Hope and optimism howled at full volume
A people’s history of Zimbabwe’s first mbira punk band, Chikwata 263, who wanted a soundtrack for the country’s post-post colonial blues.
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An ungovernable mind
Frustrated by most of his contemporaries, but supported by like-minded friends, Zimbabwean author Dambudzo Marechera forever changed our notion of what African literature is.
How do we talk about the memory of Apartheid
The fact that the choices for black people under Apartheid were either martyrdom or compromise was part of the injustice of that system.
Asante Sana: The soundtrack to revolution
The writer, a student in New York City, on the emotional experience of living the Zimbabwe #NotCoup in real time online and away from home.
The class curse
How is Kenya's "new middle class" contributing to a pervasive low-quality oppression that leaves Kenyans feeling hopeless?
Struggle and archive
The formerly exiled ANC activist and later judge Albie Sachs is archiving his life, including a new film that forms part of a larger project of legacy-making.
The music is not yours
On the latest AIAC podcast, the gang from the Nigerian Scam explores how Afrobeats got globalized, who captured the value, and why the party may be ending.
Visiting Ngara
A redevelopment project in Nairobi’s Ngara district promises revival — but raises deeper questions about capital, memory, and who has the right to shape the city.
The gentrification of African studies
Displacing African Studies outside of Africa and emptying it of transformative potential, obscures its revolutionary legacy. The result: an impotent, banal field.
The Zambian farmers who are suing a mining company in a British court
In January 2019, a group of Zambian farmers brought their fight for justice to the UK Supreme Court, in a case with far-reaching implications for multinational companies.
The spear of the nation
Apartheid propaganda, white media and Afrikaner nationalists painted Verwoerd's killer as crazy, but Dimitri Tsafendas was a committed political activist.
The abundance of black fashion
Senegalese designer, Adama Paris, organizer of Dakar Fashion Week, gives her opinion on the representation of African designs and designers in the fashion industry.
A planetary humanism made to the measure of the world
Excerpts from a conversation with the British historian, writer and academic Paul Gilroy.
Revisiting the Brixton struggle
Leila Hassan and Farouk Dhondy worked at the UK publication Race Today that chronicled the early 1980s struggles against racism there.
Europeans ‘rescuing’ African art from obscurity again
For years Bisi Silva, Nana Oforiatta-Ayim and others have been active players in the art world. Why are they being written out of the story?
The crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front
Judi Rever's account of the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath challenges the official narrative.