The sound system, or Picó culture of the Caribbean coast of Colombia is very close to my heart. Not only is there a strong relationship between it and the popular music of 1970’s and 80’s West and Central Africa, but the propensity towards innovation via digital production (something that I’m near obsessed with as a DJ) is […]
An online archive of photos taken from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office photographic collection housed in the UK's National Archives.
When Zambian President Michael Sata died in London last week after being sick for some time, Western media (and some on Twitter) spent little time reflecting on his rule (basically a neoliberal disaster coupled with economic nationalism, out and out xenophobia towards Chinese and a massive temper). Instead, people who never write about Africa or […]
There's something amazing about not being able to understand lyrics but still being able to comprehend what a song means.
A South African doctor working for MSF writes about her experience working in the Ebola zone in Sierra Leone.
The writer Taiye Selasi doesn’t seem to realize there is a difference between identity as a subjective, biographical problem and identity as a legal and political reality.
The KwaZulu-Natal Midlands has a bit of a reputation as a “sleepy hollow.” But it was a crucial node in the struggle against apartheid.
Born in Bonn in 1985, Philippa Ndisi-Herrmann is a Kenyan and German photographer and filmmaker. She is intrigued by the invisible boundary between individual and collective identities, and fascinated by the influence of ancestral memory, living space and culture on our understanding of ourselves. She is drawn to Lamu, an Island in the Indian Ocean, where The Donkey that Carried the […]
An interview with political scientist Domingos Manuel de Rosário, of Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in Maputo, about the October 2014 elections.
South Africa is a divided society with a vile history of injustice. Injustice runs along very bright lines: black versus white, women versus men, the rich versus the poor, government versus the people. For a long time, there wasn’t much debate about whom the law favoured: white, rich males, usually wielding the political power of […]
Considering the proximity of celebrity culture to how capitalism operates in Africa, why is it not given more serious attention?
Survival is an album with a purpose. Released in 1979, it is Bob Marley’s most political recording.