Africa Is a Country

Friday Bonus Music Break, N°14

Friday Bonus Music Break, N°14

By
Tom Devriendt

Quite the mixed bag this week. ‘Disco Malapaa’ by Arusha’s Jambo Squad above; nine more below.

Like Jambo Squad, Mokoomba (from Zimbabwe) switch into Latino mode halfway in their new video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqZdaVNOHj0

Anbuley’s ‘Oleee’ arrives just in time for European summer:

Also based in Europe, although his latest video (like the previous one) suggests a longing for elsewhere, is Gaël Faye:

Simphiwe Dana decided to take a step back from social media a while ago and concentrate on doing what she does best: speak truth through music:

Still in South Africa, taxis and drifters:

South Africa based poppy Cameroonian Denzyl:

From Guinea, the Matoto Family:

Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars signed up for a cause:

And — to turn it down a notch — Ablaye Cissoko and Volker Goetze wrote a subdued lament for Haiti — quite beautifully — and recorded a video for it in Gorée:

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.