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?
Culture
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.
Black America’s Africa
Black Panther arrives as black America diversifies, but the US becomes more isolationist. It's not beyond many African Americans to reflect nativist tendencies.
I have a problem with ‘Black Panther’
Anyone committed to an expansive concept of Pan-African liberation must regard 'Black Panther' as a counterrevolutionary film.
The folly of ‘wait-and-see’ politics in Zimbabwe
The attitude that Zimbabweans need to give Mnangagwa a chance and not be quick to criticize, is what led to Mugabe's dictatorship.
A man of the people: Morgan Tsvangirai
Tsvangirai’s legitimacy was born out of his trusted representation of workers’ interests and the charismatic force of his personality.
In defense of the Anglophones
The author was arrested for insulting Cameroon's president, spent 20 days in prison and was deported. He made this statement at his trial.
The anti-orientalist
The legacy in Morocco of the influential Spanish-born novelist Juan Goytisolo, who died in mid-2017.
The boy who grew up being called Hugh because he loved the trumpet
Lesedi Tshane's grandfather played with Hugh Masekela. He would later study with Masekela and replace Masekela on a bill with Abdullah Ibrahim.
Let them occupy
Housing struggles Brazil are a good case study to help us understand the limits of what is possible for urban housing movements in South Africa.
Community in Haiti’s Carnival
In a country where in most days, problems and dysfunctions define the lives of Haitians, Carnival is a time to forget it all.
The water point
The author returns to her home town, Cape Town, which may soon become the world’s first major city to run out of water. The crisis also exacerbates old divisions.
The making of a film empire
The book 'Nollywood: The Making of a Film Empire' takes a journalistic approach to that industry without falling back on the bombast of most popular accounts.
Postcards from Rwanda
The 1994 genocide was an unthinkable mayhem that still frames Rwanda, including how the government will write the narrative until 2034.