Africa Is a Country

Paying homage

Paying homage

By
Tom Devriendt

Pitchom, Batida, Vieux Farka Toure, P-Unit, Sauti Sol and Tinariwen comprise our weekly Music Break.

The late Ali Farka Touré (via Fallen in the Open, CC Licensed).

Pitcho added archival video material (and a short fragment of the brilliant 2008 film ‘The Class’/’Entre Les Murs’) to the title track of his Crise de Nègre album. It’s becoming a trend, but it works. Friday means we have four more:

Batida gets help from Ngongo on “Ka Heueh.”

Last month, in Bamako, Vieux Farka Touré and his father’s friends and former band paid tribute to Ali Farka Touré, master musician. Ali Farka Toure passed away in 2006. Great footage by Bammako Culture.

Popular Kenyan bands P-Unit and Sauti Sol got themselves a hit.

And the quietest song on Tinariwen’s masterful album now also has the quietest music video.

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.