AfricaIs aCountry

Music and Politics

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

Music and Politics

By
Sean Jacobs

If you have nothing to do tonight and are in New York City, head down to The New School where Boima Tucker and I are hosting musicians Brian Jackson and Masauko Chipembere as well as writers Carolina Gonzalez, Eddie Stats Houston and Wills Glasspiegel for “A Conversation on Music and Politics.”

And this panel comes with an after party. Starting at 10pm Eddie Stats and Boima will be DJing at Cayenne Lounge on West Houston. The party also doubles as a kind of unofficial Sierra Leone 50th Independence party.

Here are the details.

Further Reading

Slow death by food

Illegal gold mining is poisoning Ghana’s soil and rivers, seeping into its crops and seafood, and turning the national food system into a long-term public health crisis.

A sick health system

The suspension of three doctors following the death of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s son has renewed scrutiny of a health-care system plagued by impunity, underfunding, and a mass exodus of medical professionals.

Afrobeats after Fela

Wizkid’s dispute with Seun Kuti and the release of his latest EP with Asake highlight the widening gap between Afrobeats’ commercial triumph and Fela Kuti’s political inheritance

Progress is exhausting

Pedro Pinho’s latest film follows a Portuguese engineer in Guinea-Bissau, exposing how empire survives through bureaucracy, intimacy, and the language of “development.”

The rubble of empire

Built by Italian Fascists in 1928, Mogadishu Cathedral was meant to symbolize “peaceful conquest.” Today its ruins force Somalis to confront the uneasy afterlife of colonial power and religious authority.

Atayese

Honored in Yorubaland as “one who repairs the world,” Jesse Jackson’s life bridged civil rights, pan-Africanism, empire, and contradiction—leaving behind a legacy as expansive as it was imperfect.

Bread or Messi?

Angola’s golden jubilee culminated in a multimillion-dollar match against Argentina. The price tag—and the secrecy around it—divided a nation already grappling with inequality.