• Gwen Ansell

The drummer Gilbert Matthews was a visionary of South African jazz. The silences on his passing from official quarters are discordant.

• William Shoki

The viral sensation “Jerusalema” and its dance challenge reveals a deeper longing and desire to re-imagine the world.

• Banwo “Proficience” Olagokun

A fan of rapper Naira Marley writes that it will take more than counter-cultural popularity to effect any tangible change in Nigeria.

• Myrakel Baker

We're back with another playlist of songs for your weekend!

• Motheo Mofokeng

Drummer Asher Gamedze’s new album is a groundbreaking body of work in the musical trajectory of South African jazz.

• Xavier Livermon

Livermon’s new book explores how South African kwaito artists, Lebo Mathosa and Mandoza, pushed against the boundaries of gender and performance in their music.

• Mwongela Kamencu

Government money, artistic freedom, and integrity in Kenya in the time of COVID-19.

• D.S. Battistoli

The “World Music” record industry has a lot to do with what kinds of reggae music we get to hear and consume.

• Richard Oduku

Rapper Khaligraph Jones (government name: Brian Ouko Robert) chronicles the challenges faced by young people in Nairobi, Kenya.

• moshood

Among other notable achievements, Wole Soyinka made political music. In 1983, he even released an album.

• Nombuso Mathibela

From exile, bassist and composer, Johnny Mbizo Dyani (1945-1986), explored and promoted the folk music traditions of South Africa.

• Prasad Bidaye

The evolution of techno, from within Detroit’s African-American community to Kampala, Uganda.

• Valmont Layne

Breaking with the usual media conversation about the carnival that recalls Cape Town’s slave past.

• Taghreed Elsanhouri

The music of Albalabel, a pioneering women’s group in conservative and patriarchal Sudan, endures over decades of struggle.

• Michael Bueckert

Nearly four decades later, Linda Ronstadt’s arguments against the cultural boycott - repeated in a new film - ring hollow.

• Dave Pier

Fela Kuti’s friend, Carlos Moore, the black Cuban emigre writer, is the subject of a film about their at times difficult relationship. The result is complex.

• Sean Henry Jacobs

Masauko Chipembere's first solo album is a remarkable achievement and a timely musical reminder of the circular nature of pan-Africanist consciousness.

• Atiyyah Khan

During Christmas 1980, Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba performed at a concert in Lesotho that deeply challenged and disturbed South Africa’s apartheid regime. The record of that concert is being reissued.

• Vik Sohonie

The island nation's celebrated political system was never a gift bestowed, but seized through sheer agency and hard-fought autonomy.

• Dave Pier

The pop star turned Member of Parliament, Bobi Wine, is only the latest in a long line of music-as-politics in Uganda.