Africa’s first trans music star

The popular Kudurista, Titica, is one of the the top stars of this growing Angolan dance music form.

Still from Titica's "Olha o Boneco."

African governments don’t want us to think that “homosexuality” is within the realm of their or their nations’ “traditional values.” So these leaders, even Nobel Peace Prize winning ones, use that as an excuse to justify the persecution and lack of protection for some of their most vulnerable citizens. Well, it seems that the Angolan government who currently seem to have their hands full (of money?) can’t be bothered to check whether or not popular Kudurista, Titica, fits within that value system and we’re glad for that! Now, I don’t know the frame through which Angolans are seeing Titica. A little forum and youtube scrolling reveals a divided public (as always). Since I’m not there, I’m not going to write a drawn out post on LGBT rights in Angola. I do have to say that Titica may just be as much of a “challenge” for some New York audiences as ones in Africa (homophobia is still widespread in some parts of and communities in the US), so I’m proud to say that she will be visiting us next Monday night at Bembe in Brooklyn for the iBomba party! New Yorkers, come say hi and give your support.

It seems more generally that Hip Hop is the realm for political protest in Angola, while the previously marginal Kuduro seems to be turning into a sort of symbol of national pride. Whether or not that translates into better living and working conditions for the scene’s artists and producers remains to be seen. But apparently Angola has seen this kind of music before.

Everyone else look out for more content and coverage of her visit soon.

Update: Titica is not Africa’s first transgender music star, as reader Chika notes.

Further Reading

The battle over the frame

As Hollywood recycles pro-war propaganda for Gen Z, Youssef Chahine’s ‘Djamila, the Algerian’ reminds us that anti-colonial cinema once turned imperial film language against its makers—and still can.

Fictions of freedom

K. Sello Duiker’s ‘The Quiet Violence of Dreams’ still haunts Cape Town, a city whose beauty masks its brutal exclusions. Two decades later, in the shadow of Amazon’s new development, its truths are more urgent than ever.

When things fall apart

Against a backdrop of global collapse, one exhibition used Chinua Achebe’s classic to hold space for voices from the Global South—and asked who gets to imagine the future.

The General sleeps

As former Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari’s death is mourned with official reverence, a generation remembers the eight years that drove them out.

The grift tank

In Washington’s think tank ecosystem, Africa is treated as a low-stakes arena where performance substitutes for knowledge. The result: unqualified actors shaping policy on behalf of militarists, lobbyists, and frauds.

Kagame’s hidden war

Rwanda’s military deployments in Mozambique and its shadowy ties to M23 rebels in eastern Congo are not isolated interventions, rather part of a broader geopolitical strategy to expand its regional influence.

After the coups

Without institutional foundations or credible partners, the Alliance of Sahel States risks becoming the latest failed experiment in regional integration.