When an algorithm introduces you to something totally chill and totally cool. From Senegal, this is Cheikh Ibra Fam.
africa
Was looking for more African music, since it's the continent I know least about musically and I've recently become a fan of Songhoy Blues.
Anyways, I'm enjoying stuff like this too:
And if anyone has any recommendations, preferably active/modern or semi-modern bands and musicians.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-xijIzf6e8&ab_channel=ShandeshMusic
#music #africa
How Not to Go to Jail for Making Art
Published by the Pan-African Network for Artistic Freedom, the first issue of PANAF Voices is a testimony to persistence in the face of artistic repression across the continent.
https://www.theelephant.info/analysis/2026/05/08/how-not-to-go-to-jail-for-making-art/
🎷🎶 « La fabrique de la sono mondiale. Des musiques africaines face à l’impérialisme culturel »
Le réseau thématique 14 « Sociologie de l’art et de la culture » organise prochainement un temps d’échanges avec Arielle Nganso, autour de son ouvrage :
Au cours des années 1970, la rumba, le soukous et le makossa forment une « sono mondiale » dont la circulation entre les continents est lourde d’enjeux politiques. Dans un contexte postcolonial fortement marqué par la persistance d’un impérialisme culturel français, leur renommée dépasse les frontières de l’Afrique centrale pour s’exporter en Europe et en Amérique, grâce à la popularité d’artistes comme Manu Dibango.
Cet ouvrage raconte la singulière histoire de ces musiques urbaines. De l’effervescence culturelle post-Mai 68 à la diffusion du jazz afro-américain, en passant par la promotion intéressée par l’État français d’une world music francophone, Arielle Nganso met en lumière les facteurs qui ont concouru à leur large diffusion et les logiques impériales qui l’ont structurée.
Elle souligne les grandes difficultés rencontrées par ces musiciens pour produire et diffuser leur art en France : se heurtant notamment à une conception exotisante de leur musique, ces derniers ont été contraints de la formater aux attentes des oreilles occidentales. Enfin, elle réinvestit la question de la restitution des œuvres d’art africaines, en y intégrant le champ musical.
🗓️ Mardi 16 décembre 2025, de 14h à 16h
📍 CNRS Site Pouchet, 59-61 rue Pouchet, Paris 17e - Salle 124
Éditions Amsterdam : https://www.editionsamsterdam.fr/la-fabrique-de-la-sono-mondiale/
RT14 : https://rt14.hypotheses.org/2358
@cnrs @cnrsshs @shs @mate_shs_cnrs @sociology
#AFS #sociology #africa #culture #music #rumba #soukous #makossa #imperialism #worldmusic
Thando Hopa, model from Johannesburg
People living with albinism still face tremendous stigmatization, persecution and even murder in many African countries, including South Africa, due to traditional beliefs.
If you already watched "Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat", or want to, this is a #MustRead interview with Johan Gimonprez
Making films against amnesia
"The director of the Oscar-nominated film 'Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat' reflects on imperial violence, corporate warfare, and how cinema can disrupt the official record—and help us remember differently."
https://africasacountry.com/2025/04/making-films-against-amnesia
Benin coup attempt...
I live in Benin, in the suburbs far from Cotonou. All the churches around the house seem active as usual on Sundays, so I'd say no threatening activity is happening or visible right now... at least far from the political center.
Will tell you more if anything happens...
The trouble with “showing the real Africa”
iShowSpeed’s Africa tour is widely celebrated as respectful and refreshing, yet it operates within a long tradition of racialized spectacle that turns Africa into content and Blackness into performance.
https://africasacountry.com/2026/02/the-trouble-with-showing-the-real-africa
Tracing Africa’s Photographic History in Books
The curator Oluremi C. Onabanjo speaks about Africa’s political transformations and the role of publishing in shaping artistic knowledge.
https://aperture.org/editorial/tracing-africas-photographic-history-in-books/
A watchful mother and her curious little cub in South Africa, near Kruger National Park.
