Three Kenyan videos to remember today’s Independence Day. Three popular tunes for our Independence meme. A ‘celebration’ of sorts turned out to be a useful lead for the first two. Madtraxx’s ‘Ida Waiter’ (with a nod to South African kwaito and that Prodigy video):
Camp Mulla’s making a buzz lately. What with ‘Party Don’t Stop’:
And Mejja’s going where few other popular Kenyan artists dare to go in ‘Landlord’ — talking politics (“usiniharibie siku bana landlord”):
Samthing Soweto and DJ Maphorisa’s clash over a song credit raises the question of whether numbers trump respect in the Amapiano music scene.
Twenty-one years after Liberia’s political elite acquiesced to “negative peace,” the US now champions the fight against impunity. Except when their own companies are involved.
While it might be cathartic to compare Elon Musk’s tech firms to apartheid-era mines, the connection between ex-South Africans and American capitalism is complicated.
To navigate multipolarity, the continent needs a common narrative that strategically mediates its conversations with China and other world powers.
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.
Without an immediate change in approach, Somalia will remain a fragmented country populated by self-serving elites seeking foreign patrons.
No matter where they are, the children of African heads-of-state live lives comically far-removed from those of the average citizen in their home countries.
The war in Sudan shows how during conflict, the internet is as critical as food or medicine.
South Africa’s pivot to electricity markets will be socially regressive, whether green or not.
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.
The EU’s military involvement in West Africa, the Gulf of Guinea, South Sudan, and East Africa is well-known. But one mission on the continent has gone relatively unnoticed.
Todos sabem do envolvimento militar da União Europeia (EU) na África Ocidental, no Golfo da Guiné, no Sudão do Sul e na África Oriental. No entanto, uma missão no continente passou relativamente despercebida.
The protests against illegal mining in Ghana are revealing how the country’s political class still fears an engaged citizenry.
How the UAE-backed RSF looted Sudan’s National Museum.
Without an immediate halt to US arms to Israel, it’s hard to see why Israel should stop slaughtering civilians in Gaza and Lebanon.
While many diasporans speculate romantically about the people we were or could have been, is that speculation mutual?
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.
Decolonial African feminism and the revolutionary lives of three mothers of Kenya.
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.
A new Disney short film series dramatizes traditional African storytelling for the big screen. Does it succeed?