The Very Best–a collaboration of Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit–has a new mixtape. It came out a few weeks ago. It is still good for Africa Day. Download it here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqgZEklDuF8 Some catchy, and barely tolerable, pop from JR–remember him from the kwaiti/dance hit ‘Make the Circle Bigger‘–featuring the anti-Waddy and very unserious rapper, Jack Parow, as well as a hook from a singer of the Afrikaans pop group, Die Heuwels Fantasies.

Finally a teaser for the film “Skoonheid,” by Cape Town director, Oliver Hermanus, is now online. Billed as the first Afrikaans film to compete at the Cannes Film Festival, the film also finally screened earlier today at Cannes. That means the first mainstream reviews are in. They’re mixed. Here are some excerpts from the reviews […]

Timothy Burke, Swarthmore history professor–he’s written a book on commodity culture in Zimbabwe–and blogger, has a great post about ‘memoirs from Africa.’ Basically he was asked to prepare a year-long reading list of books about Africa for school alumni. Burke decided to only include memoirs or first-person perspective accounts from the last 30 years or […]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWjlPiJlihE&w=500&h=307&rel=0] Zim Ngqawana (b. 1959), a key member of the second generation of South African jazz musicians, a student of Darius Brubeck, Yusuf Lateef, Max Roach and Archie Shepp and a major influence on the next generation of artists like Kyle Shepherd, passed Monday. Ngqawana, a Muslim, was to be buried today in Johannesburg. Obituaries […]

We’ve featured Dutch R&B singer, Ntjam Rosie, here before. We had to do it again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbhplk5rljc With a nod to the 1990s, one of our favorites, DJ Premier, presents “A New Female MC,” Dynasty.

The video for “Go Getter,” by Johannesburg’s MB featuring Malika, which I saw playing once or twice on a TV in the background (TV’s are always on in people’s houses there) while in South Africa earlier this year. Pay attention.  Here’s the refrain: “You need to let it go/go get it/go get it.” Let it […]

Earlier this week ESPN won seven Sports Emmy Awards, including one for music during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, like the video–played at the start of broadcasts and during breaks from the studio in South Africa–featuring U2 (I prefer Bono when he sings, not when he wants to save Africa) and the Soweto […]

In Cape Town this January, Ken Salo invited Jessica and I to presentations by summer abroad students from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. They were presenting their findings on urban inequalities in the city. A group of students presented on the struggles of a group of residents in Delft, a working class township, who […]

Although the effect of blending the music by Shabazz Palaces and the images of documentary-in-the-making Tough Bond escapes me, for now, I am looking forward to seeing the end results (both of the documentary and the Shabazz Palaces first full album Black Up). Shabazz Palaces sure know how to pick their directors. http://vimeo.com/18653167 Remember the […]