MUSIC: Angola's Nsoki Sings an Uplifting Song, "Africa Unite", ft. Maestro DJ Maphorisa and DJ Paulo Alves

Seven years after Waka Waka (This Time for Africa), that iconic song sung and danced to by Shakira and her South African companions at the 2010 FIFA World Cup, comes a worthy successor -- Africa Unite. The new song is sung by the equally fine and animated Nsoki, from Lusophone Angola. 

WATCH THE VIDEO: Africa Unite

The motivational song is danced to by her superbly choreographed dance-troupe. They are all so wonderfully 'backstopped' by the ever-resourceful DJ Maphorisa, and DJ Paulo Alves. The stage is a feline high-voltage affair from beginning to end. The singing makes the aural sensibilities soar. The visual effects are bewitching in a consensual sort of way.

Nsoki and team have surely and marvelously succeeded in blending particular and broadly apt content (a distilled narrative of African political, economic and cultural unity) and form (African song and dance at the highest level of synchronized artistry) into Africa's best pop song of 2017.

MUSIC (Angola): Muita Areia by C4Pedro ~ #TheYamboSelection

[Note: This is archival material extracted from an earlier version of the Top 40 list published in 2015. The extract was effected to ease (speed-up) navigation up and down the Top 40 list]

This Angolan music video, this Muita Areia, is a bunch of surprises. First, for a country which, thanks perhaps to Big Brother, is mostly associated with Cabo Snoop's style of music and dance, Muita Areia is a huge departure from one's expectations. Secondly, who on earth would have had reason to know that Angola was 'quietly' crafting this sort of continental conquest, when all (all but the oil-driven tills) was so eerily quite on that African front?
Thirdly, the video script, which in hindsight is simple enough, produces, for a few brief moments of funk, an astoundingly imaginative and mesmerizing catwalk scene upon which the protagonists appear and approach each other like soft-power gladiators. 

All the while, last but not least, the accompanying music, particularly the beat, lulls us, like the snake-charmer's charm, into a levitated consciousness which...how did they do it, how did they think of that! 

Encore: O play the catwalk again and let the sounds, the beat -- the rhythm -- and the supercharged ears (and eyes) speak for themselves!

Overall, the video is a gracefully sophisticated production: tastefully and absorbingly presented from beginning to end. The style, manifested in all the protagonists's moves, is, well, haute. At the beginning of the video, you don't quite know how it'll all end, even as the beat, which keeps you going regardless, begins to have its luring effect. 

And the suspense mounts because, though you're sure she won't go the whole hog, you don't know where or how the script brings her assault on sensibilities to a stop. What is more, you don't quite have the time to decide who the snake-charmer really is, and who the snake. Suddenly, the invisible curtain -- falls!

NOTE: Here is a 'Sneak Peek' at Muita Areia, Written Earlier

NOTE: Muita Areia was published on September 10th, 2015. It had recorded 2,451,850 YouTube views by 3:55 p.m. (GMT + 3) on December 26, 2015.

MUSIC (Angolano): Muita Areia by C4 Pedro ft. Big Nelo + Kaysha (Video ft. Rlynda)

Have a Merry Christmas, y'all, with this sophisticated music video, titled Muita Areia, from Angola. Let the sounds, the beats -- the rhythm -- and the visuals speak for themselves.

SNEAK PEEK: Muita Areia is definitely at the upper end of my TOP 40 African Hits of 2015. Coming soon.

P.S: Muita Areia was published on September 10, 2015, and already has 2,416,386 views. So the Big Q isn't where C4 Pedro and his gang have been all this while. It's: Where have u (where have we) been, musically speaking?

Pope Music: Haiku

Angola goat-herd,
Mouth running faster than words,
Will never see Pop!