Afropop Worldwide

10/10/2026

🇧🇷 NEW INTERVIEW with BIA FERREEIRA BIA FERREIRA

“I don’t believe that artists can do art without showing what’s happening in their times. I think every artist should be an artivist.” –Bia

Brazilian singer-songwriter Bia Ferreira refuses to draw a line between music and political activism. A self-described “artivist,” she has spent her formative years backpacking across Brazil with a guitar on her back, performing in the streets and developing a distinctive playing style that can make one instrument sound like an entire rhythm section. Her breakthrough came in 2017, when performing “Cota Não É Esmola,” her song defending affirmative action in Brazilian universities, resonated with audiences across Brazil and around the world and thus, went viral.

Her latest album, Amérfrica, takes its name from a concept developed by Brazilian Black feminist intellectual Lélia Gonzalez, who, like Ferreira, hailed from Minas Gerais. This concept seeks to rename the Americas pointing at the unity between the Black and Indigenous peoples who built them. Ferreira brings this vision to life through music, by using reggae as the album’s backbone.

spoke with Ferreira in Lisbon, where she was rehearsing with her eight-piece band ahead of a European tour. Their conversation traces her journey from street performer to international stages, the influences behind Amérfrica, and the deeply personal experiences that continue to shape her commitment to artivism.

Ferreira returns to the United States for solo performances this November, including November 13 at nublunyc NUBLU in New York City, presented by World Music Institute, and November 14 at The Local Saugerties The Local in Saugerties, New York. She plans to bring her full band to the U.S. in 2027.

There’s a lot in this conversation about who gets to tell history, what artists owe their moment, and what it means to make politically engaged music without separating politics from lived experience.

https://www.afropop.org/articles/bia-ferreiras-am%C3%A9rfrica

Feat. Sofar Sounds Rio de Janeiro® Janine Mathias Conceição Evaristo

10/07/2026

LIVE EVENT IN NOVEMBER! A movie screening of “Festival in the Desert: The Afropop Tent Sessions” plus live performance by Martin Banning Eyre!

11.15.26 • Middletown, CT
A fundraiser to support Afropop!

Donate to RSVP: bit.ly/afropopmovienight

Afropop is proud to present an intimate performance documentary about the 2003 festival featuring Ali Farka Touré (seen here), Tartit, Robert Plant and Oumou Sangaré, a host of exquisite musicians playing astounding music – and plenty of camels! 🐪 🐫

Held outside Timbuktu, the festival was initially conceived in 2001 as a way for the nomadic Tuareg people to unite with their brethren who had been dispersed by political upheaval. From magnificent camel riders to enchanted lamp-lit sand dunes, this film captures the sights and sounds of this unique cultural event.

Before the film, Afropop Worldwide’s Banning Eyre will perform Malian guitar pieces including griot songs, pentatonic traditions, Songhai music, and northern takamba—styles featured throughout the film. Drawing on his many visits to Mali, Banning’s brief performance will set the perfect tone for this historic film.

10/01/2026

AFROPOP CALL FOR WRITERS!

welcomes pitches and submissions that deepen our understanding of African and Afro-diasporic music and culture. We are especially interested in writing that is timely, engaging, well researched and attentive to the people, histories, communities and ideas behind the music.

Writers from Africa, the African diaspora and writers in the Global South are strongly encouraged to apply >>> https://bit.ly/writeforafropop or click the 🔗 in b!o

We welcome:

• Features and essays about new releases, artists, scenes, genres, histories and cultural landmarks.

• Interviews with artists, producers, cultural workers and others.

• Album and music reviews that go beyond description to offer informed, artistic and constructive criticism.

• Music-related film reviews and writing about documentaries or audiovisual work connected to African and African-diasporic music and culture.

• Curated selections of music videos, recordings or music organized around a clear theme, argument or moment.

• Festival guides that introduce readers to do-not-miss artists and performances ahead of an event.

• Festival and concert reports that give readers a sense of what happened while placing performances in a broader historical, geographical or cultural context.

Head to >>> https://bit.ly/writeforafropop for submission guidelines!

Keep independent journalism alive! And share this with anyone you know who might be interested.

09/25/2026

Get the best of Afropop straight to your inbox! Music, news and more:

Join the longest-running, continuously produced, field-based audio chronicle of African and African-diasporic music in the world. Sign up here for VIP, invite-only, first-look at travel tours, exclusive behind-the-scenes content and more!

09/24/2026

“Twenty years of putting out compilations, and none of them involves a Cuban. And every single one of them had to rely on Cubans.” –Garo

In 1970s Cuba, musicians were absorbing funk, soul, psychedelia and progressive rock, even as American-influenced music faced censorship. One way around it was fantasía: a name broad enough to make room for experimentation, and for some of the strangest and most inventive music of post-revolutionary Cuba.

