Africa Is a Country

Friday Music Bonus Edition

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

Friday Music Bonus Edition

By
Tom Devriendt

Let’s do a Friday Diaspora edition. There are some half-baked attempts at linking the videos in here. But don’t take them too seriously. French-Congolese Youssoupha on living in France in ‘Irréversible’ (he couldn’t not refer to the charges laid against him):

Also residing in Paris these days is Togo’s YaoBobby. His ‘Afrique Enchantée’ comes with French lyrics:

The use of split-screen faces in music videos, in vogue in the diaspora and possibly with a second meaning, we also found in the video for ‘The Village’by Trinidad-Canadian Ian Kamau (he has a great music blog and we featured him here before):

Somali-Canadian K’naan (remember his World Cup days?) got a lyric video out for ‘Nothing to Lose’, a collab with Nas (what’s the latest news on Nas’s promoters in Angola and what’s up with his “Yo my Somali niggas know what war be”?):

Finally, UK-based Nigerian eL Flaco does a rap job a bit different from K’naan and Nas. His ‘Mind Move’ comes off last year’s Samurai Series:

Further Reading

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.

Sinners and ancestors

Ryan Coogler’s latest film is more than a vampire fable—it’s a bridge between Black American history and African audiences hungry for connection, investment, and storytelling rooted in shared struggle.