South African kwaito group Mafikizolo underscored their comeback this week with the release of the video for “Khona” off their new album, Reunited. The video which also features vocals from Uhuru and Mapiano, takes the group back to the village with brightly colored Ndebele wall paintings, Basotho blankets and flamboyant dancing. Since its debut in December, Khona has already become a global club hit and this video will further prove that Nhlanhla Nciza and Theo Kgosinkwe still got it:

Nostalgia for returning to the traditional village life in South Africa must be widespread amidst neoliberal disenchantment because DJ Ganyani and FB also return to their Tsonga roots in the video for “Xigubu”.

Nigerians Show Dem Camp, with Poe and Boj, give us a laid back song for the summer in “Feel Alright”. Ha!!!!!

More proof that high-energy kuduro music is designed for all ages comes from Angola where Gege Kuya Bwe and company live the kuduro life in the video “Batata”. With trademark Angolan style, this dance-heavy video likely doesn’t feature anyone over the age of 7.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WLs9IUwhcU

Sinkane drops another stellar video from his impressive Mars album with the song “Warm Spell”. In this retro-feeling video, an entrancing guitar riff is overlaid with even more entrancing visuals of lithe, graceful women and flowers. Legendary painter Georgia O’Keefe would certainly approve.

In their video for “That Lazy Song” rising stars Black Motion demonstrate what makes South African house music so unique. Its well crafted beat is infused perfectly with smooth jazz rhythms and hypnotic vocals. Perfect for the impeccably dressed to get down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FJinchVDev8

Meanwhile in The Gambia… hip hop crew S.T. Da Gambian Dream use their Mandinka flows as a vehicle to express the frustrations of youth in the country and while they’re at it, talk a little shit.

There’s a new video for French rapper Fababy (real name: Fabrice Ayékoué):

Jazz band Stone Ground Souls, which features members from Zimbabwe, South Africa and the United States, performed this past week in Lesotho. In this live video for the song “Roots Grown Deep”, the group’s resident sand-painter Tawanda Mhandu creates an ever-evolving masterpiece amidst the wailing of brass. They call their style “Musical-Visual Synthesis”.

And staying in the jazz vein, Alissa Sanders croons “Dindi” in a video shot by the Nigerian-British artist Zina Saro-Wiwa. The daughter of the Ogoni activist/writer Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed by Nigeria’s Abacha regime, Zina has been paving her own artistic path for awhile now. She recently completed a fascinating three-part video installation called Eaten by the Heart that was commissioned by the Menil Collection for their exhibition The Progress of Love.

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.