Your weekly collection of new tunes and videos — this week from Zambia, Ghana, Jamaica, Mali, South Africa and the Netherlands, but first: Congo. This year’s Salaam Kivu International Film Festival (SKIFF), which took place in Goma in July, had as its theme “Agizo ya Lumumba — Justice”. The festival’s program included film screenings and dance/media/music workshops around the Justice theme and the following video by the same title, featuring Doris, Dak2, Black Man, DMD, BIN-G, Babu, Wanny S-king, Dj Couleur, M-Chris, Nathan, Jobson Madibo, Darsana, Fal-G, Gaius Kowene and Willy Ston, is a great product of that:

PAP-G is an artist from Mali who raps and sings over a layer of Diabatéba-produced music in ‘Favéla’:

Sarkodie teamed up with London azonto stars FuseODG. The video was directed by Moe Musa (check his YouTube channel for more goodies):

It’s been exciting to follow Stones Throw’s (the label) recent moves into the dub scene. This one features Roman soldiers, Marcus Garvey, and a fiery Little Harry:

“Le Cube” & Liam Farrell (aka “Doctor L”) are working on a new project, the LP “We Got Lost”, some other tracks of which you can see and hear here. Below is ‘Negro P’:

Block Kids on the New (yeh) is a Hip-Hop duo from Pretoria, South Africa:

Another track off the Red Hot + Fela record to get a video — remember Baloji’s –, this one for Spoek. (We’re looking forward to seeing what the Kronos Quartet / Kyp Malone / Tunde Adebimpe collaboration will look like on video!)

Jazzy ‘Beyond Of You’ is the first single off Dutch singer Joya Mooi’s upcoming album Crystal Growth. She talks about her South African dad and the play she has created about her parents here; you’ll find more music by her here.

A new song, ‘Too Much/Happens’, by Sampha Sisay (Sierra Leone to the UK) that deserves your full attention:

And to end, a short musical film by Zambian artist Mumba Yachi, which he dedicates to former First Lady Betty Kaunda:

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.