Africa Is a Country

Weekend Music Break 61

Weekend Music Break 61

By
Tom Devriendt

Your weekly collection of new tunes and videos — this week from Zambia, Ghana, Jamaica, Mali, South Africa and the Netherlands, but first: Congo. This year’s Salaam Kivu International Film Festival (SKIFF), which took place in Goma in July, had as its theme “Agizo ya Lumumba — Justice”. The festival’s program included film screenings and dance/media/music workshops around the Justice theme and the following video by the same title, featuring Doris, Dak2, Black Man, DMD, BIN-G, Babu, Wanny S-king, Dj Couleur, M-Chris, Nathan, Jobson Madibo, Darsana, Fal-G, Gaius Kowene and Willy Ston, is a great product of that:

PAP-G is an artist from Mali who raps and sings over a layer of Diabatéba-produced music in ‘Favéla’:

Sarkodie teamed up with London azonto stars FuseODG. The video was directed by Moe Musa (check his YouTube channel for more goodies):

It’s been exciting to follow Stones Throw’s (the label) recent moves into the dub scene. This one features Roman soldiers, Marcus Garvey, and a fiery Little Harry:

“Le Cube” & Liam Farrell (aka “Doctor L”) are working on a new project, the LP “We Got Lost”, some other tracks of which you can see and hear here. Below is ‘Negro P’:

Block Kids on the New (yeh) is a Hip-Hop duo from Pretoria, South Africa:

Another track off the Red Hot + Fela record to get a video — remember Baloji’s –, this one for Spoek. (We’re looking forward to seeing what the Kronos Quartet / Kyp Malone / Tunde Adebimpe collaboration will look like on video!)

Jazzy ‘Beyond Of You’ is the first single off Dutch singer Joya Mooi’s upcoming album Crystal Growth. She talks about her South African dad and the play she has created about her parents here; you’ll find more music by her here.

A new song, ‘Too Much/Happens’, by Sampha Sisay (Sierra Leone to the UK) that deserves your full attention:

And to end, a short musical film by Zambian artist Mumba Yachi, which he dedicates to former First Lady Betty Kaunda:

Further Reading

Take it to the house

On this month’s AIAC Radio, Boima celebrates all things basketball, looking at its historical relationships with music and race, then focusing on Africa’s biggest names in the sport.

El maestro siempre

Maky Madiba Sylla is a militant filmmaker excavating iconic Africans whose legacies he believes need to be known widely—like the singer Laba Sosseh.

Madiba and Mali

There is a remarkable connection between Mali and South Africa, dating back to the liberation struggle, and actively encouraged by the author’s work.

A devil’s deal

Rwanda’s proposed refugee deal with Britain is another strike against President Paul Kagame’s claim that he is an authentic and fearless pan-Africanist who advocates for the less fortunate.

Red and Black

Yunxiang Gao’s new book takes a fresh look at connected lives of African American and Chinese leftist activists, artists and intellectuals after World War II.

The Dar es Salaam years

In the early 1970s, Walter Rodney, expelled from Jamaica, took a post in Tanzania. In Leo Zeilig’s new book, he captures those exciting, but also difficult years and how it formed Rodney.

Rushing to boycott

The cultural boycott of Russia turns to the flawed precedent of apartheid South Africa for inspiration, while ignoring the much more carefully considered boycott of official Israeli culture by the BDS Movement.

The party question

Marcel Paret’s book, “Fragmented Militancy: Precarious Resistance in South Africa after Racial Inclusion,” tries to make sense of politics in South African urban informal settlements.

The missing pieces

Between melancholy, terror, and disillusion, Petit Pays is a groundbreaking and eye-opening take on one of the darkest pages of African history, one that is often misunderstood in the West.