Africa

1. Easier travel
2. Great art vs Great music
3. Mulatu Astatke
4. South got something to say

Also, Uganda’s second hand clothes traders are hurt by rising Western restrictions.

Hello! Welcome to Semafor Africa Weekend. As a Nigerian I’ve enjoyed the fuss over our new national anthem which, as you might have read by now, is not new at all and was in fact the anthem at independence in 1960. It was switched in 1978, partly because it wasn’t written by a Nigerian but by a British composer. The furor has naturally produced an endless parade of memes and conspiracy theories that our social media age was designed for. We’ve even got in on the fun here at Semafor Africa with a WhatsApp poll.

For some, the serious part of this (I’m struggling to take this too seriously, dear reader) is how quickly it got passed into law when there were far more pressing matters in the country. But it has made me wonder about national branding identity like flag colors and design, and whether national anthems work in the same way. For example, thanks to the United States’ global dominance in the creation and distribution of popular culture, the Star-Spangled Banner is readily recognizable but not too many others (beyond colonial powers who ‘shared’ their anthems with us).

Whatever else happens, you can be sure Nigerian athletes and dignitaries are set for a decade of bands playing the wrong anthem every other time they step on the podium.

🟡 May 29 was a big day this week! Alexander marked President Tinubu’s difficult first year in office. Meanwhile, South Africans voted that day, so Alexis and Sam Mkokeli are reporting from Johannesburg and broke news on Jacob Zuma calling for President Ramaphosa’s resignation to consider an ANC coalition. Follow us on social media for more.

Travel easy in southern Africa

The number of southern Africa countries who have agreed to expand the use of a special common visa to allow easier movement of visitors. It’s part of a bid to boost tourism in their countries. Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, who jointly make up the Kavango-Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area, this week launched a new destination brand, “Rivers of Life,” during an event at the KAZA summit in Livingstone, Zambia. The group, which states conservation as a core value, will be rolling out the brand campaign on various platforms in coming months.

El Anatsui’s music collection

Ghanaian artist El Anatsui is best known for his extravagant use of a wide range of typically discarded materials. He has used liquor bottle caps, cassava graters and newspaper printing plates to create sculptures that have won awards and acclaim around the world. But the sculptor, who has spent much of his career in Nigeria, has had an unusual installation out at the Efie Gallery Dubai in recent weeks. It is called the Rekord Gallery, and it is a display of the vinyl records which have influenced the great artist’s work over the decades.

Among the featured albums are artists such as Johnson Adjan & His Opiri Group, Aretha Franklin, and Vicky ‘Manze Onuba. But one name stands out in the collection, and that is Fela Kuti whose albums from the 1970s are the most by one artist in this display.

“My work has a lot to do with time,” said El Anatsui in a statement. “It’s not something which is absolute, just like in music you carry sound through time in order to create music and I think in that sense the two are similar,” he said. “Indeed a musician is an artist, there’s no difference between the two of them, we all compose.”

— Yinka

Taking Ethio Jazz to the world

ADDIS ABABA — Ethiopian percussionist Mulatu Astatke — widely recognized as the father of Ethio-Jazz — wants the sub-genre he helped kickstart nearly 60 years ago to have a more prominent role on the world stage. And he is determined to make it happen.

Speaking to Semafor Africa on the sidelines of the Addis Jazz Festival at the historic Ghion Hotel’s Africa Jazz Village, Astatke, 80, says that the time has come for the world to understand the science behind a sound that is synonymous with Ethiopia’s unique recent history.

Ethio-Jazz got started in the 1950s after the newly appointed director of Ethiopia’s National Opera, an Ethiopian-Armenian called Nerses Nalbandian, was commissioned by Emperor Haile Selassie to compose music for the Ethiopian National Theatre. He ended up blending traditional Ethiopian music with Western classical instruments which created the foundation for Ethio-jazz.

The appeal of Ethio-Jazz lies in the way it manages to bring together different worlds, says Astatke, known for playing percussion instruments including the conga and vibraphone. “In Ethio-Jazz you have the Ethiopian four modes on the bottom, laying traditional Ethiopian music composition, that Ethiopian flavor, and you add the world on top of that; that’s the science of Ethio-Jazz.”

Now he has a new project that aims to tell the stories of the ‘scientists’ behind the creation of Ethiopia’s traditional musical instruments. It will, “bring the traditional Ethiopian musicians, the azmaris, to the 21st Century,” he says.

The appreciation for Ethio-Jazz should be extended to the “scientists of Ethiopian music,” says Astatke, “Those who have created its traditional musical instruments.” He says that it’s time to champion the people who came before him. “Ethio-Jazz has reached Hollywood now, and now I’m standing for those people who created me.”

