Africana Endless Summer Series in Washington, DC

It’s starting to get sticky in Washington DC and that means it’s time for music to migrate from the nightclub to the street. To bring people together in the name of celebrating African music and dance from across the continent and the Diaspora, Beshou Gedamu, organizer of DC’s Sonic Diaspora music parties, devised the Africana Endless Summer series. The series, which kicks off this Sunday, May 12th, is a biweekly coalescing of sonic souls that features some incredible DJs, including AIAC’s own Chief Boima. We asked Beshou to tell us about the new event and the state of the African dance music scene in DC:

Pitch us the Africana Endless Summer Series?

Beshou: Imagine walking into a someone’s backyard, feeling liked you’ve been transported to the beaches of Cote d’Ivoire, rum punch in hand and being “sonically surprised”. That’s Africana Endless Summer Series.

What was the inspiration for this event?

Every year, I find myself wanting to travel outside of DC to neighboring cities to fulfill my summer experience. I’ve always wanted to organize some sort of block party in DC where people from various backgrounds can connect and listen to some really good music. Sankofa Books and Cafe approached me to do Sonic Diaspora events and that’s how this event was born. We’ve received an overwhelming amount of support and I’m excited for Africana Endless Summer Series.

What is unique about the African dance music scene in DC?

I find it to be fascinating and complex. The complexity lies in the fact that there are African parties happening right under your nose in very well known establishments and you may not know about them. Most of them cater to their respective communities (i.e. East or West Africans). The fascinating part is when you walk into one of those events, it’s a different world you didn’t know exists in DC. There are a number of African promoters/event organizers in DC and I’d love to see one inclusive event happen.

Come through if you’re in the area! All details here.

Further Reading

Djinns in Berlin

At the 13th Berlin Biennale, works from Zambia and beyond summon unseen forces to ask whether solidarity can withstand the gaze of surveillance.

Colonize then, deport now

Trump’s deportation regime revives a colonial blueprint first drafted by the American Colonization Society, when Black lives were exiled to Africa to safeguard a white republic.

On Safari

On our annual publishing break, Gaza’s genocide continues to unfold in real time yet slips from public grasp. This is not just a crisis of politics, but of how reality is mediated—and why we must build spaces where meaning can still take root.

The battle over the frame

As Hollywood recycles pro-war propaganda for Gen Z, Youssef Chahine’s ‘Djamila, the Algerian’ reminds us that anti-colonial cinema once turned imperial film language against its makers—and still can.

Fictions of freedom

K. Sello Duiker’s ‘The Quiet Violence of Dreams’ still haunts Cape Town, a city whose beauty masks its brutal exclusions. Two decades later, in the shadow of Amazon’s new development, its truths are more urgent than ever.

When things fall apart

Against a backdrop of global collapse, one exhibition used Chinua Achebe’s classic to hold space for voices from the Global South—and asked who gets to imagine the future.

The General sleeps

As former Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari’s death is mourned with official reverence, a generation remembers the eight years that drove them out.

The grift tank

In Washington’s think tank ecosystem, Africa is treated as a low-stakes arena where performance substitutes for knowledge. The result: unqualified actors shaping policy on behalf of militarists, lobbyists, and frauds.