Africa Is a Country

Music Break

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

Music Break

By
Sean Jacobs

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvCjZ6gThyY&w=500&h=307&rel=0]

The video for the Dominican merengue singer, Rita Indiana‘s “El Juidero,” the title track of her October 2010 release. The video for the song (a narrative about escaping to Puerto Rico), “… plays like a short film, a 1970s crime movie fantasy with heavy doses of “El Malo”-era Fania style, real-life Dominican political intrigue,” wrote New York City journalist Carolina Gonzalez (in “The Daily News” last December). It features a cameo by veteran merengue musician Johnny Ventura and was directed by Indiana’s frequent collaborator and girlfriend, Puerto Rican filmmaker Noelia Quintero.

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.