Nowadays we’re doing multiple #musicbreaks on Twitter and Facebook when the spirits move us. We figured we’d put the ten favorite ones up every Friday as our #BonusMusicBreak. First up, old school jazz man Pharoah Sanders is still doing it. Here’s a video (uploaded this week on Youtube; recorded last year) of him and his band playing (and him getting down):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N3kd5NAWeM

Since we’re on the old schoolers. Here’s the video for Ebo Taylor’s ‘Ayesama’, shot in his hometown of Saltpond (Ghana):

I really like Lee Fields. You’re The Kind of Girl:

Zimbabwe celebrated its independence this week. Here’s Tendai, one half of Shabazz Palaces with “rhodZi” (the video is directed by Seattle-based filmmaker and critic Charles Mudede):

California-based Ethiopian artists Meklit Hadero, Gabriel Teodros and Burntface combine to form CopperWire (H/T: siddhmi):

‘Bang Bang’ by one of Sean’s New School students, Selena Dhillon (originally from Toronto) featuring Humble The Poet:

THEESatisfaction’s “funk-psychedelic feminista sci-fi epics”:

Nicki Minaj is selling ice water in Accra? Zongo!

http://youtu.be/Zk9_FcuX4Jk

Boima: “Yup, I’m a fan.” PR: “Sierra Leone’s Premier Rap Guy From Freetown Releases His Long Awaited Video Featuring Farda G. Shot Entirely On Location In Freetown The Vid Promises To Be Raw, Grity & Strictly Hip-Hop”:

Finally, kuduro baile from Germany; Gato Preto’s ‘Tschukudu’ (H/T: TropicalBass):

Further Reading

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.

Gen Z’s electoral dilemma

Long dismissed as apathetic, Kenya’s youth forced a rupture in 2024. As the 2027 election approaches, their challenge is turning digital rebellion and street protest into political power.

A world reimagined in Black

By placing Kwame Nkrumah at the center of a global Black political network, Howard W. French reveals how the promise of pan-African emancipation was narrowed—and what its failure still costs Africa and the diaspora.

Securing Nigeria

Nigeria’s insecurity cannot be solved by foreign airstrikes or a failing state, but by rebuilding democratic, community-rooted systems of collective self-defense.