AfricaIs aCountry

Weekend Music Break, N°29

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

Weekend Music Break, N°29

By
Tom Devriendt

Here’s a resolution for the new year: to feature more Togolese pop. If you don’t know who the above Toofan duo is, google “Cool Catché”. Kuduro on the other hand we can never feature enough — this is a new video for MC Maskarado:

Don’t miss this week’s NPR piece on kuduro by the way, “The Dance That Keeps Angola Going”; they interviewed AIAC’s Marissa Moorman for it.

Next, from Uganda: Vampino and friends (arriving “from far”) visit a rural village; a party ensues. A different kind of dance-hall/pop/(add style):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q0mUEuMLQM

Gambian artists Xuman, Djily Bagdad, Tiat and Ombre Zion take a stand ‘Against Impunity’:

South African Tumi Molekane directed a video for MC Reason (who is signed on Tumi’s record label):

Talking about labels…here’s a new video for South African rapper Kanyi. The story is funny-sad, but probably quite real too:

A video for Fatoumata Diawara’s song about men trying their luck crossing the Mediterranean to get to Europe. Here’s a translation of the lyrics.

Malian trio Smod (remember them) is all for ‘a united Mali’:

Wonderful new video for Asa’s Bond-esque ‘The way I feel’:

And one of the albums I’ve been listening a lot to this year — more about that next week — is Carmen Souza’s Kachupada. This is her version of Cape Verdean artists Humbertona and Piuna’s 1970s classic ‘Seis one na Tarrafal‘:

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.