Take it with your vitamins. K’Naan and Nas’s “Nothing to Lose” video qualifies. So does Spoek Mathambo remixing Seun Kuti. Kuti tours the US this summer and Mathambo has a new album coming out in a few weeks. This track, “The Good Leaf,” is the last track on Kuti’s latest release, “From Africa with Fury: Rise” and was posted on The Fader’s soundcloud account this week. You can download it for free, but here’s the track anyway: [Read more...]
Necessary doses of pan-Africanism
February 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Friday Music Bonus Edition
February 17, 2012 By 2 Comments
So drawn into the video (a plethora of faces, personalities and historic moments) Atlanta trio Algiers made for ‘Blood’, I forgot to pay attention to the lyrics the first time seeing it:
‘A bridge across the gulf between Queensbridge and Somalia’
February 15, 2012 By 3 Comments
Behind the scenes video of Nas and K’Naan on the set of the latter’s music video for “Nothing to Lose.” The video premieres on Friday.
Friday Music Bonus Edition
January 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment
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):
Nas’s Angola Blues
January 13, 2012 By 2 Comments
In “If I ruled the World,” Nas raps: “I’d open every cell in Attica send em to Africa.” Then in the 1998 Hype Williams feature film “Belly” (costar DMX), Nas’s character wants to move his girlfriend and child to the continent as a way out of his life as a gangster. (He does not specify which country.) More recently Nas collaborated on the decent concept album “Distant Relatives” with Damian Marley, in which they aim to engage with the music of Africa. (They ended up sampling, among others, the music of Fela Kuti and Mulatu Astatke). Anyway, for all his symbolic politics, Nas has always made it clear he’ll play in Africa if the money is right and not because of some sentimental reason. (In video footage taken at a press conference a few years ago, Nas claims to have visited the continent three times.) Well, it seems over the New Year’s Nas had another opportunity to play in an African country. [Read more...]
Good doses of pan-Africanism*
November 8, 2011 By 1 Comment
Since it first came out last year I’ve had Nas and Damian Marley’s concept album “Distant Relatives” on repeat. There are some lapses on the album, but I really like the track “The Promised Land.” Basically Marley and Nas updates Dennis Brown to big up Africa.
Magnificent
May 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Earlier this week ESPN won seven Sports Emmy Awards, including one for music during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, like the video–played at the start of broadcasts and during breaks from the studio in South Africa–featuring U2 (I prefer Bono when he sings, not when he wants to save Africa) and the Soweto Gospel Choir above and this one, below:
Nneka & Nas Present: Heartbeat
June 23, 2010 By 1 Comment
If you’re a regular reader, then you know we love Nigerian-German songstress Nneka. Her new album, Concrete Jungle, has been out for a few months and she’s now on tour with Nas and Damian Marley, aka Distant Relatives. A product of that collaboration is a remix of Nneka’s “Heartbeat” featuring Nas. I like. A lot.
Download it here.
h/t @olaTUNJI
‘Symbols of Liberia’s Struggle’*
May 19, 2010 By 1 Comment
Rapper Nas narrates a short insert on ESPN’s “E:60″ on the Liberian national amputee team made up of men, often former enemies, who lost the use of their legs or arms in Liberia’s very recent civil war. (Above is a kind of mash up from the in-studio introduction that usually precedes an insert as well as an excerpt from Nas’ narration. I am a regular viewer of the show.) You can watch the 10 minute insert here. It includes some incredible goals and celebrations. It is also about the politics of rebuilding societies after wars. Not bad for ESPN.
* That’s a line from the show.
‘Ya’ll feel me even if it’s in Swahili’*
May 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment
The official video for the Nas-Damian Marley’s single, “As We Enter” off “The Distant Relatives” album, is finally online.
* That’s a lyric from the song.
[It seems the video has been taken down after a complaint by the record company. For real.]
