Africa Is a Country

Friday Bonus Music Break, N°25

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

Friday Bonus Music Break, N°25

By
Tom Devriendt

This summer’s Fuse ODG #ANTENNADANCE competition (“one person controlling the other using azonto movements”) courtesy of the Antenna smash hit resulted in some wild entries (Google it; H/T Jacquelin Kataneksza). Above: #TeamLONDON. And more good moves in the video for Congolese artist Lexxus Legal’s ‘Petits Congolais’ (off his “music record for kids”):

Early Sages Poètes de la Rue member Zoxea, repping Benin (his dad, Jules Kodjo, used to play for the national football team):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxUseCgMmgQ

A collaboration between Danay Mariney and Kobi Onyame, who grew up between Accra (where he was born) and London, now based in Scotland. Video was shot in South Africa:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Or4nw2OykQ

Tapping that London connection, here’s a dreamy video for Maka Agu (aka Ti2bs):

From Queijas (Portugal), new material by video artist, slam poet, MC and beatmaker Alexandre Francisco Diaphra (who goes by many names and claims many locations, among them Pecixe Island, Guinea-Bissau):

Promo video (interviews + outtakes) for the recently released Fangnawa Experience album, a collaboration between Burkina Faso-born Korbo (and his French music collective Fanga) and Moroccan Gnawa master Abdallah Guinéa (with his band Nasse Ejadba):

There’s also a new video for the Sierra Leonean Black Street Family, shot in Freetown. Hustling and tustling:

And to slow it all down a bit: two singer-song writers to end. A new video for South African Nomhle Nongoge’s ‘Ubuntu Bhako’ (references: soul, Eastern Cape, Simphiwe Dana, Zahara):

And Birmingham-based Laura Mvula’s live session for Hunger TV makes us look forward to hearing her debut album:

Further Reading

The sound of revolt

On his third album, Afro-Portuguese artist Scúru Fitchádu fuses ancestral wisdom with urban revolt, turning memory and militancy into a soundtrack for resistance.

O som da revolta

No seu terceiro álbum, o artista afro-português Scúru Fitchádu funde a sabedoria ancestral com a revolta urbana, transformando memória e militância em uma trilha sonora para a resistência.

Biya forever

As Cameroon nears its presidential elections, a disintegrated opposition paves the way for the world’s oldest leader to claim a fresh mandate.

From Cornell to conscience

Hounded out of the United States for his pro-Palestine activism, Momodou Taal insists that the struggle is global, drawing strength from Malcolm X, faith, and solidarity across borders.

After the uprising

Following two years of mass protest, Kenya stands at a crossroads. A new generation of organizers is confronting an old question: how do you turn revolt into lasting change? Sungu Oyoo joins the AIAC podcast to discuss the vision of Kenya’s radical left.

Redrawing liberation

From Gaza to Africa, colonial cartography has turned land into property and people into populations to be managed. True liberation means dismantling this order, not redrawing its lines.

Who deserves the city?

Colonial urbanism cast African neighborhoods as chaotic, unplanned, and undesirable. In postcolonial Dar es Salaam, that legacy still shapes who builds, who belongs, and what the middle class fears the city becoming.

Djinns in Berlin

At the 13th Berlin Biennale, works from Zambia and beyond summon unseen forces to ask whether solidarity can withstand the gaze of surveillance.

Colonize then, deport now

Trump’s deportation regime revives a colonial blueprint first drafted by the American Colonization Society, when Black lives were exiled to Africa to safeguard a white republic.