Just six weeks old, this little one was getting her first introduction to safari vehicles. Mom walked straight toward our open-air truck, bringing her cub along.
https://rhfineartgallery.etsy.com/listing/4525549821/lioness-and-cub-south-africa-matted
#wildlife #wildlifephotography #nature #naturephotography #buyintoart #africa #cats #catsOfMastodon #photography #photo #fineartphotography #giftLink #gift #art #wallart
Discovered this artist from Mauritania in the pages of #Creem magazine (of all places) this morning. Almost psychedelic feel with deft playing and amazing vocals. The video is beautiful, too.
Noura Mint Seymali - Gueréh
Without USAID funding to help buy food for refugees, the World Food Program rushed to prioritize families based on need, determining that only half the population would get food.
Refugees learned which half they were in from a number stamped on the back of their ration card.
https://www.propublica.org/article/kenya-trump-usaid-world-food-program-starvation-children-deaths?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
#News #USAID #Hunger #USPolitics #Trump #MarcoRubio #Africa #Kenya
UN COUPLE PANAFRICAIN
Miriam Makeba et Stokely Carmichael en Guinée
Elara Bertho
"En 1968, Miriam Makeba et Stokely Carmichael quittent les États-Unis pour s’installer à Conakry, capitale de la Guinée socialiste. Réfugiés politiques en exil, la chanteuse sud-africaine mondialement connue et le militant révolutionnaire noir décident de se mettre au service du régime de Sékou Touré et de son ambitieux programme de décolonisation des esprits."
Edited 1y ago
From the magazine L’Illustrazione Italiana, 1936 (or 39).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Illustrazione_Italiana
What I Saw at a Maternity Ward in Kenya After the U.S. Cut Off Food and Foreign Aid
---
Photographs tell a story of two mothers determined to help their babies gain enough weight to leave the hospital — only to face little to no food again.
https://www.propublica.org/article/kakuma-kenya-matenity-ward-foreign-aid-cuts?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post
#News #Photography #Journalism #Kenya #Africa #Trump #MarcoRubio #Hunger
When food becomes poison
In Nigeria, the drive to cut corners has turned food and drink into vectors of illness, sacrificing health and heritage at the altar of profit.
https://africasacountry.com/2025/09/when-food-becomes-poison
"[...] Fruits are forced to ripen with calcium carbide, a toxic substance that has no place near human consumption. Cooking oils are recycled endlessly, breaking down into harmful compounds long before they reach the plate."
Yesterday for Xmas Eve, water access was severely limited then cut. Came back later.
Today it's electricity's turn since about 6pm.
No comment but 
Soweto youth honour their heritage with music https://groundup.org.za/article/soweto-youth-honour-their-heritage-with-music-concert/
Special shoutout to journalist Zecharias Zelalem doing brilliant investigative work on a part of the world few are covering. This thread is amazing:
➡️ https://dair-community.social/@ZekuZelalem/115290520418428596 (Part 1)
➡️ https://dair-community.social/@ZekuZelalem/115290922706015620 (Part 2)
➡️ https://dair-community.social/@ZekuZelalem/115291272349035871 (Part 3)
You can follow Zelalem at:
➡️ @ZekuZelalem
You can follow the newspaper he was reporting for:
He also reports for Al Jazeera:
➡️ @AlJazeera
#Journalism #InvestigativeJournalism #Africa #Ethiopia #HornOfAfrica #Djibouti
Edited 1y ago
WHO declares global health emergency over Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda
https://apnews.com/article/congo-ebola-uganda-who-africa-emergency-6f93a87ff28107bdda8990599bbcd52d
“If there is anything that projects Africa’s image positively, it is music.”
“People abroad are tired of hearing only Western sounds. They want something different, something African.”
https://www.thisdaylive.com/2026/01/28/why-africa-must-rebuild-its-music-education-system/
Imagine that, hypothetically, there was an idea to launch an instance / server dedicated to people from the African continent (+ diaspora) to join the Fediverse...
Let's suppose it would use the ".africa" TLD.
How would you name it, so that people use it, understand what it is, memorize it, etc.
Please, do boost for max visibility. Thx.
CC @ricci
#Africa #BlackMastodon #Fediverse