Africa Is a Country

Weekend Music Break 59

Weekend Music Break 59

By
Tom Devriendt

Oddisee (real name: Amir Mohamed El Khalifa; he has a Sudanese dad) is on tour in Europe this month, so go check him out if you’re anywhere close. Details and dates here. He also has a new video out:

Zimbabwe-born, South London-raised Eska Mtungwazi gives us these visuals for her new work:

Uganda-born Jaqee (real name: Jaqueline Nakiri Nalubale) also shared a new video this week, recorded in Gothenburg:

A happy tune by Belgian-Congolese Karoline Kamosi aka Leki:

Nigerians WizKid and Femi Kuti team up in ‘Jaiye Jaiye’:

A new disco jam from South Africans Muzart, ‘Party After’:

Hipe produced this track for Ill Skillz, also featuring Sandra Amarie and Melo B Jones:

At the Trinity International Hip-Hop Festival, Nomadic Wax gathered top MCs from around the world. This cipher features artists from USA, India, Burkina Faso, and Kenya: MC K-Swift, Mandeep Sethi, Humanist, Mr. Lif, Kama and Lah Tere:

Nana D grew up in Ghana before moving to the UK in 1980. Here’s his latest collaboration with Jordan Crisp, the quite hectic but fun ‘Ngoma’:

And to end, we were very sorry to hear about the unexpected passing of Robo The Technician last weekend. He will be missed in Johannesburg and beyond.

 

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.

The complexities of solidarity

Assassinated in 1978, Henri Curiel was a Jewish Egyptian Marxist whose likely killers include fascist French-Algerian colons, the apartheid South African Bureau of State Security, and the Abu Nidal Organization.