Category: Music
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Kendrick Lamar, Black Mecca and Hip-Hop Pan-Africanism
Kendrick Lamar recently visited Ghana, promoting his new album and reportedly shooting a documentary. State officials celebrated the visit in the context of Beyond the Return, Ghana’s tourism and repatriation campaign. As Mr. Duckworth swaps his wrecked Audi for the Accra trotro, conscious hip hop’s commitment to Pan-Africanism is deep as ever.
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The Butterfly Dialectic – Kendrick Lamar Deconstructs Black Being and the Culture in “The Heart Part 5”
Kendrick Lamar is not just dusting his crown in “The Heart Part 5”. The customary album prelude is not so much about putting the culture on notice as it is about deconstructing the culture. Collective languages of black being fall apart, deepfake by deepfake, in the glare of Mr Lamar’s passion.
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Vee Mukarati Meditates Mortality and Pandemic Creativity
Vital Signs, the critically acclaimed pandemic album by Zimbabwean jazz innovator Vee Mukarati, masterfully negotiates the lockdown dilemma of being relevant to your time while staying true to your art. Mukarati swings, meditates and sings on mortality, precarity and alienation on an album that is, at once, deeply personal, richly Zimbabwean and unmistakably global. The…
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Burna Boy’s “20 10 20” – Protest Music, State Violence and Power of People Platforms
Burna Boy’s critical single “20 10 20” highlights the emancipatory triad of protest art, people power movements and social media. Young African protesters are using their own platforms to undermine the coordinated abuses of state violence and censorship.
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African Leaders Are Not Thinking Right – Thomas Mapfumo
The 2020 African Crossroads headliner Thomas Mapfumo addressed African unity and decolonial sonics in a stellar musical performance largely drawn from his wide and high-octane collection.
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Inside Holy Ten’s Creative Process
Wrong time, right speed – say it slow and deep because the world is currently not in a hurry. Kendrick Lamar once said he writes songs with prisoners in mind. These poor souls, unlike party animals waiting to hop onto the next wave, got all the time under the sun to process every layer and…
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Hokoyo Is a Great Zimbabwean Album
By Onai Mushava Jah Prayzah’s continental wars are well-known but after every battle is fought, an artist’s never-ending conflicts are against himself. Think of a musician as different splinter personalities in one room, each fighting for creative control. That is Jah Prayzah, the stage monster, the business strategist, the regional crusader, the cultural revivalist, and…
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Zim Hip Hop Rises As Bodies Drop
By Onai Mushava If there is no spoon in the Matrix, there is equally no belt in a rap beef. It is a blood sport where a fabrication is not a foul as long as it stings, just like they say in philosophy: “Got a dope theory? Then forget about reality.” Ultimately, rapper fitness is…
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Tocky Back with the Right Vibes
By Onai Mushava Tocky Vibes returns to form with his latest album, Chamakuvangu, this time not as the long-form lyricist who wove proverbs into riddims, but as a distinctive musical innovator who will not be disappearing anytime soon. Chamakuvangu has a strong case for album of the year, thanks to its replay value, internal variety,…
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Michael Lannas Inspired By Migrant Workers
To hear Michael Lannas tell it, Zimbabwean music is the ultimate proof that God exists. If the Arcadia-born singer-songwriter is right, then he is also among the prophets, even if only for his contribution of Hapana Mazwi, The River and Moyo Wangu Uri Kuchema to the canon. In a series of retrospective threads recently, the…
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Reblogged this on Brian Maregedze.
[…] Hokoyo is a solid album by one of the best African musicians of the generation. –Jikinya.com […]