No one should be surprised we exist
The documentary film, 'Rolé—Histórias dos Rolezinhos' by Afro-Brazilian filmmaker Vladimir Seixas uses sharp commentary to expose social, political, and cultural inequalities within Brazilian society.
Culture
Reading List: Barbara Boswell
While editing a collection of the writings of South African feminist Lauretta Ngcobo, Barbara Boswell found inspiration in texts that reflected Ngcobo’s sense that writing is an exercise of freedom.
How to fight for democracy
The events of May Day 1998 in Nigeria and lessons from Ola Oni on fighting for democracy in multi-ethnic societies.
An annual awakening
In the 1980s, the South African arts collective Vakalisa Art Associates reclaimed time as a tool of social control through their subversive calendars.
More than a building
The film 'No Place But Here' uses VR or 360 media to immerse a viewer inside a housing occupation in Cape Town. In the process, it wants to challenge gentrification and the capitalist logic of home ownership.
A worldly Nubian energy
The music and art of Lauryn Hill and Chiwoniso Maraire combined sexiness with political consciousness, offering Black women a way out of rigid categorization.
The impossibility of actual politics
After the Arab Spring, the African left was left demoralized and disorganized. However, a recent book argues that the revolution continues in quotidian life.
The new Zimbabwe soundtrack
Zimbabwe is not Mugabe, Nkomo, Mnangagwa or Chamisa. A new Afro-electronic music duo is giving the country’s complexity a soundtrack.
In defense of precolonial Africa
How are we to discuss and deal with colonization in Africa without using language that acknowledges that we were something before colonization?
The valley is getting wider and deeper
Artificial Intelligence is here to stay. The question is whether we align AI to promote human rights or to defend private property and exploitation.
Reading List: Joel Marie Cabrita
Instead of listing the books that help her write 'Written Out: The Silencing of Regina Gelana Twala,' the author notes five books that shaped Regina Gelana Twala.
This is what they don’t want you to know
A new film on the life of Walter Rodney gives a glimpse of his radical solidarity politics and centers on his family, who struggled and suffered with him.
One of the last remaining pieces of history
Against Mahikeng’s failure to honor and preserve his legacy, a new Setswana biography examines Plaatje’s years in this South African town, once a regional capital.
An invitation to join a pilgrimage
Felwine Sarr’s 'African Meditations' embraces spiritual traditions as a worldview rather than a worldview about the people who practice those traditions.
Reading List: Akin Adeṣọkan
The author reflects on books that offer a long-historical perspective on African literature and history.
Black literary surrealism
In doing the intellectual activist work of editing and supporting cultural production, literary magazines have been crucial for Black cultural renaissance.
Imagining counter-futures
The film 'Neptune Frost' reduces the gulf between Africanfuturism and Afrofuturism by connecting their shared vision against violent systems of domination.
Who owns Afrobeats?
Does Afrobeats come from the continent or the diaspora. This reviewer of a new book on the genre's history and rapid takeover of our airwaves and playlists, argues we need to center Africa more.
The cemetery of cinema
Thierno Souleymane Diallo’s latest film traces his search for what is likely the first film made by a Guinean, in the process asking: how is a film culture possible when the infrastructure and institutions are lacking?
The roots of toxic masculinity in South Africa
In South Africa and elsewhere, toxic masculinity is an outcome of modern individualism rather than tradition.