A Spaza Shop Job

Postapartheid South African music culture is one big cut and paste job.

Still from Spaza$hop Boyz's "Rehab Tony" music video.

Spot the references in this music video by Ollie Nhlabatsi for South African duo Spaza$hop Boyz. (We can think of some.) In a way, postapartheid South African music culture is one big cut and paste job where one buys and appropriates, like going into a spaza shop where you take stuff off a shelf, you go home and cook it together. Spaza$hop Boyz’ first video for their single ‘Rehab Tony’ clearly rips off Die Antwoord and Spoek Mathambo. Sometimes the recipe works.

Via Amakipkip.

Further Reading

Procès et tribulations de Rokia Traoré

Détenue en Italie puis en Belgique pendant prèsde sept mois, la chanteuse malienne est engagée depuis 2019 dans une bataille judiciaire avec son ex-conjoint belge pour la garde de leur fille. Entre accusations d’abus et mandats d’arrêt, le feuilleton semble approcher de sa conclusion.

Requiem for a revolution

A sweeping, jazz-scored exploration of Cold War intrigue and African liberation, Johan Gimonprez’s ‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’ lays bare the cultural and political battlegrounds where empires, artists, and freedom fighters clashed.

On Safari

On our year-end publishing break, we reflect on how 2024’s contradictions reveal a fractured world grappling with inequality, digital activism, and the blurred lines between action and spectacle.

Rebuilding Algeria’s oceans

Grassroots activists and marine scientists in Algeria are building artificial reefs to restore biodiversity and sustain fishing communities, but scaling up requires more than passion—it needs institutional support and political will.

Ibaaku’s space race

Through Afro-futurist soundscapes blending tradition and innovation, Ibaaku’s new album, ‘Joola Jazz,’ reshapes Dakar’s cultural rhythm and challenges the legacy of Négritude.

An allegiance to abusers

This weekend, Chris Brown will perform two sold-out concerts in South Africa. His relationship to the country reveals the twisted dynamic between a black American artist with a track record of violence and a country happy to receive him.