June 25th, Mozambican Independence

In celebrating Mozambican independence day, we made a list of the most popular music videos in mid-2011.

Ilha Mozambique. Image by Stéphane Neckebrock via Flickr (CC).

We had much fun selecting recent videos coming out of South Africa last week, so we decided to follow up on this. At the occasion of each country’s independence day, over the next months we’ll try and collect songs (and videos, if we can sleuth them) we find interesting. We’ve already missed some this month, but if all goes well we’re ending this series May 24th of next year, with Eritrean music. Today is June 25th, Mozambique’s Independence Day. We couldn’t leave out the “ball grabbing, bikini-clad videos” Davy Lane spotted last year, but there is more than that.

Iveth:

Turaz feat. Muzila:

Magnums:

Impro:

Dabo Boys Family:

Ziqo:

And, Dygo:

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.