Pan-African music is an ethnography of past and present lives and migrations of the African continent. It documents our socio-political realities and cultures; it is a business, politics, and a testimony to our histories. Here are four podcasts that delve into Afro-diasporic musical worlds, offering different perspectives on gendered performance, career building, and Black histories.
The Assurance Podcast
On The Assurance Podcast, DJ Juba invites femme DJs from the Global South to reflect on music mixing, gendered performance, and how their social contexts affect their work in the industry. In the context of the Black diaspora, Juba’s podcast has travelled between South Africa, Namibia, Trinidad & Tobago, Kenya, and beyond, introducing us to personal stories from inspiring women. Based in Berlin, Juba is a British-born and raised DJ and podcaster of Nigerian descent. Her creative expression translates her socio-political interests in feminism, decolonisation, and liberation. She is the co-founder of the Party & DJ collective Boko! Boko! which works towards increased female representation in DJ booths and show line-ups. She also hosts the Afroelectronik show on Berlin’s Cashmere Radio, where she spins contemporary sounds from Africa and the African diaspora.
Assurance originally started out as a documentary that explored the experiences of female DJs in Nigeria, chronicling their defiant navigation around huge obstacles. "After its release, I realised that there were so many other stories to explore, and I wanted to continue the conversations that were started with the first documentary”, Juba tells OkayAfrica. The podcast has since expanded and just wrapped up its second season. The show features an impressive kaleidoscope of female voices that describe the music, nightlife scenes, and societal issues of each DJ's home city. The second season also examines how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted local club communities worldwide, highlighting spaces outside Europe and North America. In her podcast, Juba aims to spread the spirit of community through sharing laughter, hardships and, of course, sick beats.
In her latest endeavour on the Assurance journey, Juba is releasing the Assurance Compilation, presenting music from exciting and hugely talented female artists and delving into genres like Deep House, Techno, Amapiano and Baile Funk.
Our favourite episode is “You Have To Be A Lion with Your Uncle Garry”.
No Fomo Podcast
The No Fomo Podcast tackles club culture from a deeply political perspective and imagines the club as a utopian institution. It’s broadcast from Basel’s Gessnerallee theatre house in Switzerland and hosted by a group of BIPOC. From dance to safe spaces and gender politics to queer-feminist activism, this podcast highlights the beautiful communities formed through music.
Basel-based DJs KA-RABA and Leila Moon are among the BIPOC creators to host the show. KA-RABA is also a community organiser and member of the BIPOC collective Okra, while Leila Moon is a musician in her own right. Discussions on cultural identity through music transcend Saharan borders, with Leila using her Algerian ethnic background to confront issues of neo-colonialism in North Africa, Black and Brown solidarity, and international feminism. KA-RABA often works in conjunction with other Black and queer organisations like the Zagaza Collective (Fribourg) and FUBU Collective (Zurich), working to explain Black collective art consciousness as a practice to build communities outside of white, cis-heteronormative and often male-dominated club and cultural spaces.
The show invites us to listen to music in profoundly political ways, find community, explore cultural legacies, and create artistic solutions to the oppression faced by socially marginalised people.
Our favourite episode is “No Fomo Podcast Episode 6 hosted by KA-RABA”.
The Hip Hop African Podcast
Msia Kibona Clark on Hip Hop, Africa and Female Musical Ingenuity
The Hip Hop African Podcast is the longest-running podcast on African hip-hop culture. It was created as a community project under the wings of Dr Msia Kibona Clark, Associate Professor of African Studies at Howard University. Originally from Tanzania, Clark is a feminist activist and scholar with a wide range of interests and expertise; she sits on the editorial board of the Global Hip Hop Studies journal and has written extensively on Pan-African feminism and hip-hop. As a professor, she encourages her students to research African rap and turn their findings into podcast episodes, with the goal of taking a scholarly approach to conversations around the genre in Africa. By now, The Hip Hop African Podcast is ranked among the top five podcasts on iTunes on subjects surrounding African music and African studies.
The show launched in November 2016, with new episodes released monthly. Each instalment takes listeners on a journey across Africa and its diaspora, examining local hip-hop industries and the socio-political contexts that govern them. Episodes introduce contemporary musicians like Sampa The Great and Dope Saint Jude or teach us about spirituality, multilingualism, feminism, and pan-Africanism. Clark’s students discuss the likes of conscious rap, respectability politics, and police brutality, and every once in a while they drop a little fiery mixtape to keep you up to date with the best in contemporary music.
Our favourite episode is “Multiple Diaspora Cultural Experiences Influencing the Creativity of Sampa The Great”.
Black Girl Songbook
Black Girl Songbook celebrates the genius of Black women in music, and who better to introduce us to the stories and careers of Black female musicians than Danyel Smith, the first African-American editor-in-chief of Billboard and Vibe magazines? Smith, an icon of arts journalism, has attended over 1,000 concerts and worked in music journalism since 1989. This April, she is publishing her book Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop, following her acclaimed She’s Every Woman: The Power of Black Women in Pop.
Black Girl Songbook grew out of her work on Shine Bright and examines the careers of icons like Whitney Houston, Lauryn Hill, and new hit-makers like Ella Mai. Smith records in-depth discussions with our favourite songwriters, producers, and artists while sharing her own experiences in the music world. She touches on issues of gender, race, and the complexity of the music industry. From explaining why "Lost Ones" by Lauryn Hill is the greatest diss record of all time to revealing moments from her close friendship with the late rapper Tupac Shakur or making sense of this world through her favourite love songs, Smith leaves no topic uncovered. Growing up reading profiles of rock stars in Rolling Stone and GQ, she felt she got to know the likes of Paul McCartney and Phil Collins. “But it hasn’t been like that so much for Black women,” she tells LA Times. “I’m trying to give Black stories that kind of detail. We’re trained as journalists not to step to the front. The saying is ‘save it for the memoir.’ Well, I saved it, and it is jam-packed.”
Our favourite episode is “Aaliyah: Truly One in a Million”.