Africa Is a Country

Weekend Music Break 47

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

Weekend Music Break 47

By
Zachary Rosen

Another week, another solid playlist of eclectic African sounds. Yo Chale, feeling fresh after a trip to the barbing saloon, C-Real and M dot prove they each embody the word “OPEIMU” (extraordinary individual) as they stroll and cruise through the Ghanaian streets. Complimenting the tinted gold visuals, the track makes ample use of a few gloriously golden highlife music samples.

An artist you don’t want to miss live, Taali M is a Paris-based singer of Congolese, Chadian and Egyptian heritage who has a dynamic voice and a captivating energy. In this live video of the song “Dance”, her style easily puts any Vlisco advertisement to shame.

Angolan multimedia artist and musician Nastio Mosquito conjures the technology of the elders in the trippy video for “Tecnologia do Anciao” off his album “Se Eu Fosse Angolano”. Download the track here.

Fresh Naija pop in all its glory. Efa and Dammy Krane come at ya with brightly colored lights, auto-tuned vocals, a 2Face cameo and endless variations of a catchy dance, the “Open and Close”.

Influenced by the sounds and rhythms of Kigali, Dar es Salaam, Maputo, Lusaka and Cape Town, electro duo John Wizards, made up of Rwandan Emmanuel Nzaramba and South African John Withers, delivers an intriguing sonic creation in their track “Lusaka by Night”. Emmanuel’s Kinyarwanda soothing vocals and John’s effervescent beats intertwine harmoniously over playful animated doodling.

Nigerian musician Bez romps around New York in the company of a mysterious woman known as “Ify Jones” in the video for “Say”, but is she ready to say what he wants to hear?

Leader in the UK “Afrobeats” scene, Mista Silva returns with his very danceable “Now Wats Up?”

Together for more than 10 years, the desert rock group Tal National from Niger are veteran axe shredders and they demonstrate as much in their song “Katako”. Look out for them if you’re in the U.S. as they embark on an American tour over the next couple months.

An auspicious collaboration orchestrated by the award-winning South African show Jam Sandwich, rising singer/guitarist Bongeziwe Mabandla came together with primer stove lyricists Dirty Paraffin to make “Sifun’iMali”.

And finally, to celebrate the life of the recently passed Zimbabwean legend Chiwoniso Maraire, we’ve got a live rendition of the powerful “Rebel Woman”. R.I.P.

Share your favorite new videos in the comments below.

Further Reading

After the uprising

Years into Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict, the rebellion faces internal fractures, waning support, and military pressure—raising the question of what future, if any, lies ahead for Ambazonian aspirations.

In search of Saadia

Who was Saadia, and why has she been forgotten? A search for one woman’s story opens up bigger questions about race, migration, belonging, and the gaps history leaves behind.

Binti, revisited

More than two decades after its release, Lady Jaydee’s debut album still resonates—offering a window into Tanzanian pop, gender politics, and the sound of a generation coming into its own.

The bones beneath our feet

A powerful new documentary follows Evelyn Wanjugu Kimathi’s personal and political journey to recover her father’s remains—and to reckon with Kenya’s unfinished struggle for land, justice, and historical memory.

What comes after liberation?

In this wide-ranging conversation, the freedom fighter and former Constitutional Court justice Albie Sachs reflects on law, liberation, and the unfinished work of building a just South Africa.

The cost of care

In Africa’s migration economy, women’s labor fuels households abroad while their own needs are sidelined at home. What does freedom look like when care itself becomes a form of exile?

The memory keepers

A new documentary follows two women’s mission to decolonize Nairobi’s libraries, revealing how good intentions collide with bureaucracy, donor politics, and the ghosts of colonialism.

Making films against amnesia

The director of the Oscar-nominated film ‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’ reflects on imperial violence, corporate warfare, and how cinema can disrupt the official record—and help us remember differently.