• Lily Saint
• Bhakti Shringarpure

What if you survey African literature professors to find out which works and writers are most regularly taught? Only a few canonical ones continue to dominate curricula.

• Banwo “Proficience” Olagokun

A fan of rapper Naira Marley writes that it will take more than counter-cultural popularity to effect any tangible change in Nigeria.

• Mitchell Edwards

Local traditions of crisis management—especially those resistant to predatory capitalism—have largely been forcibly shed along the path to “development.” The age of COVID-19 is the time to recover them.

• Myrakel Baker

We're back with another playlist of songs for your weekend!

• Seble Samuel

The exhibition, 'Men Lebsa Neber,' features a staggering collection of the clothes and stories of rape survivors across Ethiopia.

• Russell Rickford

The blitz on monuments signifies not the abandonment of history, but rather the rejection of a narrative of modernity created by the heirs of global plunder.

• Emeka Joseph Nwankwo

Pressure on African writers to avoid the criticism of poverty porn limits the imagination of the writer and the ability to speak truth to power.

• Kim Gurney

How do we deal with the unfinished business of the past? Cape Town has a surprisingly poetic answer.

• Isaac Otidi Amuke

COVID-19 re-affirmed journalism is a public good, yet as newsrooms collapse, journalism is in danger.

• Motheo Mofokeng

Drummer Asher Gamedze’s new album is a groundbreaking body of work in the musical trajectory of South African jazz.

• Leila Hassan
• Farruk Dhondy

Leila Hassan and Farouk Dhondy worked at the UK publication Race Today that chronicled the early 1980s struggles against racism there.

• Hannah Borenstein

When a young Ethiopian, Haile Gerima, made a film about the exploitative nature of American college sports and the role of Black athletes in society.

• Khadim Ndiaye
• Salian Sylla

The Faidherbe Must Fall campaign wants statues of Louis Faidherbe, a colonial general both in Senegal and France, to be removed.

• Kangsen Feka Wakai

With a new book, Chimurenga resurrects Festac, the blackest and largest ever gathering of artists from Africa and its diaspora in 1977 in Lagos, Nigeria.

• Maimouna Thior
• Adama Pouye

Islam is interpreted to establish the dominance of men, and this male supremacy is at the root of all our problems.

• Masauko Chipembere

A new documentary about China's colonization of Malawi reveals how one colonial hand opens the door for another.

• Matthias De Groof

On anniversary of the birthday of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of an independent Congo, we ask, "What iconography arose around him, and why is that iconography so diverse?"

• Zahra Moloo

Janet McIntosh's fascinating book, Unsettled: Denial and Belonging Among White Kenyans, forces an interrogation of the past.

• Ethel-Ruth Tawe

In honor of Pride month, we revisit the past which shows that many Africans were unapologetic about their sexuality and gender non-conformity.

• Zachary Mondesire

During the Cold War, Khartoum was very successful at frustrating solidarity by other Africans for South Sudan's independence struggle.