Africa Is a Country

Friday Music Break, N°12

Friday Music Break, N°12

By
Boima Tucker

I’m taking over the Friday music break this week. First up, the prolific Azonto producer E.L. surprises us this week with a 25 track debut album. He had so many songs stored up he decided to release a video for one that’s not even on the album. Check his Swagga.

Kanye and Jay Z team up with Romain Gavras who capitalizes on images of our global instability. Will marrying Hip Hop with riot chic help out Angolan protesters? Probably not.

In a video that is a little more grounded than your average commercial Hip Hop video (and especially contrasting with the one above), Nas, who has collaborated with family members before, releases a song and video tribute to his daughter!

Trying to deliver on the promise to incorporate more Afro-Latino-ness on the blog, here’s Colombian Pacific Coast Hip Hop group Choquibtown’s latest “Hasta El Techo.”

http://youtu.be/azYcDY7mnco

And, Maga Bo’s “No Balanço da Canoa” featuring Rosângela Macedo and Marcelo Yuka. The remix album for his Quilombo do Futuro project dropped this week.

Nos vemos a primeira feira!

Further Reading

A power crisis

Andre De Ruyter, the former CEO of Eskom, has presented himself as a simple hero trying to save South Africa’s struggling power utility against corrupt forces. But this racially charged narrative is ultimately self-serving.

Cinematic universality

Fatou Cissé’s directorial debut meditates on the uncertain fate and importance of Malian cinema amidst the growing dismissiveness towards the humanities across the world.

The meanings of Heath Streak

Zimbabwean cricketing legend Heath Streak’s career mirrors many of the unresolved tensions of race and class in Zimbabwe. Yet few white Zimbabwean sporting figures are able to stir interest and conversation across the nation’s many divides.

Victorious

After winning Italy’s Serie A with Napoli, Victor Osimhen has cemented his claim to being Africa’s biggest footballing icon. But is the trend of individual stardom good for sports and politics?

The magic man

Chris Blackwell’s long-awaited autobiography shows him as a romantic rogue; a risk taker whose life compass has been an open mind and gift to hear and see slightly into the future.

How to think about colonialism

Contemporary approaches to the legacy of colonialism tend to narrowly emphasize political agency as the solution to Africa’s problems. But agency is configured through historically particular relations of which we are not sole authors.

More than just a flag

South Africa’s apartheid flag has been declared hate speech by a top court. But while courts are important and their judgments matter, racism is a long and internationally entrenched social phenomenon that cannot be undone via judicial processes.

Resistance is a continuous endeavor

For more than 75 years, Palestinians have organized for a liberated future. Today, as resistance against Israeli apartheid intensifies, unity and revolutionary optimism has become the main infrastructure of struggle.

Paradise forgotten

While there is much to mourn about the passing of legendary American singer and actor Harry Belafonte, we should hold a place for his bold statement-album against apartheid South Africa.