arts-culture-media

Culture

How to cover Eritrea

Eritrea has expelled all international correspondents and banned local private newspapers since 2001. One consequence is that Western media have had to play up their “unique” or “rare” access to “the North Korea of Africa.” Over the last two years, some leading media–having gone through endless bureaucratic hassles and rejections–such as the BBC, France 24, […]

The uncompromising Zoë Wicomb

Zoë Wicomb's fellow South African, JM Coetzee once wrote: "For years we have been waiting to see what the literature of post-apartheid South Africa will look like. Now Zoe Wicomb delivers the goods."

Art in dark times

Interview with historian Dan Magaziner about his new book, The Art of Life in South Africa, about one of the few art schools training black art teachers under Apartheid.

Cape Town’s art fair

Art players and enthusiasts from around the world and down the street will coalesce at the Cape International Convention Centre 17-19 February for the latest staging of the Cape Town Art Fair. Now in its 5th iteration, the fair’s gallery participation and audiences have grown as the global interest in African art has blossomed. This […]

Weekend Music Break No.105 – Songs from banned countries: Somalia edition

For this weekend’s music break, we’ll have a second edition of “Songs from banned countries.” This time we go to Somalia via Seattle — which is a fitting connection because the judge who ordered Trump’s country ban illegal is based in Seattle. So, in the spirit of The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s opposition to Trump’s xenophobic […]

The Delasi Edition

This selection of smooth Afropop illustrates Delasi's transnational vision for contemporary African art and music.

Music Break No.102 — Winter In America edition

“… The stakes are very high: literally, survival of organized human society in any decent form,” Noam Chomsky tells Brooklyn Rail, as the former British colony of the United States of America, inaugurates its 45th president. So, this weekend’s Music Break goes out to our American family, who are set to face four years of struggle […]

The year of Elaine Salo

Elaine Salo, who died on August 13, 2016, had done the hard work of liberation and engaged head-on with the limits and promises of the new South Africa.