Unless you’ve been living on the moon for the past few weeks you’ll know that the World Cup is on. It is after all the single most watched sports event in on this planet of ours, with millions (billions if you believe FIFA) tuning in worldwide. You can’t escape it at the moment. Not that i’m complaining, i love it. But it’s everywhere. Every time you turn on the TV, every little advert that pops up online, every time you open the paper it’s there staring back at you. To be fair that is the case with most World Cups but this one even more so because it’s the first time it’s been held in Africa and it’s been celebrated just that little bit more. And so it should be.
Since the World Cup is now past the cat and mouse tactics of the group stages and is actually getting exciting it’s time to dedicate a post to it. So to celebrate this momentous World Cup i’ve compiled a list of songs in honour of the great continent of Africa. I’m not gonna lie i could only come up with about 7 or 8 tracks i knew so i had to search for some more online and came across two Paul Simon and David Bowie tracks i could use. The first songs that came to mind for the list were the obvious ones by Toto, Errors, The Very Best, Leftfield and The Chemical Brothers then there were one or two i found by searching my external hard drive then i got stuck and reverted to Google. The song that actually made me think of doing the post was “Bloemfontein” by a band i’ve just got into called Junior Fencing Club (post more soon). I was listening to them on the way to work this morning and the idea came to me to do an African based post after seeing the song title. For those unaware, The Free State Stadium in Bloemfontein is one of the venues used during the World Cup and is coincidentally the stadium at which Germany beat England 4-1 yesterday 🙂 Apologies to any English readers but with me being half Scottish half German you can imagine that i was very, very happy with that result.
Africa List
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1. Leftfield and Afrika Bambaataa – Afrika Shox
2. Chemical Brothers – It Began In Afrika
3. Air – African Velvet
4. Toto – Africa
5. Errors – A Rumour In Africa
6. Trentemoller – African People
7. J Dilla – African Rhythms
8. The Very Best (feat Ezra Koenig) – Warm Heart of Africa
9. Paul Simon – Under African Skies
10. David Bowie – African Night Flight
BONUS TRACKS:
MP3: Junior Fencing Club – Bloemfontein
MP3: The Housemartins – Johannesburg
As another bonus i thought i’d put in a bit about this man….
Mr Lucas Radebe. He’s so much more than a footballer. He’s a national hero in South Africa where he holds almost god like status among the fanatical football fans. He’s also the influence behind (i shudder to say the name cos i HATE the frontman) the Kaiser Chiefs. Yes, this pain in the arse of a band are all Leeds United fans. Radebe played for Leeds United for almost a decade and was their favourite player so they decided to name their band after Radebe’s first club a South African team named Kaizer Chiefs. So, it was with the swift swapping of an “S” for a “Z” (probably to avoid legal wrangles) and the band formerly known as “Parva” (Parva? Kinda fucking name is that anyway?) became the Kaiser Chiefs and proceeded to irritate the ears of the world.
The Good Kaizer Chiefs
The Irritating, Evil Kaiser Chiefs
Ok, so maybe i’m being a bit harsh. It’s not the actual band i have this massive dislike for, it’s just the main dude. Singer Ricky Wilson looks and acts like an overweight, arrogant, smarmy, chipmunk on speed. I’m not and never will be a fan of the group, i don’t really like their music, it doesn’t do anything for me but seeing as i’ve verbally denounced them so much tonight i suppose it’s only fair they get a song up.
It could’ve been worse for them. They should be grateful that Lucas Radebe’s team before signing for Leeds wasn’t a club called Moroka_Swallows. Sounds more like an African XXX effort than a football team.
Just for the record, my money’s on Argentina for the World Cup. I stand to when a fair old amount of crispy notes if they win it.
S.I.T Wolf X
Someones In The Wolf 