Africa Is a Country

Sunday Bonus Music Break, N°8

Sunday Bonus Music Break, N°8

By
Tom Devriendt

Since Friday’s Special was reserved to Sierra Leone — and for archival purposes — here’s your Sunday Bonus. First up, from the same label that brought us Baloji, Konono N°1 and Staff Benda Billili comes a new recording by Jagwa Music: ‘Live in the Streets of Dar’ (es Salaam, Tanzania).

‘Night in Tunisia’, the opening track from Hugh Masekela’s 1974 LP ‘I am not Afraid’:

Fatoumata Diawara’s ‘Kèlè’:

YaoBobby’s deceptively naïve ‘Mémoire d’un continent’:

Blood Orange’s Champagne Coast went viral this week. We can see why:

The Very Best return after a long silence with ‘Yoshua Alikuti’:

And an interesting music video filming singer Jimetta Rosa at her actual job:

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.