Africa Is a Country

#Kony2012 the musical

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

#Kony2012 the musical

By
Sean Jacobs

We want to step off #Kony2012 (we promise to lay off them by this weekend), but we could not let this one pass. We know that Jason wants a career in musical theater. The writers of British broadcaster and satirist Charlie Brooker’s nightlyweekly commentary on Channel 4’s weekly satire show ’10 O’Clock Live’ spent some time looking at Invisible Children’s videos on Vimeo and Youtube and found plenty musical theater among the 274 videos (at last count) the group has posted online.

The first video, 2006’s “Global Night Commute: A Musical to Believe” shows Jason (described by Brooker as “a clean-cut Abercrombie and Finch version of Jesus Christ”) and company “dancing around Glee-like in a high school like a boy band.” Brooker adds that the video “must have cost what even the Bible would describe as a bumload of cash.” Watch from the 1:40 mark:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWACLKaOC08

Then there’s the 2007 “World Tour Blazing Trials Again” showing actors riding around on a minivan miming to pop lyrics “without a single mention of Africa the entire four minutes.”

Next up is “Jump First, Fear Later” from 2009, “a cult like video” with their followers leaping “like a lemming pack” off a cliff, which, “once again cleverly raises awareness of Uganda, by never once mentioning Uganda.”

And finally, “at least Invisible Children doesn’t also organise vaguely ominous youth camp events for its followers which hint at them all — I don’t know — rising up to usher in some kind of New World Order, all topped off with a sinister logo.” Uh-oh. This is Invisible Children’s “Fourth Estate”, complete with some kind of bizarre Australian-cum-English-cum-Californian accent doing the voiceover. (Is it Russell Crowe?) Help!

Watch Charlie Brooker’s full #Kony2012 commentary here.

H/T: Mikko Kapanen; Neelika Jayawardane and Elliot Ross contributed to this post.

Further Reading

Kenya’s vibe shift

From aesthetic cool to political confusion, a new generation in Kenya is navigating broken promises, borrowed styles, and the blurred lines between irony and ideology.

Africa and the AI race

At summits and in speeches, African leaders promise to harness AI for development. But without investment in power, connectivity, and people, the continent risks replaying old failures in new code.

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.