AfricaIs aCountry

Weekend Music Break N°32

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

Weekend Music Break N°32

By
Tom Devriendt

Friday/Weekend Bonus Music Breaks got side-tracked a bit lately because of the Afcon fever. Good times were had by all. Let’s pick up the thread though. Here are 10 music videos you might have missed over the past weeks. Burkina-American Ismael Sankara (remember Mikko’s write-up about Ismael’s surname and possible affiliations) released a new video: above. Tyler the Creator-Yonkers-style, Elom 20nce’s masks imagery, swag lyrics, stir, et voilà. Neat beats. More diaspora music:

Nina Miskina (who was part of the Brussels-based Congolese Héritage project) seems to have put her theatre acting on the back burner to focus on her musical career. Here’s a first video for ‘Un verre de plus’, taken from her debut EP:

Another Belgian-Congolese artist is Coely. When footballer-and-aspiring-record-label-manager Vincent Kompany says we should like her, we’ll like her:

There’s a high-profile (and heavily sponsored) electronic music festival happening in Cape Town, South Africa this weekend. Surprised not to find good old synth-duo Tannhäuser Gate on the bill:

Originally from Bangui, Central African Republic, Idylle Mamba now lives and works in Cameroon. This new video blends all kinds of styles:

Also repping Cameroon (via the Netherlands) is Ntjam Rosie. From the video below, it looks like she’s taking a break from her previous “soul jazz” work:

More funky rock courtesy of the Senegalese Daara J Family (they’ve been around for a while), vintage dancing and ‘celebrating’:

This acoustic session by Gasandji and her band made me sit up:

Cuban jazz pianist Omar Sosa has a new record out. He presented and talked about it at WNYC radio studios recently: a tribute to Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, while channelling the “Eggun” spirits:

And finally, this portrait by Vincent Moon of muezzin Saeed Rifai Ali Khaled in Cairo. Watch it:

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.