The Very Best - Warm Heart Of Africa feat Ezra Koenig

What this video is

Released in August 2009 alongside the debut LP, this video arrives at the apex of the blog-music era, when Pitchfork-adjacent tastemakers were actively championing Afro-Western hybrids. The Very Best — comprising Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya and Franco-Swedish production duo Radioclit — had already generated over 300,000 mixtape downloads with zero promotional budget. The mtvU premiere signalled crossover…

Why it matters

A landmark moment for the global bass and Afro-pop crossover genre in the blog era. The track won the World Beat Song award at the 9th Annual Independent Music Awards and appeared on Pitchfork's 100 Tracks of 2009, demonstrating how a low-resource, diaspora-led project could achieve critical…