Ken’s Song – A Traditional Era from David Tree on Vimeo.

First is a video from Zambia. Traditional guitar and vocals with adorable kids and grandmas dancing and singing along. Take note that the (homemade?) guitar has bottle caps attached to give a buzzing quality to the sound. That buzzing timbre is common to African music, but it’s most common in West Africa.

–

Fool’s Gold is possibly just another white American group using African idioms in their music, but I have to say they do it really well. I love the track, but not this particular video. Good thing there’s another video of a hot live version at KEXP. I love it when they put the song into overdrive at the end.

–

Ghanan-American MC m.anifest now lives in Minneapolis. I believe the above video, though, was filmed in his native Accra. Gorgeous visuals and solid rhymes over a laid back beat make for a really enjoyable video.

–

Tuks aka Tuks Senganga (previously mentioned) is my favorite South African rapper. I’d never seen the above video until today. Sweeping and bleak-but-yet-hopeful views of Johanesburg (or ‘Jozi’) mix well with the amalgamation of compelling English and Setswana vocals make for a great video.