Africa Is a Country

Dubai could do with a lot more of this

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

Dubai could do with a lot more of this

By
Dylan Valley

Dubai can actually be a city of gems that might surprise you. Like soul musician Hamdan Al-Abri, who is of Zanzibari descent.

A screenshot from "Falling" by Hamdan Al-Abri.

I’ve been in Dubai for the past month working on an documentary on the life of late South African political activist and Mandela confidante Fatima Meer (we filmed the documentary in South Africa but the production company is based in Dubai) and I have to say, this is one interesting place. Once you get away from the bling, the giant malls and the indoor ski slopes, Dubai can actually be a city of gems that might surprise you. One of those things would be the Dubai-based soul musician Hamdan Al-Abri, who is of Zanzibari descent.

Technically, despite being born and raised in the United Arab Emirates he is a Zanzibari citizen, due to Dubai’s archaic citizenship laws. His new video “Falling” contrasts the somewhat grittier side of Dubai life, the working class neighborhoods of Karama and Deira, with the ubiquitous Dubai Mall and Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. The result is a soulful and reflective depiction of life in the UAE. All I can say is Dubai could do with a lot more of this.

Download Al-Abri’s free EP here.

Further Reading

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.

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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.

After the coups

Without institutional foundations or credible partners, the Alliance of Sahel States risks becoming the latest failed experiment in regional integration.