The rubble of empire
Built by Italian Fascists in 1928, Mogadishu Cathedral was meant to symbolize “peaceful conquest.” Today its ruins force Somalis to confront the uneasy afterlife of colonial power and religious authority.
Culture
Remember AFCON?
Behind the refereeing drama and rising revenues, AFCON 2025 exposed a tournament increasingly shaped by global capital rather than the long-term health of African football.
Bread or Messi?
Angola’s golden jubilee culminated in a multimillion-dollar match against Argentina. The price tag—and the secrecy around it—divided a nation already grappling with inequality.
The roots of our storytelling
What happens when we stop reading African fiction through European literary history and instead trace its worldmaking through indigenous cosmology?
Whose story gets to be heard?
A new film investigates the long-standing land disputes between Kenyans, the government, and multinational corporations, whose expansive plantations are the site of much of the Kikuyu people’s hardship.
Who owns Ghana’s mission schools?
A constitutional challenge over religious practice reveals the unresolved colonial and postcolonial politics of Ghana’s mission-founded secondary schools.
A world reimagined in Black
By placing Kwame Nkrumah at the center of a global Black political network, Howard W. French reveals how the promise of pan-African emancipation was narrowed—and what its failure still costs Africa and the diaspora.
The trouble with ‘showing the real Africa’
iShowSpeed’s Africa tour is widely celebrated as respectful and refreshing, yet it operates within a long tradition of racialized spectacle that turns Africa into content and Blackness into performance.
Co-opting African literature
Can a festival meaningfully applaud African creativity while its sponsor profits from African death?
Who gets to tell the history of Mau Mau?
David Elstein’s attack on David Olusoga’s docuseries on the legacy of the British empire reveals less about historical error than about the enduring impulse to rehabilitate British colonial rule.
When charity poses for a Grammy
Burna Boy’s highly publicized Lagos prison visit looked like generosity, but it also looked like content. Who was it really for?
Empire’s middlemen
From Portuguese Goa to colonial Kampala, Mahmood Mamdani’s latest book shows how India became an instrument of empire, and a scapegoat in its aftermath.
Who is AFCON for?
From air travel costs and border regimes to television culture and class exclusion, the problem of attendance at AFCON is structural, not because fans lack passion.
À qui s’adresse la CAN ?
Entre le coût du transport aérien, les régimes de visas, la culture télévisuelle et l’exclusion de classe, le problème de l’affluence à la CAN est structurel — et non le signe d’un manque de passion des supporters.
Lions in the rain
The 2025 AFCON final between Senegal and Morocco was a dramatic spectacle that tested the limits of the match and the crowd, until a defining moment held everything together.
What’s in an AFCON final?
From national redemption and continental dominance to personal legacy and political ambition, the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations final means everything to Africans.
Empty stands are not the whole picture
Why focusing on attendance figures at the 2025 AFCON is the wrong way to measure the tournament.
Between Bambali and Nagrig
The rivalry between Sadio Mané and Mohamed Salah pushed them to unprecedented heights, but also links two seemingly distant and disconnected villages.
The untameable Victor Osimhen
The volcanic temperament and irresistible brilliance of the footballing star converge as the Super Eagles close in on continental glory.
Grounded expectations
The 2025 Africa Cup of Nations marks a transition period for the Nigerian men's national team. This could be good for them (and the nation).