AfricaIs aCountry

Music Break

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

Music Break

By
Sean Jacobs

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mLtdHQeIZA&w=500&h=307&rel=0]

My 5-year old has known for quite a while–long before mainstream media caught onto it–that the children’s TV show, Yo Gabba Gabba, has the best musical guests. Among them: Solange Knowles (Rosa’s favorite singer), Mos Def, Biz Markie and of course The Roots, one of dad’s favorite bands.  Here’s The Roots doing “Lovely, Love My Family” with the Yo Gabba Gabba characters. ( That’s in the video above).

You know you enjoyed that.

BTW, recently Rosa was on a play date–that’s what they call kids hanging out nowadays. The host parent mentioned that the family had recently moved from Philadelphia. To which Rosa replied: “The Roots are from Philadelphia.” Kids say the darndest things–Sean Jacobs

Further Reading

No one should be surprised we exist

The documentary film, ‘Rolé—Histórias dos Rolezinhos’ by Afro-Brazilian filmmaker Vladimir Seixas uses sharp commentary to expose social, political, and cultural inequalities within Brazilian society.

Reading List: Barbara Boswell

While editing a collection of the writings of South African feminist Lauretta Ngcobo, Barbara Boswell found inspiration in texts that reflected Ngcobo’s sense that writing is an exercise of freedom.

Kenya’s stalemate

A fundamental contest between two orders is taking place in Kenya. Will its progressives seize the moment to catalyze a vision for social, economic, and political change?

An annual awakening

In the 1980s, the South African arts collective Vakalisa Art Associates reclaimed time as a tool of social control through their subversive calendars.

More than a building

The film ‘No Place But Here’ uses VR or 360 media to immerse a viewer inside a housing occupation in Cape Town. In the process, it wants to challenge gentrification and the capitalist logic of home ownership.