Music Break / Fatoumata Diawara
Easy listening. ‘Bassa’ is a song by the Côte d’Ivoire-born, Mali-raised and now France-based artist Fatoumate Diawara. We could use a translation — because maybe it’s no easy listening at all. Anyone?
Further Reading
On the pitch
This year, instead of taking a publishing break, we will be covering the African Cup of Nations. To transition, we consider why football still matters in an era of enclosure, mediated presence, and thinning publics.
What does a museum mean here?
A dispatch from Benin City tells the unfinished story of the Museum of West African Art.
Has digital feminism peaked?
The scandal around Ezra Olubi has exposed the contradictions of Nigeria’s middle-class, online feminism.
Mapping Johannesburg’s wounds
In his latest exhibition, Khanya Zibaya charts the psychic and spatial terrain of a city where homelessness, decay, and human resilience sit uneasily together.
The missing voices of Western Sahara
At the UN’s annual Western Sahara debate, everyone gets heard except the Sahrawis themselves.
Whose museum is it anyway?
The dispute over Benin City’s museum project shows that returning stolen art does not settle the question of ownership.
Minnesota was promised to us
Somalis have answered Trump’s latest racist tirade not with outrage but with a tidal wave of trolling.
The golden light of Pops Mohamed
From Actonville to global stages, Pops Mohamed blended tradition, futurism, and faith—leaving behind a musical archive as luminous as the spirit he carried.
Pints and powerpoints
From IMF history to astrophysics, Nairobi’s Drunken Lectures turn casual drinkers into an engaged public.
Guinea’s bet on iron ore
A $20 billion iron ore mega-project is reshaping Guinea’s economy and politics, but communities in Simandou say they still lack water, electricity, and accountability.
Khartoum, the most selfish city: if we let it be
Khartoum’s recovery is not a national recovery. Until Sudan confronts the violence that has long been concentrated outside the capital, ‘liberation’ will remain a hollow word.
Calling Trump’s bluff
As the White House hypes “Christian genocide” and floats military action, northern Nigerians are responding with satire.
Paying for citizenship
What began as a revenue lifeline for small island states has become a global market where the wealthy buy mobility and sovereignty itself becomes a commodity.
What Graham Platner reveals about the US left
The economic emancipation of the American working class cannot come at the expense of the global working class.
Beyond independence
The post-colonial settlement has left Africa vulnerable to conflict, external pressure, and intellectual dependency. What comes next?
Trump’s beef with Nigeria
Trump’s threats of military action against Nigeria are not about Christian genocide, but are about rare earths, China, and the scramble to control Africa’s mineral future.
Davido’s jacket
Davido’s appearance at ‘Amapiano’s biggest concert’ turned a night of celebration into a study in Afrophobia, fandom, and the fragile borders of South African cultural nationalism.
Empty riddles
Drawing on his forced migration from Rwanda, Serge Alain Nitegeka reflects on the forms, fragments, and unsettled histories behind his latest exhibition in Johannesburg.
Heritage on horseback
A photo essay on Nigeria’s Durbars and the power of royal pageantry.
When Moscow looked to the horn
Half a century after the Soviets built their base on the Gulf of Aden, the same strategic coastline is once more drawing in foreign powers, old and new.