For this year’s African Crossroads edition we asked versatile and diverse DJs from the continent to submit their take on Climate Justice in Africa through a 30min audio-visual set. A personal selection of music interrogating and navigating the realms of Earth, Wind, Water and Fire.
Music
Arts, Culture and Sport The spirit, life and art of Tsepo Tshola, pastor of South African pop
Schooled in music through church, he was driven by a fierce sense of belonging to Lesotho where he was born, and neighbouring South Africa.
Arts, Culture and Sport The Village Pope has passed: remembering Tsepo Tshola, Lesotho’s musical giant
For over 50 years Tshola was loved by audiences around the world for his rich baritone voice, which he used to inspire and to speak political truths.
Arts, Culture and Sport Steve Kekana: an 80s South African pop star, and much more
We should remember him as just another ordinary human being who did extraordinary things.
Arts, Culture and Sport The magnificent Mabi Thobejane, master South African drummer
He did not so much play the drums, as become the drum. His influence was felt through his trailblazing percussive work and his many collaborations.
Arts, Culture and Sport Afrojazz innovator 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 Switzerland-based artist discusses navigating the challenges of lockdown creativity in this exclusive interview with This Is Africa.
Arts, Culture and Sport Is’xaxa: How to do it for the culture — while trying to stay alive
How a collaborative music project spanning three countries over two continents was made in the depths of a global pandemic.
Arts, Culture and Sport Making music in northern Nigeria during a pandemic
As the cultural landscape rapidly changes in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, musicians and producers across northern Nigeria have creatively employed various strategies to continue making music. With little government support, musicians have had to creatively adapt and embrace new digital opportunities to survive.
Arts, Culture and Sport Hip hop and Pan Africanism: from Blitz the Ambassador to Beyoncé
The increased migration of Africans and the global growth of hip hop culture has seen a dynamic new generation of Pan Africanism emerge.