The gossip bros
The age of the podcasters as thought leaders—think #PodcastandChill and The Hustlers Corner—is upon us.
6134 Articles by:
Karen Chalamilla
Karen Chalamilla is a culture writer and researcher based in Dar es Salaam.
Resistance and commodification
A scholar of Black Brazil discusses the past, present, and future of the antiracist movement, in the run up to this year’s presidential elections.
Reading List: Mutt_Lon
The books that the author, a Cameroonian novelist, has been reading share an ethics of political engagement, a quest for identity and cultural inventory, and an ear for the voices and harmonies of African languages.
Afrobeat is bigger than Fela
In the second of five articles on Afrobeat music in South America, political scientist Simon Akindes writes about the all women and nonbinary Brazilian band, Funmilayo Afrobeat Orquestra.
Claim no automatic support
Where can the left look to inspiration in the wake of defeat? Our first letter from our new deputy editor.
Where laws and guns cannot reach
South African poet Don Mattera, who died in July, was the real deal—preferring to throw his lot in with the ignored and the undervalued. Unsurprisingly, his monumental life and work is undervalued too.
Put your crown on your head
A new exhibit of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s life and work explores the influences of his family and the African world on his visual sensibilities and identity.
Reading List: Ari Gautier
Writer Ari Gautier owes his own blend of mythology, Dalit consciousness, and surrealism to literary stylists such as Amos Tutuola, Pramoedya Ananta Toer and Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo.
Police and power in South Africa
South African policing is a tool of social control and repression. Are democratic and humanistic alternatives possible? This week on the AIAC podcast, we discuss.
The story of depression and how we treat it
A new book weaves science, history, philosophy and personal narrative in a refreshing and more globally inclusive look at depression.
Africa holds up a mirror to India
Shobana Shankar’s new book, ‘Africa, India and the Spectre of Race’ (Hurst/Oxford, 2021) explores this complicated history.
Fight club
On this month’s Africa Is a Country Radio, we soundtrack traditional martial arts and combat sports across the African continent.
The politics of pathology
By using healthcare to attack immigrants, xenophobic political movements in South Africa echo long-standing right-wing obsessions.
Crossing the Red Sea
Salafism is across Ethiopia. While Saudi Arabia has played a role, Ethiopian Muslims themselves are playing a bigger one.
Afrobeat futures
In the first of five articles on Afrobeat in South America, Simon Adetona Akindes discusses Abayomy Afrobeat Orquestra and Bixiga 70 from Brazil.
We need to talk about wage theft
South African companies can afford to pay their workers a living wage—if not for their commitment to profit shifting, as the case of Lonmin and Marikana showed.