AfricaIs aCountry

Friday Bonus Music Break, N°18

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

Friday Bonus Music Break, N°18

By
Tom Devriendt

Another ten music videos that we’ve been playing a lot recently. The first one above. Kudurista Titica’s ‘Ablua’ is a stomper. (Talking about Angolan music, and its history: Marissa Moorman has been consulting Afropop Worldwide for a new series called Hip Deep Angola, the first part of which, ‘Music and Nation in Luanda’, you can listen to here.) Next, still from Angola, and I have a hunch Titica served as an inspiration for Edy Sex:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB4dNscISJc

An older Namibian Overitje pop tune, but Ondarata (remember them) just now put their video for ‘Tukutuku’ on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjT61lyrYgE

Janka Nabay and his ‘Bubu Gang’, whose live performances have become legendary by now, made this video for ‘Somebody’:

From Mali, Ben Zabo’s latest music videos are a treat:

As he did with that other project The Busy Twist, Gabriel Benn (alter ego: Tuesday Born) plays around with images recorded in Ghana in this video for ‘Kwabena’:

Jupiter Bokondji (from Kinshasa) and his band Okwess International in the studio:

South African Bongeziwe Mabandla has been working hard on completing his debut album. I hear all kinds of influences here:

On his website, Ian Kamau (who spent much time travelling and performing in South Africa recently) explains why he wrote ‘Black Bodies’:

And because we feature not nearly enough poetry or spoken word, this ‘park jam’ from Obscur Jaffar (Burkina Faso):

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.