Africa Is a Country

Friday Bonus Music Break, N°6

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

Friday Bonus Music Break, N°6

By
Tom Devriendt

Mali’s on our mind. Mostly because of the confusion. Reports from Bamako abound, while there’s still very little information available from the north. Malian artists in the diaspora, it seems, are as confused. (Check Mokobe’s site for example.) Earlier this week, Tuareg band Tamikrest gave a shoutout to “our friend” Ben Zabo. (Is it true what his European label says? Is this “the first album ever to be released by a Malian of Bo descent”?) His hommage to Dounaké Koïta:

While we’re waiting for their new album to be released (later this year, if all goes well), South African Driemanskap made time to record another video, this time for ‘Ivamna’, still off their debut album:

Nomadic Wax keeps working hard to push hip hop from Zimbabwe. They’ll even shoot a video in Washington DC for it. (And, for the record, in Harare.) Dumi RIGHT, Outspoken and MC Pep:

A week after first seeing this video (on This is Africa’s page), I still think this is one of the wildest songs I’ve heard in a long time. I also believe we’ll get to hear many more ‘Facebook’-titled tracks in the future. Not just from Senegal. Eumeudi Badiane, Wally Seck and Abou Thioubalo:

And to slow things down, Guinean Ba Cissoko live in Paris. ‘Politiki’:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHrQi-fBWxk

Further Reading

Whose game is remembered?

The Women’s Africa Cup of Nations opens in Morocco amid growing calls to preserve the stories, players, and legacy of the women who built the game—before they’re lost to erasure and algorithm alike.

Sovereignty or supremacy?

As far-right politics gain traction across the globe, some South Africans are embracing Trumpism not out of policy conviction but out of a deeper, more troubling identification.

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.