Yoweri Museveni has just secured another five years as Uganda’s president, which will potentially extend his rule to 41 years. But his popularity and that of his party have now hit rock bottom in the country’s urban areas, particularly among young people. He won no parliamentary seat in the capital and a mere 8% of the city’s mayoral vote. Of the many challenges facing the president, Tom Goodfellow and Paul Isolo Mukwaya argue, the mobilisation of a growing young urban population is one that clearly will not dissipate. Museveni is faced with the option of finally taking this constituency much more seriously – or taking the country down the perilous path of all-out military dictatorship.

Social media and file sharing have allowed African hip hop artists to collaborate more easily with one another as well as with artists of African descent in the diaspora. The result is a rise in Pan Africanist tracks – especially seen in the work of Australian-born Zambian artist Sampa the Great and Ghana-born US-based rapper Blitz the Ambassador. African music and hip hop in particular has always offered a clue about where the Pan Africanist movement is at, argues Msia Kibona Clark, and current signs are that it is taking a dynamic new course.

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Moina Spooner

Commissioning Editor: East and Francophone Africa

Campaign posters of President Yoweri Museveni hang on a cable a day after the election commission said he won a sixth term in office. YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images

Museveni has failed to win over young, urban Ugandans: why he’s running out of options

Tom Goodfellow, University of Sheffield; Paul Isolo Mukwaya, Makerere University

Museveni’s attempt to gain support in urban areas in the 2021 elections was not only about repression. But it still failed.

Australian-born Zambian hip hop artist Sampa the Great. Marc Grimwade/WireImage

Hip hop and Pan Africanism: from Blitz the Ambassador to Beyoncé

Msia Kibona Clark, Howard University

The increased migration of Africans and the global growth of hip hop culture has seen a dynamic new generation of Pan Africanism emerge.

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