Today the American network NBC announced publicly that friend (and contributor) of Africa is a Country, Ashoka Mukpo, is the freelance journalist who has been diagnosed with Ebola and is being flown to the United States for treatment (read Ashoka’s thoughts on the root causes of the crisis here on Africa is a Country on September 23rd).

As a sort of get well card, I think it’s fitting for us to post the below video, recently shot by Ashoka, of Ebola songs performed at Pan-African beach in Monrovia. I know Liberian music is a great passion of his, it was through a shared interest in Monrovia’s Hipco scene that we first met in Liberia in 2011. After elections he stayed on in the country doing freelance work particularly around workers rights, but had recently returned to the states. This summer he hopped on a plane and decided to go back and help disseminate truth about the Ebola crisis (rather than the hysteria that tends to accompany the coverage of crisis in West Africa.) He had been doing a wonderful job of it.

We wish him a speedy recovery and return to action!

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.