The Black Bill Gates
Beyonce offered me escapism in my childhood. But now I see the contradictions and shortcomings in her claimed radicalness.
Culture
The most wanted man
The legend of Nelson Mandela was built years before his lengthy jail sentence catapulted him to global fame.
Precarious Somali boyhoods
Somali-Canadian writers lay bare the harsh realities of being Black, migrant and Muslim in multicultural and ostensibly tolerant Toronto.
The university of patriarchy
Tanzanian universities are beginning to tackle “sextortion.” Will new policies and attention to sexual harassment on campuses make a difference?
Frozen in time
How African literature is taught reveals a depressing lack of knowledge concerning North African writers and their works.
A rare cinematic portrait of queer women’s intimacy in Nigeria
The new short film "Ifé" is a moving story about the delights and difficulties of human relationships.
The Cold War’s unfinished legacy
Journalist Vincent Bevins’ new book, The Jakarta Method, shows that some of the 20th century’s ugliest episodes are still unfolding.
The linguistic famine
The burial of African languages by Africans themselves has ensured our total immersion into colonial culture.
Beyond African royalty
Beyoncé, 'The Lion King,' 'Coming to America,' and the complicated politics of African representation in Black American cultural production.
How to curate a pandemic
Three prominent curators on how they are (re-)situating their respective curatorial practices in relation to the political moment.
The pitfalls of African consciousness
It took time to digest Beyonce's Black Is King. Conclusion: it fails to deliver us. Instead, it's just another capitalist construction of the world.
How not to write about the Rwandan genocide
How Rwandan history is told—and who does the telling—is important as it determines who is able to participate in conversations about the past.
The media and the workers of Marikana
The anniversary of Marikana just passed us. Media coverage of the massacre is an important part of its legacy.
Challenging whiteness in South Africa
White South Africans rarely look in the proverbial mirror to reflect on where they come from and how those histories shape their current realities.
The culture wars are a distraction
When our political parties only have recourse to the realm of identity and culture, it is a smokescreen for their lack of political legitimacy and programmatic content. It is cynically unpolitical, and it’s all bullshit.
After the monuments have been removed
Senegalese writer Mbougar Sarr on how we are actually informed about symbols we want to bring down, and about those we wish to commemorate.
What Chinese people eat
News reports claiming that “wet markets” in Asia are the source of the coronavirus obscure the fact that the consumption of wild animals is common in the West.
Sadio Mané, made outside Africa
The Liverpool striker, Sadio Mane, carries the values of his boyhood home, Bambali, with him. But his football is a product of the European professional game.
Sadio Mane is a Senegalese (Fairtrade) brand
What can the Senegalese Sadio Mane’s story tell us about the marketing of dreams.
More than a two-dimensional African celebrity
A new documentary about Liverpool FC striker, Sadio Mane, is watchable, but suffers from the fallacy that sports and politics don’t mix.