Hard times never kill
Gonora Sounds’ music gets at what it means to be a Zimbabwean: We might be crying, but we are also dancing.
Culture
Two women, two stories, both winners
The documentary film Mane about two women—a rapper and a wrestler—is a much-needed boost of fresh air in the male-saturated tale of the “Generation hip hop” of Senegal.
Letters of recommendation
On the South African-born anthropologist John Comaroff and the political economy of silence in academia.
Worshipping other people’s gods
Kenyan filmmaker Jim Chuchu explores the struggle between indigenous cultural practice and Pentecostal Christianity.
Our history is here
The founders of Tarikhona Hona aim to archive the lives of the LGBTQI+ community in Morocco.
This is a sensorial feast, not a burial
Although overlooked this awards season, a new film by Lebohang Jeremiah Mosese deserves your attention.
There’s a metaphor in there somewhere
Thoughts on the conclusion of the 2021 African Cup of Nations.
Ted Lasso and the Afropolitan
The Afropolitics of one of the characters, Sam Obisanya, makes the second season of TV series "Ted Lasso" even better than the first.
A black sound
On AIAC Radio, Folarin Ajibade (@folarinistired) was inspired enough by Xavier Livermon's book "Kwaito Bodies" to make a mix.
A man of the people
Robert Vinson's biography of Albert Luthuli hints at how liberation histories might be reframed to better address the problems of the present.
The African Cup of Nations is our World Cup
Reflecting on the 2022 edition of the African Cup of nations, and the successes of small countries.
Resonant music
The film "Africa Mia” (2019), directed by Richard Minier and Edouard Salier, explores the musical connections between Cuba and Mali.
The water oriented away from normativity
What if our starting place is to claim that Africa has always been queer?, writes Johannesburg-based scholar Hugo kaCanham.
The politics of elegance
German historian Daniel Tödt wrote a history of the Congolese évolués. In this interview, he talks about the historiographical interventions of his book and the role of Patrice Lumumba in the history of évolués.
Turning the camera back home
The women filmmakers in the Ethiopian diaspora who have taken the risk of dedicating their lives to documenting their homeland.
From Kampala to Soviet Kyiv—and back
The Ugandan architect, Stephen Mukiibi, reflects on his studies in Soviet Ukraine and the lessons he learned on equality, environment, race, and friendship.
Uganda’s most controversial and disruptive politician
A new book revisits the career of Uganda’s first elected prime minister, Benedicto Kiwanuka, his followers, and political ideas.
Tweeting apartheid sport
What if the social media conditions of 2021 existed in 1981? A group of New Zealand writers tweeted the damned 1981 Springbok rugby tour as if it was happening now.
Swallowed by the archive
53 years after it was first made in 1968, the Ghanaian filmmaker King Ampaw’s short film ‘Black Is Black’ celebrates its inconspicuous premiere.
Abdulrazak Gurnah and the afterlives of German colonialism
Gurnah’s Nobel Prize invites us to ponder Germany’s colonial past between the Scramble for Africa and the First World War in what is now Tanzania, Burundi, and Rwanda.