Don’t kill yourself because of suffering

Weekend Music Break, No.104 is just a playlist of ten great songs accompanied by predictably striking visuals from across Africa and its diaspora.

Malian singing legend Oumou Sangare performing in Essaouira, Morocco in June 2012.

Weekend Music Break is back to our regularly scheduled programming.  This week we start out with Malian legend Oumou Sangaré’s first release in seven years – and to top it off, she appears with Tony Allen in tow. The main message is about staying alive: “Don’t kill yourself because of suffering /  No-one should commit suicide because of pain / My brothers and sisters, we should not take our own lives /
because of suffering …”

Life on earth is not easy, but-no one should kill themselves

Then we head to Kenya where Muthoni channels a bit of (UK singer) MIA to call out corrupt politicians in her home country.

Up next, MHD and crew head from Paris to Manchester, and showing the Brits the French-African flavor their gonna miss out on as they start the EU exit process this week.

But London-based Mazi Chukz shows that the British-Africans can hold their own when it comes to stews.

Let’s head back to our continent now, alongside Wizkid who takes on a journey as he plays another packed live show somewhere on the continent.

Back home in Nigeria Lil’ Kesh makes an appeal for no fake love.

Cassper Nyovest does his best “I’m from Atlanta” impression with”Tito Mboweni.”

Let’s calm down from that a bit and head to Tidiane Thiam’s and Amadou Binta Konte in Senegal, and enjoy a more stripped down sound: one guitar, a hoddu and a microphone.

And let’s close out this week’s playlist with my current home of Brazil, and a who’s who of Afro-Brazilian rappers of many different stripes. Here they’re making an appeal for better and more and equal representation in their own country.

About the Author

Boima Tucker is a music producer, DJ, writer, and cultural activist. He is the managing editor of Africa Is a Country, co-founder of Kondi Band and the founder of the INTL BLK record label.

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.