So the juicy news making the rounds in the Ghanaian music scene is that Irene and Jane have split and are going to pursue solo careers. Right when we heard Styl-Plus had released a single celebrating their longevity, another group has fallen apart. I could see this coming though. Right when Irene featured on Richie's Frema remix, I could see trouble. And then later on Richie announced to me Irene had signed onto his Lynx Entertainment label and the news left was that from Charterhouse.

Does anyone know where we can see Akon's Mama Africa video? Because according to this news and that news, a video was shot. The video was shot by Gil Green on location in various African countries in October 2006. Either way many fans of Akon's Mama Africa have made videos and the most popular one is posted below. Do you also know Akon (aka Aliuane Badara Thiam) has a song called Senegal? It doesn't have a video but you can listen to it on Youtube as well. Lyrics for Mama Africa and Senegal are both posted below.

D'banj the koko master don come back again! After a number of successful singles from Mo'Hits (the record label he is on) and Wande Coal, one of the guys on the label, D'Banj is set to take the music scene by storm again. He is backed by his good ol' friend Don Jazzy as well as others (Mo'hits All-Stars) Sid, D'Prince, etc

D'Banj is the reigning Best African Act at the MTV Europe Music Awards, following inaugural winner 2Face Idibia and Freshlyground.

Check out some new (and old) videos.

During the fall of 2004, a Kenyan friend sent me some Kenyan CDs. I had requested Nameless' On fire since I had fell in love with his music that year. She also sent me Naleta Action by Prezzo and Necessary Noize's NN II. I knew about these artistes but I didn't know of the group called Sema (mwewe). Their CD grew on me and even though I couldn't hear much about them other than they had won the Coca-Cola pop stars, I felt they were one of the better Kenyan groups. How were they able to remain invisible in the music scene? One of their members Pam Waithaka had some singles that were popular last year. What happened to Sema? And what are their members up to?

Nameless' Sinzia single was probably the biggest African song in 2006. After Sinzia, African music fans wanted more. We waited for the CD and other singles. Months later, we were rewarded with Karibia, another hot track that featured Kidumu. Who was Kidumu? Who is Kidumu? Why didn't Nameless release another video so we could see who Kidumu was? Now we know, Kidumu is a famous Burundian singer who apparently lives in Kenya. Nameless and Kidumu combined on Karibia and that song is hot. That's not all, Kidumu has some really great music of his own.

Here are a few videos using some of his songs and the video uploader also adds the lyrics to some of the songs.

• View all from Gal Level
  Artistes Gal Level
  Album Act like you know
  Year 2007
  Writer Daphne Willibard, Frieda Haindaka
  Language English
  Track # 4
  Runtime 3:27
  Video URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92TY7amrE7Y

• View all from Lady Jaydee
  Artistes Lady Jaydee
  Album Binti
  Year 2003
  Writer Judith Daines Wambura Mbibo
  Language Swahili
  Track # 10
  Runtime 4:38

• View all from Eric Wainaina
  Artistes Eric Wainaina, Christian Kaufmann, Oliver Mtukudzi
  Album Twende Twende
  Year 2007
  Writer Eric Wainaina
  Language Swahili, English, Zulu
  Track # 1
  Runtime 4:48

• View all from P-Square
  Artistes P-Square
  Album Game over
  Year 2007
  Writer Peter Okoye, Paul Okoye
  Language English
  Track # 1
  Runtime 4:28
  Video URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_83cvSE-8k

There have been many instances where African musicians have sampled popular American songs. The sampling gets done so blatantly that you could call some songs 'Thriller in Swahili', 'Amazing Grace in Zulu' and 'Unleash the dragon in Twi'. One popular remix or sampling is that of Banky W's Ebute metta which was also first known as the Nigerian remix of Rihanna's Umbrella. People may complain about the lack of originality of these African musicians but maybe they will care to know that Manu Dibango's Soul Makossa is part of the backbone for Rihanna's worldwide hit - Please don't stop the music. "Mama-se, mama-sa, mama-ma-ko-ssa" is that line that has kept dance floors going since 1972.