Africa Is a Country

Music Break. Friday Bonus Edition

Music Break. Friday Bonus Edition

By
Tom Devriendt

Ploughing through the blog’s archives to come up with a fair selection of ten videos for next week’s year-end lists, I wondered why we haven’t written about the Congolese Salaam Kivu All Stars. Things went well in Goma, Kivu during the elections last week. A year ago, youth and media organization Yole! Africa staged the SKIFF festival in Goma (where they also shot the first video below), and they were planning to do so again this year. ‘Saisir l’Avenir’ means as much as ‘to seize the Future.’

Get ready for a work out. Angolans The Shine and Portugal’s Throes do “kuduru rock”:

Okay, after that workout, we can slow down. Nice 10 minute live set by James Farm, the American “acoustic jazz quartet” consisting of saxophonist Joshua Redman, pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Matt Penman, and drummer Eric Harland. Recorded at The Jazz Standard.

And 18 minutes (also recorded live at The Jazz Standard) of Ambrose Akinmusire and his Orchestra:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNRqk5WygpM

Finally, we had this one on our Facebook page earlier this week. Tamikrest backstage at a music festival in Switzerland:

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.