic lost to history.