June 25th, Mozambican Independence

In celebrating Mozambican independence day, we made a list of the most popular music videos in mid-2011.

Ilha Mozambique. Image by Stéphane Neckebrock via Flickr (CC).

We had much fun selecting recent videos coming out of South Africa last week, so we decided to follow up on this. At the occasion of each country’s independence day, over the next months we’ll try and collect songs (and videos, if we can sleuth them) we find interesting. We’ve already missed some this month, but if all goes well we’re ending this series May 24th of next year, with Eritrean music. Today is June 25th, Mozambique’s Independence Day. We couldn’t leave out the “ball grabbing, bikini-clad videos” Davy Lane spotted last year, but there is more than that.

Iveth:

Turaz feat. Muzila:

Magnums:

Impro:

Dabo Boys Family:

Ziqo:

And, Dygo:

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.