Songs that take Africa or Africans or something specifically African as a subject tend not to be very good. They either come across as insincere because they're simply too obvious an attempt to appeal to everybody, or they're too vague - because Africans are not homogenous; imagine a song about Europe or Europeans - or they're from that "sympathy for Africa" world of charity singles that bear little relation to what it is people are after when they choose to listen to a piece of music.
But every so often an artist is able to connect while addressing something specifically African, as 2Face did in 2006 with the hit African Queen, the track with which MTV Base launched in Africa. The UK-based Nigerian artist and producer JJC (Abdul Bello) also struck gold in 2009 with We Are Africans, an infectious celebration of African pride and unity that became something of an anthem for Africans at home and in the diaspora and spawned a bunch of regional remixes/versions (such as this Zimbabwean version). The track also introduced the word "Awoo" as a verb of affirmation of African pride. Possibly looking to repeat the success of that track, JJC released another "African" track a few days ago.
Right-click to DOWNLOAD African Skank
The song is African Skank, and this time the song celebrates African contemporary dance moves, a shrewd idea because it's quite common for dance styles (aka "crazes") to develop alongside popular styles of music, so you have Azonto coming out of Ghana, Hlokoloza in South Africa, the Etighi in Nigeria, etc. It basically means if you put out a track celebrating various styles of contemporary African dance, young Africans from wherever on the continent will get it. Whether the track is any good or not, or whether people will like it, is another matter. Fortunately, JJC gets it right with this afro-techno track and its accompanying video. Not sure why he's called it African Skank - the dances in the video are quite different from the "running man" style of dance that developed in Jamaica and is practiced in the ska punk, hardcore punk, and reggae music scenes, but I suppose it had to be called African something or the other, so why not African Skank? Download, get your groove on, and listen out for African Skank on This Is Africa hit radio.
