Africa Is a Country

'My Africa is in the dark'

'My Africa is in the dark'

By
Tom Devriendt

Malian rapper Mokobe ripped into French perfumer Jean-Paul Guerlain’s comments about “hard working blacks” in his recent video, “Ca passe tout seul.” Now Burkinabé MC Art Melody takes on Nicolas Sarkozy and other “chefs d’états.”  That’s a sample of Sarkozy’s infamous Dakar speech at the beginning of the song about how Africans have “not fully entered into history.”

As for African leaders, Art Melody accuses them of only being interested in selling Africa “in the name of France-Afrique.” (Like Gabon’s Lord Ekomy Ndong did last year.) The video is above; part of the chorus is translated below.

The ebony is in the dark. The black is in the dark that has plunged us into the dark. My Africa is in the dark…

BTW, Art Melody also does up-beat songs. (Read This Is Africa’s feature on Art Melody.)

H/T: okayafrica.

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.

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?

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.