There’s a story that Peter Tosh learnt to play the guitar as a young boy by watching a man play the same song for half a day. He memorised everything the man did until the man gave him the guitar to have a turn. When he played the tune perfectly,…
Born in Mozambique, Mingas began singing at a young age in her church. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s she had great success as a lead vocalist for the Orchestra Star de Mozambique and also toured the world as a support singer for Miriam Makeba. This song, written by Fany Mfumo – also from Mozambique…
African Dawn was a London-based ensemble made up of people from all over Africa and the Middle East. They released two albums, and probably the only place you would have heard them in Australia was in Sydney on Radio Skid Row. Check out the interview with Wanjiku Wa Kiarie who…
n 1977, the Nigerian Army raided the Kalakuta Republic, Fela’s large commune. Fela was severely beaten, the women were raped, houses burned, and his mother was thrown from a window and killed. Written after the raid, Coffin for Head of State reiterates Fela’s stance on the corruption of the Nigerian government, a…
South Africa’s high-selling artist in the 1980s and 1990s, Lucky Dube is easily one of the more famous reggae names not to come out of Jamaica. Feeling that the genre of reggae could easily carry the Struggles of South Africans, Lucky Dube wrote this song in 1991 for all the…
Mzwakhe Mbuli, or the peoples’ poet as he is known in South Africa, was born in Sophiatown but was forced to move to Soweto when his family’s house was bulldozed by the regime. Mbuli’s first performance was at the funeral of an anti-apartheid acitivist. He went on to perform at…
If you are a longtime listener of Afrikan Connexions, then this song will definitely remind you of a sunny Sunday afternoon. Recorded in 1965, after the assassination of Malcolm X, Miriam Makeba delivers a joyous song, praising the greatest parts of a great man. We can only imagine what a…
An outspoken supporter of independence in Angola, Bonga was exiled in the early 1970s after being affiliated with the anti-colonial insurgency. He travelled to the Netherlands where he recorded Angola 72, the album from which this song comes. Sung in the Angolan language of Kimbundu, mona ki ngi xiça loosely translates to ‘the…
Here we have a song that has probably been played by every single presenter of Afrikan Connexions. A South African epic, written by the great Hugh Masekela, it is about the suffering and exploitation of South African mines and their workers. The lyrics here are clear but the real pleasure…
Miriam Makeba, or Mama Africa as she was known, was a prolific artist and anti-apartheid activist. Her music is well known but perhaps less known were her close affiliations with the American civil rights movements and Pan-African movements. Check out Miriam Makeba’s Official Website People say that Shaka was the…