Africa Is a Country

Stone breakers

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

Stone breakers

By
Ts'eliso Monaheng

This edition of Weekend Music Break, number 48, curated by journalist and rapper T'seliso Monaheng, stops over in Senegal, Lesotho, Ghana and South Africa.

Xuman, the rapper, activist and radio host returns with this week’s edition of “Rap Journal”.  They’re part of Y’en A Marre, a collection of rappers and youth activists who is partly responsible for bring Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, who after his two terms were up tried to change the constitution and failed. This episode of Rap Journal addresses police corruption in Senegal while paying homage to the South Africa’s beacon of light, Nelson Mandela. Look out for a guest appearance by Dead Prez’s M-1, who was in Senegal recently working on some music.

Disregarding the controversy surrounding their movement in their home country of Lesotho, Kommanda Obbs’ crew D2amajoe (or Lithua-majoe, meaning ‘stone-breakers’ in Sesotho) have released a video which doesn’t veer far away from their name. Hardcore raps over banging beats are complemented by snapshots of their home country as they sing “I’m the size of ‘Malekoporo/ I’m a fish of the ocean/ its size compares to that of the Machache mountain.” It should be pointed out that certain scenes from the video are reminiscent of this one.

If not for the impressive line-up of rappers (from Ghana’s best including EL, M.anifest, D-Black, Sarkodie) on this song (“The ChOsen”), we had to include the video for its YouTube comments. This comment – “… the Reason why Nigerian Music is Far ahead than Ghanaians … i love this Music but the clip is soo lame … the Clip should have been better than this” – sums up the majority of the commenters’ sentiments.

Jam Sandwich is a weekly show on South African national television which endeavours to bring musicians from different musical backgrounds to collaborate on a song. Past jams have included Bongeziwe Mabandla with Dirty Paraffin and Jack Parow with Klipwerf Orkes. Klipwerf Orkes also happens to be one of South Africa’s biggest-selling groups. Here’s Dutch artist Stef Bos and South African rapper Kanyi:

It bears repeating that the quantity of rap music coming out of Senegal is staggering. The legendary Souleymane Faye joins Gaston on this poignant commentary on the loss of societal values among the youth of Senegal.

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.