Sounds of wisdom
The Sauti za Busara festival in Zanzibar aims to show that music is much more than a collection of tunes.
Culture
The double consciousness of Paul Gilroy
2018 marks 25 years since the publication of Gilroy’s seminal work, The Black Atlantic.
Unthinking refugee studies
What use are academic categories when they reinforce conservative concepts scholars seek to challenge?
What is Uber up to in Africa?
Uber’s usual tricks -- to provoke price wars in an attempt to increase their share of markets, evade taxes, and undermine workers’ rights -- are alive and well in Africa.
The boundaries of the Global African Diaspora
New York City's Caribbean Cultural Center seeks to “document and present the creative genius of African Diaspora cultures.”
Wokeness and the professional outrage machine
Social media group-think derails any chance for a progressive political movement.
Black in Berlin
Living in the city that hosted the 1884 conference where Western powers divided up Africa for themselves
Nollywood 3.0
Dare Olaitan’s film Ojukokoro gets some room to breathe in New York, after being stifled at the box office in Lagos.
Nipsey’s immigrant hustle
Eritrean-American rapper Nipsey Hussle mix of immigrant and street hustle.
David Goldblatt at the Centre Georges Pompidou
The South African photographer has a complicated place within his country's photographic culture.
Wakanda’s feminist scorecard
How the celebrated film Black Panther stacks up in its depiction of decolonized African feminism.
Love and life on the flipside of Dar es Salaam
It is nice to see two female leads in an African film that are not doing hair, casting some sort of ju-ju curse or throwing vases at cheating husbands.
Tanzania, Black Power, and the uncertain future of Pan-Africanism
Why did Tanzania and Julius Nyerere become touchstones for Pan Africanism in the 1960s and 1970s?
What kind of city is an African architecture for?
Despite a chronic housing and land shortage, Liberia's capital has not seen militant urban social movements.
Drake’s Plan
The plot of Drake's music video for "God's Plan" is him giving him out money to the poor. What was he trying to say?
Keorapetse Kgositsile was a feminist
How Kgositsile ensured he never expressed himself like a white man.
No noose or barbed wire is thick enough to hide the sun
Solomon Mahlangu was a famed liberation fighter in South Africa hanged by Apartheid in 1979. His legacy is the subject of a new film.
Why is the cultural life of Black Panther so derivative?
In the Global North, Africa never inspires radically new terms of representation. It always presents itself as an entity grounded in an anthropological reality.
The young Walter Rodney
Long before Walter Rodney wrote 'How Europe Underdeveloped Africa,' he was profoundly shaped by his studies in Jamaica.
Colouring in the All Blacks
Why would a group of black, mostly coloured, South African rugby supporters openly root for New Zealand teams over their own.