Above is how people keep warm in Johannesburg winters. And below is what you hope to bounce to during long summer nights.

Southeast from Johannesburg. Music video made in Durban. Band’s from Durban. And they’re named after Durban:

Okayafrica tipped us off about the video for Ajebutter 22 (yeah…). Clubby:

Gazza’s ‘Friday Special’ (the song; turn down the bass a bit — quality’s grainy):

Elliot ran into revoluçionista rapper Azagaia eating prawns in Maputo this week. Here he is with ‘Minha Geração’:

More conscious hip hop, recorded between Kinshasa and Brussels, by Didier Awadi, Fredy Massamba, Steve Mav and Lexxus Legal:

Haven’t heard Mikko–admittedly, in his spare time 1/3rd of Chuck D’s Planet Earth Planet Rap program–as excited about a new release as over the past days. Must be the return of Public Enemy:

Two from Kenya. Xtatic…

…and Rabbit’s ‘Swahili Shakespeare’ (in a slower mode):

And to wrap up the week: I didn’t know about Malian Sibiri Samaké until top music blog Tropicalidad (one day they’ll drop the “world music” tag) mentioned him this week. This recording in Studio Bogolan is exceptional:

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.