AfricaIs aCountry

Music Break. Friday Bonus Edition

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

Music Break. Friday Bonus Edition

By
Tom Devriendt

Ploughing through the blog’s archives to come up with a fair selection of ten videos for next week’s year-end lists, I wondered why we haven’t written about the Congolese Salaam Kivu All Stars. Things went well in Goma, Kivu during the elections last week. A year ago, youth and media organization Yole! Africa staged the SKIFF festival in Goma (where they also shot the first video below), and they were planning to do so again this year. ‘Saisir l’Avenir’ means as much as ‘to seize the Future.’

Get ready for a work out. Angolans The Shine and Portugal’s Throes do “kuduru rock”:

Okay, after that workout, we can slow down. Nice 10 minute live set by James Farm, the American “acoustic jazz quartet” consisting of saxophonist Joshua Redman, pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Matt Penman, and drummer Eric Harland. Recorded at The Jazz Standard.

And 18 minutes (also recorded live at The Jazz Standard) of Ambrose Akinmusire and his Orchestra:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNRqk5WygpM

Finally, we had this one on our Facebook page earlier this week. Tamikrest backstage at a music festival in Switzerland:

Further Reading

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.

Visiting Ngara

A redevelopment project in Nairobi’s Ngara district promises revival—but raises deeper questions about capital, memory, and who has the right to shape the city.