Africa Is a Country

Giving the Bizness

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

Giving the Bizness

By
Tom Devriendt

This is our third Music Break post. It is curated by anthropologist Tom DeVriendt, who may just take a liking to keep doing them.

Merril Garbus of tUnE-yArDs performs in Paris this year (Wiki Commons).

Merril Garbus of tUnE-yArDs cite Barrington Levy, Odetta, Woody Guthrie, Eleanor Roosevelt, Charlie Chaplin, Ruth Garbus, Bertolt Brecht, Björk, Todd Rundgren, Fela Kuti and “you” as their influences. Here the band performs their original composition, “Bizness,” live for a public radio station in New York City.

Tanya Auclair (from West London, “via Canada and Rwanda” and citing as her influences Bongo Joe Coleman, Juana Molina, The Staple Singers, Laurie Anderson, Matthew Herbert and E.S.G, sings and plays ‘Origami’.

A still from a video of Tanya Auclair performing her song, “Origami,” live (via Vimeo).

Trust Shabazz Palaces and Kahlil Joseph to do it again on “Black Up.”

While we’re in South Africa, I’m feeling this guitar band from Cape Town: MacGyver Knife. And their new song. While we’re on it, there aren’t that many corners in Woodstock left where bands or advertising companies can shoot a music video, spray a graffiti or do a photo shoot.

And to end, a new video by School is Cool arrives one year early.

Further Reading

From Cape To Cairo

When two Africans—one from the south, the other from the north—set out to cross the continent, they raised the question: how easy is it for an African to move in their own land?

The road to Rafah

The ‘Sumud’ convoy from Tunis to Gaza is reviving the radical promise of pan-African solidarity and reclaiming an anticolonial tactic lost to history.

Sinners and ancestors

Ryan Coogler’s latest film is more than a vampire fable—it’s a bridge between Black American history and African audiences hungry for connection, investment, and storytelling rooted in shared struggle.