Hiplife: Swedish TV done good

I don't know what's going on with Swedish television lately, but this past few months they've been really cramming in reasonable-quality programming about the kind of third-world popular music I enjoy.

First there was Papa's Kappsäck, six 40-minute shows that were a touch silly and conservative, but good-natured and well-researched. I especially enjoyed the shows about Cambodian hip-hop and Asian underground connections in London and India. Then they showed (as only the second TV company in the world, apparently) Danish documentary Good Copy, Bad Copy, which has a great section on Brazilian tecnobrega business models and production.

Now, as part of Scandinavian co-production about music cities, they've done an informative and well-presented documentary about the current state of hiplife music in Accra. (Podcast, mostly in English. Should be plenty to interest international viewers too.) Much as I gripe about the rest of the series (which so far has only featured tiny, middle-class indie pop scenes from Mexico City to Reykjavik that all sound remarkably like Swedish indie pop) this was actually not bad at all. And they didn't fall for the temptation to include some old geezer from a previous generation as a roots alibi.

Heavily featured in the show was Tic Tac's novelty dance anthem Kangaroo, which apparently even spawned a goal gesture during the African cup of nations:


Is this a sign that the music we love is gaining more mainstream acceptance?