There’s no direct connection between recent developments in Angola following José Eduardo dos Santos decision to step down as president of his country and moves by Zimbabwe’s army to get rid of Robert Mugabe. But, explains Chris Saunders, given recent developments they suggest some intriguing comparisons. For one, neither of these two old men have succeeded in securing their family dynasties.

For much of the 1970s and all of the 1980s the DJ was the first maker of hip-hop and the linchpin of experimentation. The practice of scratching, mixing and cutting evolved through various iterations and went through many paradigm shifts thanks to DJs like Grandmaster Flowers, Grandmaster Flash, Grandwizard Theodore and later DJ Jazzy Jeff and DJ Cash Money. The artistry of hip hop DJing is truly a worldwide discipline. But there’s now a huge, awkward elephant in hip-hop culture’s room: the ghost of the DJ. This follows the announcement by DJ Cash Money (Jerome Hewlett) that he’s retiring. Adam de Paor-Evans explains.