September 18, 2023
Nigeria: Nigeria's Slick Netflix Epic, Jagun Jagun, Explores a Rich Past That Also Reflects the World Today
Netflix's recently released film Jagun Jagun (The Warrior) is set in pre-colonial Nigeria and follows the story of a feared warlord named Ogunjimi. While playing out in the past,… Read more »
September 14, 2023
Africa: The Cross-Africa Dance Company Bringing New Life to Pina Bausch's Rite of Spring
At its premiere in 1913, Igor Stravinsky and Vaslav Nijinsky's Rite of Spring shocked audiences and divided critics. The ballet centred around a straightforward yet brutal… Read more »
September 12, 2023
Africa: African Literature in the Digital Age - New Book Traces the Role of the Internet, Queers and Class
The first book-length study of digital literature in Africa has attracted a lot of academic attention. African Literature in the Digital Age: Class and Sexual Politics in New… Read more »
West Africa: Militant Groups Threaten the Conservation of a Key West African World Heritage Site - New Study
Burkina Faso, Benin and Niger share a biosphere reserve known as the WAP complex (W-Arly-Pendjari), which spreads across the borders of the three countries. The first part of this… Read more »
September 10, 2023
South Africa: Ancient Shoes - Tracks On a South African Beach Offer Oldest Evidence Yet of Human Footwear
When and where did our ancestors first fashion footwear? We cannot look to physical evidence of shoes for the answer, as the perishable materials from which they were made would no… Read more »
September 07, 2023
Ghana: Death and Mourning in Ghana - How Gender Shapes the Rituals of the Akan People
Gender has a significant impact on the socio-economic, political and religious experiences of Ghanaians. For Akans, the country's largest ethnic group, descent is traced through… Read more »
August 30, 2023
Ghana: Kofi Ansah Left Ghana to Become a World Famous Fashion Designer - How His Return Home Boosted the Industry
In the 1950s and 1960s, young Africans were assisted financially by their governments to study in western countries in the hope they would return to contribute to nation building.… Read more »
August 28, 2023
South Africa: Sylvia Mdunyelwa, One of South Africa's Great Jazz Vocalists, Kept Music Traditions Alive
If Miriam Makeba is hailed as the South African vocalist of her generation who brilliantly embraced (and actually shaped) global music sounds, and Sathima Bea Benjamin as the… Read more »
August 31, 2023
South Africa: Winnie and Mandela Biography - a Masterful Tale of South Africa's Troubled, Iconic Power Couple
A new book on South African liberation struggle icons Nelson and Winnie Mandela is a masterful biography of the pair. It's a work of scholarship involving an immense body of… Read more »
August 14, 2023
Africa: 3 Ways AI Is Transforming Music
Each fall, I begin my course on the intersection of music and artificial intelligence by asking my students if they're concerned about AI's role in composing or producing music. Read more »
Africa: The Science of Why You Can Remember Song Lyrics From Years Ago
Why is it that many people can't remember where they put their car keys most mornings, but can sing along to every lyric of a song they haven't heard in years when it comes on the… Read more »
August 10, 2023
Africa: Heritage Algorithms Combine the Rigours of Science With the Infinite Possibilities of Art and Design
The model of democracy in the 1920s is sometimes called "the melting pot" - the dissolution of different cultures into an American soup. An update for the 2020s might be "open… Read more »
Nigeria: Ayobami Adebayo's New Novel Is a Modern Nigerian Tragedy About the Rich and the Poor
Nigerian writer Ayobami Adebayo took the literary world by storm with her debut novel Stay With Me in 2017. Six years later, she has followed up with an equally brilliant… Read more »
August 09, 2023
Africa: Through Space and Rhyme - How Hip-Hop Uses Afrofuturism to Take Listeners On Journeys of Empowerment
It is perhaps only natural, as hip-hop celebrates its 50th anniversary, that people look to the genre's future. But for some rappers, the future has always been part of the story. Read more »
August 07, 2023
South Africa: Umlungu - the Colourful History of a Word Used to Describe White People in South Africa
In South Africa "umlungu" is a word that's commonly used to refer to white people. It comes from isiXhosa, the language of the country's Xhosa people. It's always been a mystery… Read more »
August 01, 2023
Nigeria: Music Video Controversy in Nigeria - Logos Olori Misreads a Religious Time Bomb
Recently, Logos Olori - a Nigerian singer who is signed to Afrobeats superstar Davido's music label - released a video with supposedly Muslim men dancing to his song Jaye Lo in… Read more »
July 31, 2023
Nigeria: Kole Omotoso, the Nigerian Writer, Scholar and Actor Who Inspired a Continent
Bankole Ajibabi Omotoso, better known as Kole Omotoso, the Nigerian novelist, playwright, journalist, scholar and actor, died on 19 July 2023. His son Akin Omotoso, a filmmaker,… Read more »
July 25, 2023
Africa: Computer-Written Scripts and Deepfake Actors - What's At the Heart of the Hollywood Strikes Against Generative AI
For the first time in 60 years, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) are simultaneously facing off against the Alliance of Motion Picture and… Read more »
July 27, 2023
Africa: Deaf Rappers Who Lay Down Rhymes in Sign Languages Are Changing What It Means for Music to Be Heard
In April 2023, DJ Supalee hosted Supafest Reunion 2023 to celebrate entertainers and promoters within the U.S. Deaf community. Read more »
Egypt: How Hidden Details in Ancient Egyptian Tomb Paintings Are Revealed By Chemical Imaging
The walls of ancient Egyptian tombs can teach us much about the lives of the pharaohs and their entourages. Tomb paintings showed the deceased and their immediate family members… Read more »
July 17, 2023
Africa: Actors Are Demanding That Hollywood Catch Up With Technological Changes in a Sequel to a 1960 Strike
For the first time since 1960, actors and screenwriters are on strike at the same time. Read more »
July 14, 2023
Africa: Contemporary African Photography - Tate Modern Show Celebrates New Generation of Artists, but Misses a Trick
The last large survey exhibition of African photography by a major western gallery was In/Sight at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1996. Twenty-seven years later, Tate Modern… Read more »
June 21, 2023
Ghana: Ama Ata Aidoo - The Pioneering Writer Left Behind a String of Feminist Classics
Prolific author and former Ghanaian education minister Ama Ata Aidoo passed away on 31 May 2023 at the age of 81. News of her death reverberated around… Read more »
July 12, 2023
South Africa: Sindiwe Magona's New Book of Essays Tackles Issues South Africans Aren't Talking About
Sindiwe Magona - who turns 80 this year - is a celebrated South African writer, storyteller, speaker and activist. In 2022 Magona, once a domestic worker, received her PhD in… Read more »
July 10, 2023
Africa: How an African Collection of Art in Canada Is Celebrated With Care and Community
A significant collection of traditional African art has had a home in Canada for almost a hundred years. Read more »