Now Cuban producers and hip-hop pioneers EL GARO and Harold G Medina have brought that history together on Cuban Beat & Fantasia (1970–1980), released by Garo’s LUCHANDO Music and AfroQbano’s Future Rootz. It’s the first compilation of this musical period made entirely by Cubans.

Rare records are dope, but For Garo the project is about amplifying and preserving a true lineage.

“This idea of ownership comes out of the beginnings of the Cuban rap movement.” –Garo

After decades of watching outsiders collect, curate and profit from Cuban music, often relying on Cuban knowledge without crediting the people who provided it, the compilation is an act of authorship and preservation. It also grows directly from Cuba’s early hip-hop movement, where Garo says exiled Black Panthers taught young rappers the importance of controlling their own narratives.

The result is what he calls “a photograph you leave behind for the future”: a document of a musical history that might otherwise be lost, misunderstood or told by someone else.

🇨🇺 Full interview >>> https://www.afropop.org/articles/cuban-fantas%C3%ADa-a-photograph-for-the-future

🇨🇺 Hear the album >>> https://futurerootz.bandcamp.com/album/cuban-beat-fantasia-1970-1980-compiled-by-garo-afroqbano

Get the best of Afropop’s indie journalism in your inbox >>> bit.ly/afropopnewsletter

09/22/2026

NEW INTERVIEW with ASHLEY KAHN: Ashley Kahn Chronicles Paul Simon’s Days of Miracle and Wonder with Graceland

Nearly 40 years after Graceland, music historian Ashley Kahn revisits the album that brought South African music to a much wider American audience and sparked debates about collaboration, appropriation and the cultural boycott of apartheid South Africa.

In a new conversation with Afropop’s Martin Banning Eyre, Kahn discusses his book Days of Miracle and Wonder, the musicians behind the album, and the remarkable moment in the 1980s when African popular music was reaching new audiences in the U.S. and Afropop Worldwide was taking shape.

Do you remember this moment? What are your thoughts on how Simon approached the record, its influence, and how it stands up today?

Read the full interview at >>> https://www.afropop.org/articles/ashley-kahn-chronicles-paul-simons-days-of-miracle-and-wonder-with-graceland

Featuring:
Paul Simon
Salif Keita
Youssou Ndour ️️️️🇸🇳
King Sunny Ade
Adrian Belew
Mahotella Queens
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Gallo Records
Bakithi Kumalo

Get the best of Afropop Worldwide delivered straight to your inbox 📥 bit.ly/afropopnewsletter

09/16/2026

NEW LIVING ROOM SESSION WITH RAZIA SAID at Afropop.org!

On a warm summer morning, Malagasy-born singer and songwriter Razia Said welcomed Afropop Worldwide into her Harlem apartment for an intimate and uplifting set.

A longtime New Yorker, Razia writes and sings mostly in Malagasy, drawing on the rhythms, melodies and instruments she grew up with to address environmental destruction in Madagascar.

Featured here: “Zanako.” The song’s title means “my child” in Malagasy. Taken from the album Akory, it looks toward the children of Madagascar as the country’s future.

• Razia Said - Razia Said: Vocals
• David Rajaonary: Guitar, vocals
• Harvey Wirht - Harvey Wirht: Drums, vocals
• Zwelakhe-Duma Bell le Pere - Zwelakhe-Duma Bell le Pere: Bass

Watch here >>> https://www.afropop.org/articles/afropop-living-room-session-razia-said

• Executive Producer: Sean Barlow Sean Barlow
• Executive Producer and Host: Banning Eyre Martin Banning Eyre
• Line Producer: Lynn Jones
• Sound: Michael Jones
• Cameras & Editing: Bec Stupak Diop Bec Stupak
• Production Assistance: Mariana Giacobbe mariana

African Diaspora global culture Afropop Worldwide

08/28/2026

NEW INTERVIEW WITH on Afropop.org! Somi shares her thoughts on how art is made, how grief becomes music, and what it takes to bloom 🌼 Listen to the stories behind the songs at >>> https://www.afropop.org/audio-programs/somi-on-what-does-it-take-to-bloom

08/22/2026

Afro-Tech: Stories of Synths in African Music

The story of how Jimmy Cliff’s synths left in storage influenced Nigerian electronic music is part of this Afropop Classic!

https://www.afropop.org/audio-programs/afro-tech-stories-of-synths-in-african-music

Technology is one of the great drivers of musical change, and often one of its least understood. In this episode, we explore the synthesizer, looking closely at the history of this ubiquitous (and often debated) piece of musical technology, and investigating how and why it was first used in a variety of African musics. Enabled by groundbreaking record reissues by synth pioneers like William Onyeabor (Nigeria) and Hailu Mergia (Ethiopia), disco stars like Kris Okotie, and South African superstar Brenda Fassie, we take you back to the ’70s and ’80s, listening to the birth of a distinctly African electronic sound.

Produced by Sam Backer

Featuring






Kris Okotie
William Onyeabor

disco
highlife
Synthesizer
Bubblegum
Burger Highlife
Ethio-Jazz
Ethiopian