Africa Is a Country

Soundcloud Africa

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

Soundcloud Africa

By
Boima Tucker

Africa is a Country hosted Chimurenga's pop up Pan-African Space Station transmission. It's archived here.

Lamin Fofana and Thanu Yakupitiyage. Image: Zach Rosen.

Last November, Africa is a Country teamed up with Chimurenga’s Pan African Space Station library-of-people installation at the Performa 15 Hub in New York City. We were able to curate three panels over the course of a weekend, hosted by: academic and writer (and non-academic soca specialist) Rishi Nath; immigrant rights activist Thanu Yakupitiyage, otherwise known as DJ Ushka of Brooklyn’s Dutty Artz collective; and AIAC photography editor Zachary Rosen.

We wanted to make sure to archive the conversations, so you could listen if you missed them when they went live. So here are the embeds via our Soundcloud for you to enjoy again and again.

Block The Road: The Sound of Afrosoca:  An exploration of the recent explosion of cross-Atlantic exchange between Caribbean and African musicians, with Rum N’ Lime Radio co-hosts – Queens-based writer and academic Rishi Nath, and DJ, producer, and Trinidadian Soca ambassador DLife.

Adrift: A soundtrack for migration: A current and former member of the Brooklyn DJ collective Dutty Artz, DJ Ushka (Thanu Yakupitiyage) and Lamin Fofana, talk about Fofana’s recent EP as a jump-off point to discuss migration — from what the Western media has dubbed a European “migrant crisis” stemming from Africa and Syria — to other examples of being “adrift.” The two draw on their personal experiences as immigrants to the U.S from Sri Lanka and Sierra Leone respectively to discuss how they’ve incorporated heavy themes of (im)migration into their work as musicians and activists. What turned into a two-hour podcast, features both Ushka and Lamin’s musical selections as a soundtrack to being adrift – both physically and geopolitically.

Seeing voices: Reflections on African photographic portraiture: Zachary Rosen moderates a discussion with Delphine Fawundu, a Brooklyn-based photographer. In her work she focuses on identities through cultural expression; incorporating themes of social justice, music and history.

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.