10 songs we’ve been listening to this week. First up — and fresh — Gaël Faye and Tumi (who needs no introduction):


Also from Burundi: Mudibu has a story and a song to share (H/T Karl Steinacker):

The exceptional Y’akoto tells us a bit more about how she goes about writing songs but in between her French words there’s an example too:

Jitsenic (Jitsvinger and Arsenic) dropping verses and truths on South African Bush Radio:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3ZJ-leUK2w

Akala and Selah wrote ‘A Message’:

From Mali, remember Ben Zabo?

From the band named after a Nigerian state capital, Benin City:

Iyadede gives Mark Ronson & The Business, Andre Wyatt and Boy George a makeover:

The Mighty Third Rail — the alternative hip hop trio that combines beat-boxing, poetry, violin and upright bass:

And a full concert by Rachelle Ferrell and George Duke band. Live in Montreux (1997):

Further Reading

And do not hinder them

We hardly think of children as agents of change. At the height of 1980s apartheid repression in South Africa, a group of activists did and gave them the tool of print.

The new antisemitism?

Stripped of its veneer of nuance, Noah Feldman’s essay in ‘Time’ is another attempt to silence opponents of the Israeli state by smearing them as anti-Jewish racists.