Africa Is a Country

'My Africa is in the dark'

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

'My Africa is in the dark'

By
Tom Devriendt

Malian rapper Mokobe ripped into French perfumer Jean-Paul Guerlain’s comments about “hard working blacks” in his recent video, “Ca passe tout seul.” Now Burkinabé MC Art Melody takes on Nicolas Sarkozy and other “chefs d’états.”  That’s a sample of Sarkozy’s infamous Dakar speech at the beginning of the song about how Africans have “not fully entered into history.”

As for African leaders, Art Melody accuses them of only being interested in selling Africa “in the name of France-Afrique.” (Like Gabon’s Lord Ekomy Ndong did last year.) The video is above; part of the chorus is translated below.

The ebony is in the dark. The black is in the dark that has plunged us into the dark. My Africa is in the dark…

BTW, Art Melody also does up-beat songs. (Read This Is Africa’s feature on Art Melody.)

H/T: okayafrica.

Further Reading

After the uprising

Years into Cameroon’s Anglophone conflict, the rebellion faces internal fractures, waning support, and military pressure—raising the question of what future, if any, lies ahead for Ambazonian aspirations.

In search of Saadia

Who was Saadia, and why has she been forgotten? A search for one woman’s story opens up bigger questions about race, migration, belonging, and the gaps history leaves behind.

Binti, revisited

More than two decades after its release, Lady Jaydee’s debut album still resonates—offering a window into Tanzanian pop, gender politics, and the sound of a generation coming into its own.

The bones beneath our feet

A powerful new documentary follows Evelyn Wanjugu Kimathi’s personal and political journey to recover her father’s remains—and to reckon with Kenya’s unfinished struggle for land, justice, and historical memory.

What comes after liberation?

In this wide-ranging conversation, the freedom fighter and former Constitutional Court justice Albie Sachs reflects on law, liberation, and the unfinished work of building a just South Africa.

The cost of care

In Africa’s migration economy, women’s labor fuels households abroad while their own needs are sidelined at home. What does freedom look like when care itself becomes a form of exile?

The memory keepers

A new documentary follows two women’s mission to decolonize Nairobi’s libraries, revealing how good intentions collide with bureaucracy, donor politics, and the ghosts of colonialism.

Making films against amnesia

The director of the Oscar-nominated film ‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’ reflects on imperial violence, corporate warfare, and how cinema can disrupt the official record—and help us remember differently.