Music & Film

Jones, who died on Nov. 3, 2024, at the age of 91, transformed our understanding of musical arrangement. His work spanned decades and genres, from jazz and pop to hip-hop and film scoring. He worked with pop icons like Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin, and also collaborated with lesser-known artists such as Lesley Gore and Tevin Campbell.

It was all bliss until 1997. At the height of the Dunia Mbaya fame, the band was performing at Kenyatta Sports Centre in Kisumu, one eventful Sunday in October 1997, when her husband began palpitating on stage. The following Friday, Prince Julie collapsed and died, forcing a young Princess Jully to painfully chart a new musical path for herself. After laying her husband to rest, she picked whatever pieces remained from their band and trudged on. Princess Jully was a natural born fighter. In 1999, she won Shs 100,000 and a Mercedes Benz at the 1999 Kisima Awards for her Dunia Mbaya hit.

"'There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen" - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

As a cultural researcher, I set out to explore the social and cultural significance of both traditional and modern music in Senegal.

If Tanzania is a train, moving slowly but surely on a well-designed track, Kenya is a matatu: rowdy, colourful, intense, rude, vibrant, arrogant, overbearing, capricious, and drunk on its own hype.

Souleymane Cissé is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest African film-makers of all time – and the world’s most prestigious film festival, Cannes, agrees. The Mali-born director has been announced as this year’s recipient of the Carrosse d’Or (the Golden Coach) award.

Winky D, a 40-year-old Zimdancehall artist, is hugely popular in Zimbabwe. He’s also increasingly in the news for the messages in his songs, some of which address social injustice and corruption under a regime that stifles freedom of expression.