Africa Is a Country

Weekend Music Break No.91

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

Weekend Music Break No.91

By
Boima Tucker

Chimurenga Renaissance at The Old Rainier Brewery - Seattle

We’re back with the first Weekend Music Break of 2016. A series of videos for you to enjoy as you ease into relax (or catchup) mode:

 

1) Our selection this weekend starts off with a video shot by AIAC film editor Dylan Valley — Niko10Long hips us to the real Politrix going down in Cape Town, South Africa. 2) Brooklyn staple with Guyanese roots, Jahdan Blakkamore ushers in an upliftment anthem to end all sufferation. 3) The multi-talented, Boston-based Sierra Leonean scientist/rapper David Moinina Sengeh brings a positive Afrobeat jam and video. 4) Mozambican-Canadian singer Samito releases a dance art video for his epic Tiku la hina. 5) Keeping it in the Mozambique realm, Spoek Mathambo reveals Batuk, his new partnership with Aero Manyelo, a deep house project inspired by the Afro-luso house scene based out of Maputo. 6) Daniel Haaksman proposes to Rename the Streets in the former colonial capitals (his being Berlin) to not celebrate the war criminals and crimes of the nation’s past, #NamesMustFall — respect Daniel. 7) Stephen Marley celebrates the great innovations from African history, alongside Wale and the cast from the Fela! musical. 8) Renown coreographer Maimouna and Les Ambianceuses out of Paris call for all women to take their power back via a little “Booty Therapy.” 9) Christain Scott aTunde Adjuah brings us back to an age where Jazz and politics were one, via an integral #BLM lens, at NPR’s Tiny Desk concert series. 10) And finally, Seattle based Zimbabwe-DRC crew Chimurenga Renaissance reveal their new EP Girlz with Gunz via a beautifully executed thematic streaming video.

Have a great weekend, and enjoy!

Further Reading

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.

From Nkrumah to neoliberalism

On the podcast, we explore: How did Ghana go from Nkrumah’s radical vision to neoliberal entrenchment? Gyekye Tanoh unpacks the forces behind its political stability, deepening inequality, and the fractures shaping its future.