Africa Is a Country

Weekend Music Break 63

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

Weekend Music Break 63

By
Ts'eliso Monaheng

We kick off our weekly installment of new music videos with OttawaParis-based Mélissa Laveaux riding the crunchy electronics with flair on her new offering, ‘Triggers’, in a video directed by Terence Nance — remember also this other video he shot for her earlier this year:

Some trippy and transcendental downtempo music from YellowStraps (that’s Yvan Murenzi, Alban Murenzi, Ludovic Petermann and Thomas Delire) alongside Moodprint:

A boom-bap retrospective from Soular Razye, the Zimbabwean duo comprised of Depth and Synik. They’re working on a soon-to-be-released EP:

Eighties-style fashion and joyous dance styles adorn this video from Uganda’s Fantom Lovins:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKv-vCAMUoc

Life suddenly makes sense when this song by Kalawa Jazmee’s Uhuru plays in the club. Oskido, who makes a cameo, is celebrating his birthday today. Bless up!

Still in South Africa, new work by Zola:

A catchy Bob Marley make-over from Senegal. Visuals courtesy of the illustrious Lionel Mendeix.

Robert Del Naja from Massive Attack collides with Congolese musician Jupiter on this subterranean robotic banger. The pair met on the Afrika Express adventure in 2012.

A visual and musical collaboration between dj Khalab and Malian talking drum master Baba Sissoko:

And to round it all off, a bit of kuduro never hurt anyone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTfBFb2Dc1s

Further Reading

Leapfrogging literacy?

In outsourcing the act of writing to machines trained on Western language and thought, we risk reinforcing the very hierarchies that decolonization sought to undo.

Repoliticizing a generation

Thirty-eight years after Thomas Sankara’s assassination, the struggle for justice and self-determination endures—from stalled archives and unfulfilled verdicts to new calls for pan-African renewal and a 21st-century anti-imperialist front.

Drip is temporary

The apparel brand Drip was meant to prove that South Africa’s townships could inspire global style. Instead, it revealed how easily black success stories are consumed and undone by the contradictions of neoliberal aspiration.

Energy for whom?

Behind the fanfare of the Africa Climate Summit, the East African Crude Oil Pipeline shows how neocolonial extraction still drives Africa’s energy future.