http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhyqJb0VZtQ What better way to start the week than with some a cappella soul courtesy of South African singers Buhlebendalo Mda, Luphindo Ngxanga and Ntsika Fana Ngxanga (better known as ‘The Soil’).

That first line is one by Tunde Adebimpe (joined by fellow TV on the Radio musician Kyp Malone) from his collaboration with Amadou & Mariam on ‘Wily Kataso’. The second line is the title of Spoek Mathambo’s latest single (and music video):

My latest list of new African films or films with African topics. From now on I’ll start numbering them. So this is N°1. This list include “The Ambassador,” a Western set in Namibia, a sort of sequal to “eLollipop” and a documentary about Kenya’s version of “America’s Best Dance Crew.”

The history of popular music in South Africa continues to interest documentary filmmakers. Of recent offerings two films stand out: “Punk in Africa,” about the history of the genre in Southern Africa since the 1970s (word is it’s a bit unfocused), and Daniel Yon’s beautiful film about jazz singer Sathima Benjamin, “Sathima’s Windsong.” I’ve just gotten […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahwth3qxnig The video for South African hip hop head Khuli Chana’s ‘Tswa Daar’ comes with a nod to Craig Mack’s Get Down. Have we already said DJ Raiko’s beats (and writing) are underrated?

The Canadian High Commission to South Africa, probably meaning well or deliberately unaware of the emptiness of rainbow metaphors, is looking for photographs capturing “the Rainbow Nation”. They’re working with the Johannesburg Bailey Seippel Gallery on this. The photographer’s entries will have to display “multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-racial South Africa”. Like it’s still the 1990s. […]

From Financial Times profile of Eve Arnold, the brilliant American photographer who died in January 2012: One of her toughest assignments was in South Africa, in 1973, where she saw apartheid at its worst. She sneaked inside hospitals where black children were dying from malnutrition and disease; she witnessed the separation of black families, the […]

Last week, after Malema was expelled from South Africa’s ruling party, we went back and looked at our archives to see how we’ve blogged about him and his politics. Here’s a sample.

From Zetina Mosia’s upcoming album “The RoundAbout”, this track: ‘Lately’. We’ve said this before, but the Johannesburg label Iapetus is an exceptional breeding ground for South African artists — remember Fifi the Rai Blaster, Yugen Blakrok, Robo the Technician or Gin i Grindith — with a special mention for Kanif, the producer behind many of […]

South African kwaito house with an explicit message: we don’t get to hear it often. Shota’s Etshwaleni has been playing in clubs for months, I’m told. Its straightforward lyrics make it stand out: have fun while still respecting others (“hlonipheni abanye abantu”) and drink responsibly (“pasop ugu dakwa”) during sleepless (“asisalali”) weekends. But you figured […]

Short recent video profile by VOA’s Nico Colombant of the Zimbabwean artist, illustrator and designer R!OT (also known as Sindiso Nyoni).

That was the question asked to people in Cape Town, South Africa, by the Prison Broadcasting Network (PBN), “a non-profit rehabilitation programme that teaches prisoners the skills to become employable when they are released.” I found the responses unsurprising. But the video has a twist.

Surfing as leisure and a sport has historically been associated with whites in South Africa, though that’s not necessarily true in practice. In fact a few documentary films (for example, “Taking back the waves“), the new feature film “Otelo Burning” and the work of photographer Richard Johnson (scroll to the right) have pointed to a […]

Our tech posts never stray from tweeting new data on Twitter and Facebook usage on the continent–but now and then–as occasional readers of Gizmodo and Kotaku–we pause.