Africando in Colombia

A deep dive into the African-influenced music scene of the Colombian Caribbean coast.

El Caribeño, new school Pico, Barranquila. Image credit Jim C. Nedd.

This month’s Africa Is a Country Radio INTL BLK episode takes a deep dive into the African-influenced music scene of the Colombian Caribbean coast, co-presented by Palmwine.it in celebration of their Guarapo album. Before that we run through some of the latest tunes from the contemporary Afropop landscape with stops in Nigeria and Kenya, as well as take a stop in Brazil to celebrate Carnival. Last but not least, RIP Hugh Masekela.


Further Reading

Fuel’s errand

When Africa’s richest man announced the construction of the continent’s largest crude oil refinery, many were hopeful. But Aliko Dangote has not saved Nigeria. The Nigerian Scam returns to the Africa Is a Country Podcast to explain why.

Fragile state

Without an immediate change in approach, Somalia will remain a fragmented country populated by self-serving elites seeking foreign patrons.

Coming home

In 1991, acclaimed South African artist Helen Sebidi’s artworks were presumed stolen in Sweden. Three decades later, a caretaker at the residential college where they disappeared found them in a ceiling cupboard, still in their original packaging.

Imaginary homelands

A new biography of former apartheid homeland leader Lucas Mangope struggles to do more than arrange the actions of its subject into a neat chronology.

Business as usual?

This month, Algeria quietly held its second election since Abdelaziz Bouteflika was ousted in 2019. On the podcast, we ask what Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s second term means for the country.

The complexities of solidarity

Assassinated in 1978, Henri Curiel was a Jewish Egyptian Marxist whose likely killers include fascist French-Algerian colons, the apartheid South African Bureau of State Security, and the Abu Nidal Organization.