False progress
From 2024, the Grammys will feature an award for Best African Music Performance. Is the category a positive step embracing the global popularity of African music, or another homogenizing exotification?
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Karen Chalamilla
Karen Chalamilla is a culture writer and researcher based in Dar es Salaam.
The myth of French republicanism
In France, Black and Arab minorities are excluded from the country’s liberal values—and then treated as threats to them.
Biko’s children
In their debut EP, the Johannesburg-based experimental jazz group iPhupho L’ka Biko offer a message of hope, resilience and solidarity while drawing from South Africa’s black jazz heritage.
Don’t consume what you sell
A new film by Ery Claver probes the fraught relationship between China and Angola, revealing their differences—and surprising similarities.
Não consuma o que você vende
Um novo filme de Ery Claver investiga a tensa relação entre China e Angola, revelando suas diferenças—e surpreendentes semelhanças.
A double standard
The pathologization of ‘migrants’ in Tunisia and France shows how race and poverty shape our understanding of belonging.
The inexpiable crime
The reaction to Nahel Merzouk’s murder by the French state showcases its tactic of depoliticizing the suburban uprising and diverting attention away from state violence.
Africa for Africans
After World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States were not only locked in an ideological struggle with each other, but also competed with an anticolonial vision of modernity, an ideology which is still influential today.
The lost promise of childhood
The state-sanctioned violence committed against children such as Nahel M forces us to revisit the very question of childhood, its privileges, and its roots in the French imperialization of Africa.
Reading List: David Tonghou Ngong
Ahead of the publication of his new book on Leopold Senghor and African political theology, the author selects books that inspired his writing process
Transient literatures and maps
During apartheid, literary magazine ‘Staffrider’ flourished from its ability to represent multiple social visions. However, it struggled to achieve the same in democratic South Africa.
Laughing through despair
Faced with many crises, including unemployment and a rising cost of living, Angolans are turning to memes to express their political discontent.
Where is Angola?
A Netflix series about Queen Njinga, one of Africa’s most historically significant rulers, should be cause for much celebration. But the resulting production largely disregarded what Angolans themselves think of their country’s history and culture.
Onde está Angola?
Uma série da Netflix sobre a Rainha Njinga, uma das governantes historicamente mais importantes da África, deve ser motivo de muita comemoração. Mas a produção resultante desconsiderou amplamente o que os próprios angolanos pensam sobre a história e a cultura de seu país.
Sweet beauty
In Senegal, women’s bodies are weaponized as political objects in electoral battles.
Memory and forgetting
Almost 30 years since South Africa’s first democratic elections, apartheid can sometimes seem like a distant past. However, three new films interrupt both the temptation to forget and to selectively remember.