The African New Wave
Weekend Music Break Number 57 includes a tribute to Fela Kuti, music from Lesotho, and the fast rapping of Sarkodie.
Culture
Remembering Sathima Bea Benjamin
Sathima had the unique ability to strike first at your heart, not unlike the experience of hearing Billie Holiday for the first time.
Christina Aguilera feeds “war-torn” Rwanda
Africa: helping white people who are a bit down-in-the-dumps, feel better about themselves since 1884.
Weekend Music Break: The Brother Moves On
I followed The Brother Moves On around South Africa once. True story, I even wrote about
The Supposed Vacuity of the “Global Novel”
The fact that the global novel has emerged from the world of the global literary economy does not render it "lite."
Mozambican Occupations
The work of photographer Felipe Branquinho, which portrays workers and working class people in their urban surroundings in Mozambique.
Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips and the “True Story” of Somali Piracy
The complexity surrounding the social and economic drivers of piracy off the Horn of Africa was lost in the media-friendly version of the story.
African Writers and the Nobel Prize for Literature
Only five African or African-born writers have been awarded the prize since it was first awarded in 1901: Soyinka, Mahfouz, Gordimer, Coetzee and Lessing.
The scope of the problem
Egyptian director Mohamed Diab's film "Cairo 678" documents the lives of 3 women, all victims of sexual harassment and assault and who organize collectively against it.
How we tell stories about cities
We must not forget the everyday lived realities and struggles in vanished neighborhoods.
A Hot Mess
Black women have no say in what is pretty considering it is the job of non-white women to dispel the standards of beauty, and white women to reinvent it.
Ghana’s Independence Era Through the Lens of S.K. Pobee
The photos below (click to enlarge), offering a glimpse into the joy and optimism of the
The rains down in Africa
Why is Toto's 'Africa," a song with ridiculous lyrics, so popular with everyone? It has to be the melody and the hook.
Weekend Music Break 56
Three South African videos to start with. Cape Town rapper Youngsta moves between the city’s neigbourhoods
Democracy is the Best Form of Democracy
Conceiving of the relationship between public space and positions of power as a hall of mirrors.
No wonder Winnie Mandela objected to this
The film "Winnie Mandela" is what happens when you combine bad history and bad filmmaking.
The Story of Sankofa
A former student of Kofi Awoonor remembers the famed Ghanaian writer who was killed in a terror attack by Al Shabaab in Niairobi, Kenya.
Mulatu Astatke is a legend
When the author heard Astatke's music, it was like listening to hip-hop for the first time.
The last day on earth
The U.S. premiere of Alain Gomis' new film "Tey (Aujourd'hui)," starring Saul Williams.
Looking beyond beauty
An interview with the artist Lalla Essaydi who seeks to challenge Orientalist mythology in her work.