Music & Film

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.

On Timeless, Davido keeps it simple and resists any temptation to reinvent his own wheel. He has never been a socially conscious artist and never pretended to be. The lack of range of topics addressed in the album reveals his contentment with the level he’s always maintained and a stark lack of ambition to push beyond his boundaries.

A multi-genre artist, Kidjo sings traditional Benin folk songs, deep blues, fervid West African R&B, hard rock and urban club bangers in multiple languages with Fon, Yoruba, French and English being her main modes of expression. In person, Kidjo is spry and compact; she radiates fierceness.

Dhamaal is a mix of Sufi and African (mostly East African) musical and dance traditions. It refers particularly to the spiritual practices of the Siddis of Gujarat.

AKA embraced his self-annointed mission as a hip-hop star whole-heartedly. Undoubtedly, the African music landscape is diminished by his untimely death.

While it may be convenient and useful to be inspired by Fela in order to borrow his influence and spirit, these two recent applications suggest a sort of desperation – even an outright opportunism on the part of today’s artists.

Burna Boy’s Kuti credentials appear impeccable. His maternal grandfather, the broadcaster and jazz enthusiast Benson Idonije, had managed Kuti in the 1960s. In one interview, his mother and manager, business woman Bose Ogulu, reportedly refers to Kuti as the closest thing she had to a godfather.

The world has lost one of the great pioneers of the post-independence movement of modern popular music in Senegal.