On October 11th, in Ouagadougou, the trial for the assasination of the man who baptised his country with the name Burkina Faso, opens. His name was Thomas Sankara, and his example, which continues to inspire new generations, has also inspired a number of songs.

The Carnation Revolution spelled the end of Portugal’s colonial empire. From Cape Verde to Angola, Mozambique to Guinea-Bissau, we look back to the soundtrack of the years of liberation.

From awkward presidential entrances to prize winning soundtracks, music has scored the iconic film festival that brings together filmmakers from across the continent and diaspora since its inception in 1969.

On 30 June 1960, the Congo (DRC) became independent. Alan Brain, director of the movie The Rumba Kings, and Manda Tchebwa, historian of Congolese music, have reconstructed in detail, with the help of archives, African Jazz orchestra’s journey. On their way to Belgium, the orchestra was in charge of brightening up the nights of the delegates participating in the negotiations, and composed the ‘Independence Cha Cha’.

PAM salutes the great Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène with a panning shot of his life and a pull focus on his use of music in cinema

The story of how the iconic label and its roster embraced newly independent Africa in the 1960’s. From Ghana to Nigeria and on to Tanzania via Art Blakey, Lee Morgan and McCoy Tyner

When the African-American trumpet player and singer Louis Armstrong arrived in the Congo, the newly independent country was going through a major crisis. But his voyage was met with wild enthusiasm and inspired the group African Jazz to write him a song of welcome.

An expression of social and political life, the Carnival is also a liminal space of transgression, offering a celebratory freedom of expression synonymous with challenging the powers that be.

In the mid-1960s the father of an independent Ghana was becoming increasingly authoritarian and discontentment was growing, particularly amongst the military. Ghana was entering a period of uncertainty.

Ghana opened the floodgates to independence, but the storm clouds soon formed over Kwame Nkrumah’s head, caught in the net of the Cold War. Music, as always, accompanies these events. Ghana Freedom (4/5)

Ghana Freedom (2/5). On the eve of independence, highlife music was in vogue in Ghana.