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How to pick southern Africa’s next stars

Nicole Thomas was recently appointed as co-country manager of Virgin Music Group, South Africa alongside Nick Ghelakis. She was previously general manager of Electromode, a digital music distribution platform. Prior to Electromode, Nicole worked in studio management at SCR Studios in Johannesburg.

💡 What’s the most underappreciated opportunity in the South African music business right now? The international potential of our many distinct musical genres originating out of this territory. We’re looking to collaborations and cross-promotions of South African artists with international stars to bring more awareness to these genres.

💡Which genres are you betting on to really help Virgin South Africa stand apart? One is Country music. The other is 3-Step/Afro Tech with heavy hitters like Boohle and Heavy K transitioning into this new fusion of sound. We’ve seen an explosion of these genres in our market.

💡 Whose sound will be around longer, Afrobeats or Amapiano? Definitely Afrobeats. With its impressive global success, Afrobeats has shown a strong ability to fuse with other genres like hip hop, R&B and Pop which is more likely to have greater longevity.

💡 Which African country should we be watching for the next new sound? I think the two that come to mind are Zambia and Mozambique. Zambian artists are blending the traditional Kalindula sound into more modern dance music and hip hop. This is gaining quite a bit of international love with artists likes of Sampa the Great and Chef 187 (pictured) and Yo Maps also joining in on the trend.

Mozambique have the Mozpiano sound, which is gaining traction with the likes of Yaba Buluku Boyz, DJ Tarico and Mano Tsotsi just to name a few. The exciting element here is the Afro-Portuguese blend of music and collaboration possibilities available to us and our Portugal team, is very exciting.

Introducing Mixed Signals, a new podcast from Semafor Media presented by Think with Google. Co-hosted by Semafor’s own Ben Smith, and renowned podcaster and journalist Nayeema Raza, every Friday, Mixed Signals pulls back the curtain on the week’s key stories around media, revealing how money, access, culture, and politics shape everything you read, watch, and hear.

Whether you’re a media insider or simply curious about what drives today’s headlines, Mixed Signals is the perfect addition to your media diet. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Weekend Reads

🇺🇬 Traders of secondhand clothes in East African nations see their fortune threatened by the increasing cost of consignments from the United States, report Allan Olingo and Kabona Esiara in Foreign Policy. In Uganda’s Owino market, they note that an estimated 100,000 traders who eke out a living selling secondhand clothes may be adversely impacted by an imminent move to restrict exports of used clothes by some European countries.

🌍 The experiences of young Africans who schooled in elite Western universities is explored by Carey Baraka, in an essay for The Guardian. Baraka finds that many people in that position, despite their many financial and societal privileges, now struggle to fit in at home or abroad.

🇿🇦 In South Africa, communities of farm dwellers — whose ancestral land was appropriated by white farmers under apartheid rule — have continued to languish, and are forced to work on the farms for poverty wages. Chris Makhaye writes in Al Jazeera that today white South Africans still own most of the country’s farmland, and the human rights of farm dwellers are still violated.

🇪🇹 The construction of Ethiopia’s Gilgel Gibe III dam in the middle of the Omo River — for flood water regulation and power generation — has destroyed the livelihoods of indigenous populations in the southern part of the country, Jaclynn Ashly writes in African Arguments. Ashly notes that the communities depended on growing sorghum and herding animals along the river, economic activities that are no longer possible as all seasonal flood water is diverted to the dam.

Week Ahead

June 4 — Zambia’s bondholders will hold a final vote on Tuesday on a $3 billion restructuring deal aimed at creating fiscal space for the southern African nation that defaulted in 2020.

June 4 — Uganda’s central bank will announce its latest benchmark lending rate decision. In April, the bank raised the rate to 10.25% from 10% previously.

June 4-5 — African leaders will gather in Seoul for the 2024 Korea-Africa summit to discuss economic, political and social cooperation.

June 5 — Kenya’s central bank is set to announce its latest lending rate decision. In April, the bank held its benchmark lending rate at 13%.

June 6 — Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni is expected to give a state of the nation address in parliament.

June 6-7 — African filmmakers and industry figures from across the world will gather in Arusha, Tanzania, for the two-day Wildscreen Festival Tanzania.

June 6 — The finance minister of Mauritius will present the 2024/25 budget to parliament. In 2023/24, Mauritius forecast its budget deficit to fall to 2.9% of GDP from 3.9%.

• Inside the NATO debate over protecting Ukraine’s skies.
• The reason why Donald Trump’s conviction might matter to voters.
• How Google DeepMind is trying to understand its own creations.

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— Yinka, Alexis Akwagyiram, Alexander Onukwue, Martin Siele, and Muchira Gachenge