Africa Is a Country

Giving the Bizness

Giving the Bizness

By
Tom Devriendt

This is our third Music Break post. It is curated by anthropologist Tom DeVriendt, who may just take a liking to keep doing them.

Merril Garbus of tUnE-yArDs performs in Paris this year (Wiki Commons).

Merril Garbus of tUnE-yArDs cite Barrington Levy, Odetta, Woody Guthrie, Eleanor Roosevelt, Charlie Chaplin, Ruth Garbus, Bertolt Brecht, Björk, Todd Rundgren, Fela Kuti and “you” as their influences. Here the band performs their original composition, “Bizness,” live for a public radio station in New York City.

Tanya Auclair (from West London, “via Canada and Rwanda” and citing as her influences Bongo Joe Coleman, Juana Molina, The Staple Singers, Laurie Anderson, Matthew Herbert and E.S.G, sings and plays ‘Origami’.

A still from a video of Tanya Auclair performing her song, “Origami,” live (via Vimeo).

Trust Shabazz Palaces and Kahlil Joseph to do it again on “Black Up.”

While we’re in South Africa, I’m feeling this guitar band from Cape Town: MacGyver Knife. And their new song. While we’re on it, there aren’t that many corners in Woodstock left where bands or advertising companies can shoot a music video, spray a graffiti or do a photo shoot.

And to end, a new video by School is Cool arrives one year early.

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.