Africa Is a Country

Independence August

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

Independence August

By
Boima Tucker

Since we’ll be on break for a minute (details tomorrow) when the following central African countries celebrate their independence days, let’s do a quick roundup for Central African Republic, Congo Brazzaville, and Gabon.

August 13, The Central African Republic is the home of Deep House DJ Boddhi Satva, who we talked about here before.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP9T9x6u71s&w=600&h=373]
August 15, Today, Congo Brazzaville artists like Bisso Na Bisso and Freddy Massamba carry the flag of Brazzaville pride in the diaspora. While Freddy Massamba impresses me with his range of styles collaborating with the likes of Boddhi Satva, and a host of African superstars through his group Fresk, Abd al Malik, who we have covered before here, surprised me pleasantly.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/19120789 w=600&h=340]
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August 17, Gabon is probably best known for African Zouk, and the classic pan-African hits of Oliver N’goma. But today (along with most countries), it’s a Rap nation. Teenage rapper Jojo made a Pop-Rap hit that made enough noise to get an MTV Africa nomination:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jymi7mXCRNw&w=600&h=373]

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Happy independence days to C.A.R., Congo, and Gabao!

Further Reading

On Safari

On our annual publishing break, Gaza’s genocide continues to unfold in real time yet slips from public grasp. This is not just a crisis of politics, but of how reality is mediated—and why we must build spaces where meaning can still take root.

The battle over the frame

As Hollywood recycles pro-war propaganda for Gen Z, Youssef Chahine’s ‘Djamila, the Algerian’ reminds us that anti-colonial cinema once turned imperial film language against its makers—and still can.

Fictions of freedom

K. Sello Duiker’s ‘The Quiet Violence of Dreams’ still haunts Cape Town, a city whose beauty masks its brutal exclusions. Two decades later, in the shadow of Amazon’s new development, its truths are more urgent than ever.

When things fall apart

Against a backdrop of global collapse, one exhibition used Chinua Achebe’s classic to hold space for voices from the Global South—and asked who gets to imagine the future.

The General sleeps

As former Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari’s death is mourned with official reverence, a generation remembers the eight years that drove them out.

The grift tank

In Washington’s think tank ecosystem, Africa is treated as a low-stakes arena where performance substitutes for knowledge. The result: unqualified actors shaping policy on behalf of militarists, lobbyists, and frauds.

Kagame’s hidden war

Rwanda’s military deployments in Mozambique and its shadowy ties to M23 rebels in eastern Congo are not isolated interventions, rather part of a broader geopolitical strategy to expand its regional influence.