Weekend Music Break No.107 – French presidential election edition

Paris, even though I’ve never lived there, has perhaps been more important in my formation as a DJ than any other city (ok maybe New York is tied). Its diverse immigrant communities have created a rich cultural mix, the impact of which has spread across the globe. For example, without France’s African communities, the global Afropop (Afrobeats) industry from Lagos to Johannesburg wouldn’t have the reach or aesthetic it touts today. Standing on the front lines of the global battle against European supremacy, and redefining what belonging means in the global North in general, I believe we all owe France’s immigrant communities a deep debt.

This playlist is dedicated to all my French immigrant whatever generation brothers and sisters living up and down the country. My thoughts and heart are with you this weekend.

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.