Here’s another Music Break to soundtrack your weekend! This round up is the “other countries” edition with a selection of tunes starting out in Latin America from Cuba to Brazil, and ending up around the rest of the African diaspora. Check it all out via the Youtube playlist below!

Music Break No.97

1) We kick it off with what I’ve been told is Cuba’s biggest tune of 2016, “Hasta que seque el Malecón.” 2) Then we go to Puerto Rico with Ifé and their Orisha-tronica sound (h/t Pablo Medina Uribe). 3) Next up, inspired by the movie “Manos Sucias,” and one of the most heartwarming scenes about music I’ve ever seen recorded on film, Grupo Niche and their classic salsa tune “Buenaventura y Camey.” 4) Then we move from Colombia’s Buenaventura, to the Chocó and rap group ChocQuibTown’s “Nuqui (Te Quiero Para Mi).” 5) I love the idea from a recent article in Globo that Funk is more Baiano then ever — MC Menor da VG runs with that idea and visits Salvador da Bahia during carnival, at the same time showing how o cavaquinho ta conquistando o Funk. 6) UKs Afrobeats don, Fuse ODG, turns in a new video for his tune “Only.” 7) Brussels residents Badi and Boddhi Satva team up on an Afro-Hip-House anthem on “Integration.” 8) South Africans scattered about the world Mo Laudi, Gazelle, and DJ InviZAble unite in the Pantzula dancer featuring “Speak Up.” 9) South African originated Norweigian Nosizwe teams up with Georgia Anne Muldrow on “The Beat.” 10) And finally, Nigerian-American Tunji Ige takes it from Philly to LA with both a West Coast visual and sonic vibe on “War.”

Have a happy weekend, and sports fans, enjoy the many tournaments going on around the world!

Further Reading

How to unmake the world

In this wide-ranging conversation, para-disciplinary artist Nolan Oswald Dennis reflects on space, time, Blackness, and the limits of Western knowledge—offering a strategy for imagining grounded in African and anti-colonial traditions.

A migrant’s tale

On his latest EP, Kwame Brenya turns a failed migration into musical testimony—offering a biting critique of ECOWAS, broken borders, and the everyday collapse of pan-African ideals.

What Portugal forgets

In the film ‘Tales of Oblivion,’ Dulce Fernandes excavates the buried history of slavery in Portugal, challenging a national mythology built on sea voyages, silence, and selective memory.

Trump tariffs and US Imperialism

Trump’s April 2025 tariff blitz ignited market chaos and deepened rifts within his own coalition. Beneath the turmoil lies a battle between technocrats, ultranationalists, and anti-imperial populists, all vying to reshape—or destroy—American global power.