Jihad in Nigeria
Long before Boko Haram, talk of holy war in what became Nigeria was everywhere.
Blog
Rap Battle of the Week on Reddit: Johannesburg’s Tumi vs Atlanta’s Ness Lee
Two weeks ago, Club Zen in downtown Johannesburg got packed to its rafters with hip-hop afficionados who came by the carloads to support Scrambles4Money, a South African battle rap circuit established in 2012. The auspicious Talk is Cheap event, now in its second installment, had Johannesburg’s Tumi Molekane and Atlanta’s Ness Lee as headliners. Tumi, a […]
Nigeria’s Catch 22
American style democracy will only throw up more more leaders like Goodluck Jonathan.
Nollywood in Paris
For many white French, and including African immigrants in France, watching movies like 'Phone Swap,' 'Tango with Me,' 'Last Flight to Abuja' and 'Maami,' is an eye-opener.
Street Life in an African City: Oxford Street in Accra
The evidence of material on African cities does not inspire confidence. They are increasingly overcrowded with no clear plan for matching population growth to available facilities. Sewage and garbage disposal are perennial problems. Laboring street children are everywhere. The hope some five decades ago when many countries gained freedom from their former colonial masters was […]
Thinking About Genocide
An extract from Mahmood Mamdani's seminal study, 'When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda."
Immune to Bullshit
The second in a series of four posts to commemorate James Baldwin's 90th birthday.
News of an Engagement
Why you've got to love the way the South African tabloid newspaper Daily Sun reported Caster Semenya's marriage to her girlfriend
Good neighbors in Johannesburg
This practice in some media of making white people who live in mostly black inner city Johannesburg, out as special. No.
The music that changed my life
The Cape Town suburb of Observatory is known for being a small bohemian enclave, providing low cost housing for students, artists and ‘free spirits’ of all sorts. Walk down Lower Main Road past the quaint mini-Victorian houses and sushi restaurants, and you’ll find all the familiar student-town tropes: aging hippies, overpriced vintage clothing, and laptop-ridden […]
Not the Country We’re Sitting in Now
The first in a series of four posts to commemorate what would have been James Baldwin's 90th birthday.
Not just some passing foreign journalist
Lawyer and writer Elnathan John interviewed U.S. photographer Glenna Gordon. Listen.