The new Zimbabwe soundtrack
Zimbabwe is not Mugabe, Nkomo, Mnangagwa or Chamisa. A new Afro-electronic music duo is giving the country’s complexity a soundtrack.
9 Articles by:
Liam Brickhill
Liam Brickhill is part of the inaugural class of Africa Is a Country Fellows.
Hope and optimism howled at full volume
A people’s history of Zimbabwe’s first mbira punk band, Chikwata 263, who wanted a soundtrack for the country’s post-post colonial blues.
Hard times never kill
Gonora Sounds’ music gets at what it means to be a Zimbabwean: We might be crying, but we are also dancing.
A new star in the southern sky
The impressive debut album of the Malcolm Jiyane Tree-O marks the arrival of a unique genius in post post-apartheid South African jazz.
Zimbabwe’s second innings
In November 2017, Robert Mugabe was toppled in a coup. Amid this epochal change, life—and cricket—simply went on for Zimbabweans, who are still in search of a better future.
Some kind of personal comfort
Kyle Shepherd’s new music blooms brightly from out of the shadow of pandemic and considers what it means to be South African, African, and human.
It’s never just about the music
Vinyl reissues are about engaging in a fight against forgetting much more than music. Gideon Nxumalo and Spirits Rejoice’s music is transcendent of repressive daily conditions.
Life as young black men in Johannesburg
The South African rap duo, Stiff Pap’s art is of the internet age: Their debut, TUFF TIME$, is at once unmistakably authentic, and entirely new.
The life and times of Trevor Madondo
Trevor Madondo achieved a certain immortality in Zimbabwean cricketing lore precisely for the way in which he confronted cricket’s history as an instrument of empire.