Why a Song for Sad English Soccer Fans Is at the Center of a Fight Gripping Africa

Supporters of a deceased Zambian president have appropriated “Three Lions” in their campaign to bring his body home.

Song and dance bring South Africa, contemporary fusion to Hampton Roads

The Virginia Arts Festival’s two recent offerings, the Soweto Gospel Choir, back in Norfolk for a third time, and the American dance company Step Afrika (born of a partnership with Soweto Dance ...
Rolling Stone

How South Africa’s ‘Jerusalema’ Became a Global Hit Without Ever Having to Be Translated

Just around 10 million people speak isiZulu, a language out of South Africa. So how did a song in the little-known dialect become a hit with billions of people around the world? The song in question ...
Global Voices Online

Powerful protest songs from Kenya and South Africa

Kenya’s music scene has seen great changes since the colonial days, with many local singers finding fame through protest songs. One iconic example is the late Joseph Kamaru, a Kikuyu musician who is ...
The Conversation

South Africa’s struggle songs against apartheid come from a long tradition of resistance

Sisanda Nkoala receives funding from the National Research Foundation and has previously been awarded an AW Mellon-UCT Graduate Scholarship in Rhetoric Struggle songs, also known as protest music or ...
The Africa Report

South Africa: Top 20 songs of 2021 to keep you dancing

Last year we saw a hint of what was to come. This year, however, we’ve had the genre’s promise come to fruition, blossoming to legitimately rival Afrobeats as the most popular sound in Africa. There’s ...