Africa Is a Country

Paris is a Continent, N°5

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

Paris is a Continent, N°5

By
Hinda Talhaoui

Not sure what it says about France that Dominique Strauss-Kahn (he is portrayed as a victim of a conspiracy) and David Beckham (a 36-year-old player is entrusted with bringing back gloss to French football) dominate the headlines there this week.

Meanwhile, a mix of French hip hop and smooth R&B continue to dominate my instalments of music from there.  This week is a short offering since I am going on vacation today.

First up,  Tunisian rapper Sniper featuring Sexion d’Assault with “Blood Diamondz.” You may remember that Sexion d’Assault was, until recently, known more for their homophobic outbursts than their music. They claimed to have left hate behind.

I promise to do an all-women post at some point.

For now, here are two: first, Marseille-born singer Kenza Farah featured on the song “Tous de la Fête” by Dibi Dobo (his family comes from Benin). Kenza Farah’s family is Kabyle from Algeria. This, btw, is the only actual music video I am featuring this week.

And second, Evanz, a singer discovered by La Fouine, with “Ton Silence.” (The song features rapper Soprano.)

http://youtu.be/2KyW-Kf_ONQ

Further Reading

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.

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.