Africa Is a Country

Pure Bacardi house fun

Pure Bacardi house fun

By
Hipsters Don't Dance

Hipsters Don't Dance Top World Carnival Tunes for November 2014.

Spoek Mathambo in July 2012. (Dave Lichterman, Via Flickr CC).

Back, but a little delayed due to our site maintenance and redesign are Hipster’s Don’t Dance with our November 2014 chart of hot World Carnival tunes. Check it below, and be sure to visit the HDD blog regularly for all their great up-to-the-timeness out of London.

DJ Spoko x War God

We don’t know whether it was the excellent Spoek Mathambo doc Future sounds of Mzansi that drew us back to the DJ Spoko LP but the whole thing, which came out in October is excellent. 85 mins of pure Bacardi house fun.

Dr Sid x Lady Don Dada

Not sure if this will get a single release but this cut off his excellent LP this year has been on repeat. After the Mavins successful 2014, we are excited to see what else is in store for this super group.

MI x Wheel Barrow (Feat Emmy Ace & Beenie Man)

MI’s new LP came out this month and we instantly gravitated towards this one. Not only does it feature the immortal Beenie Man but also features some dembow drums which we love.

Edem x Koene (Feat. Ice Queen & Lil Shaker)

This came out earlier in the year but we love it still. Magnum’s beat is great unrelenting but fun and Zambia’s Ice Queen delivers on of our fave verses of the year.

Hagan x M.O.T.Y Edit

Discovered on the rather excellent AIAC Radio show, this edit of the Schoolboy Q hit transforms the West Coat hit into some sparser and a whole lot more fun.

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.