Culture
The hip hop president?
Hip hop and the Black political mainstream more broadly, continues to have hope in the promises of American capitalism.
Achille Mbembe’s decolonization
Mbembe’s work serves as a guide to understand our fragmented global present and the urgent matter of charting ways out of our shared dark night.
Slam democracy
The Democratic Republic of the Congo has a rigid educational system, largely unchanged from the colonial era. Slam artists and activists are working to open it up to alternative spaces of expression.
Looking disenchantment in the face
The history of Africa involves navigating utopian visions and brutal realities as the recent work of Egyptian filmmaker Tamer el-Said's and before that, Ayi Kwei Armah show.
The corporatization of food in South Africa
We can only end hunger when people have control over what they eat and how that food is produced.
The multiple meanings of #EndSARS
The recent #EndSARS protest in Nigeria reveals how young people carve out agency in the context of Nigeria's dysfunctional and violent state.
Beyond the Nobel Peace Prize
New biographies reveal Wangari Maathai as a reflective scholar and critical thinker.
Kenyan statues must fall
What could or should full decolonization in Kenya look like?
Neocolonization on a plate, with a soda to go
The risk of obesity increases with socioeconomic status in several African countries, unlike in their European counterparts with comparable income levels.
Décoloniser la littérature africaine
Les études littéraires africaines devraient donner plus d'espace aux nombreux écrivains vivant sur le continent, dans les langues africaines.
Decolonizing African literature begins with language
Senegalese writer, Boubacar Boris Diop, on the problematic circuits of teaching African literature first legitimized in Europe in African universities
The philosopher king
A new biography of Tanzania's first president, Julius Nyerere, reveals a complicated legacy.
Food crimes
Why the World Food Program doesn't deserve the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize.
Identity and displacement in Nigeria
Director Abba T. Makama's 'The Lost Okoroshi,' attempts to unpacks identity through masquerades in an increasingly ethnocentric Nigeria.
Refugee debates have an African history problem
Despite increased global debate over refugee issues, few discuss these issues in terms of refugee histories, especially histories of Africans seeking refuge in and beyond the continent.
The academic game
African Studies scholars write for the gate-keepers, to prove our own legitimacy, for the stimulation of conferences and the relief of rising recognition by algorithms.
Lagos gone to seed
The Nigerian drama 'Òlòtūré,' about sex work and sex trafficking in the country’s commercial capital, which premiered on Netflix, is mostly uncomfortable. And not in a good way.
The politics of influence
Influence exhilarates. It also makes people nervous. Writers, artists, scholars, researchers—we all seem to want to be “influential.” Less often do we want to admit to being “influenced.”
Where are the flowers for Gilbert?
The drummer Gilbert Matthews was a visionary of South African jazz. The silences on his passing from official quarters are discordant.