Africa Is a Country

'Afropolitans'

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

'Afropolitans'

By
Sean Jacobs

If in London next Friday. Press Statement from the Victoria and Albert Museum:

On 24 June the V&A presents Friday Late: Afropolitans, a free evening of music, workshops and performance celebrating African photography, fashion, and style. The evening will host the first UK show by South African house musician Spoek Mathambo and band. Mathambo will perform a live set of his own brand of ‘Township Tech’ in the V&A’s John Madejski Garden.

Friday Late: Afropolitans will take its cue from the current V&A exhibition Figures and Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography. It will explore how Africans living across the world view themselves and their visual culture.

Visitors can enjoy photographs and video projections by South African photographer Chris Saunders and soak up the atmosphere in a north African-style salon especially created by Morroccan designer Hassan Hajjaj. Ghanaian photographer Sal Idriss will have a Malick Sidibé-esque photographic studio where visitors can have their portraits taken and textile designer Emamoke Ukeleghe will run a workshop to design Dutch wax print inspired scarves to take away.

Further highlights include a guided tour through the display of David Goldblatt photographs Lifetimes: Under Apartheid, a special installation of contemporary African fashion by Minna Salami of MsAfropolitan blog with stylist Ola Shobowale as creative director; and an interactive installation by South African designers Heidi Chisholm and Sharon Lombard. There will also be panel discussions, film screenings and contemporary African house and electro music courtesy of DJ Vamanos from London’s Secousse Sound System.

Further Reading

Rebuilding Algeria’s oceans

Grassroots activists and marine scientists in Algeria are building artificial reefs to restore biodiversity and sustain fishing communities, but scaling up requires more than passion—it needs institutional support and political will.

Ibaaku’s space race

Through Afro-futurist soundscapes blending tradition and innovation, Ibaaku’s new album, ‘Joola Jazz,’ reshapes Dakar’s cultural rhythm and challenges the legacy of Négritude.

An allegiance to abusers

This weekend, Chris Brown will perform two sold-out concerts in South Africa. His relationship to the country reveals the twisted dynamic between a black American artist with a track record of violence and a country happy to receive him.

Shell’s exit scam

Shell’s so-called divestment from Nigeria’s Niger Delta is a calculated move to evade accountability, leaving behind both environmental and economic devastation.

Africa’s sibling rivalry

Nigeria and South Africa have a fraught relationship marked by xenophobia, economic competition, and cultural exchange. The Nigerian Scam are joined by Khanya Mtshali to discuss the dynamics shaping these tensions on the AIAC podcast.

The price of power

Ghana’s election has brought another handover between the country’s two main parties. Yet behind the scenes lies a flawed system where wealth can buy political office.

Beats of defiance

From the streets of Khartoum to exile abroad, Sudanese hip-hop artists have turned music into a powerful tool for protest, resilience, and the preservation of collective memory.