By Njabulo Ndebele I first heard Brenda Fassie sing on a languid, […]
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The University of Soweto
Frank B. Wilderson draws from his memory of student protests in 1993 […]
“That Guy No Be Ordinary”
Yemisi Aribisala grapples with the real-time significance of the artist Victor Ehikhamenor, one of his most celebrated works, “The Flower of a Girl”, and the nonsensical brandishing of the banal in the context of Nigerian art as big business.
Reform and Revolution at the University of Lovanium
In this essay on the gestation, articulations and manipulations of student politics […]
Marcus Garvey is Alive in East Africa
A university in eastern Uganda, named in honour of the pan African […]
The Picture
By Suren Pillay The picture swayed from side to side like a […]
Inaudible I
By Salim Washington and Winston ‘Mankunku’ Ngozi Winston ‘Mankunku’ Ngozi: Ja, well, […]
Giant Steps – from a film by Aryan Kaganof and Geoff Mphakati
By Aryan Kaganof & Geoff Mphakati We’re only preparing you to get […]
Dear Dr. Schwab, Queen of Jordan
By Chronic on 18 November 2015 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Cash & Commerce, Chimurenga Magazine, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies, Media & Propaganda
Binyavanga Wainaina responds to an invitation to participate in Young Global Leaders 2007
Folk Dancing for Beginners
By Karen Press (He sets the tone) In my country the […]
Dansons Donc le Zouglou
By Henri-Michel Yere Déscolarisé In 1980s Côte d’Ivoire, exclusion from the schooling […]
Sermon on the Train
By Isabel Hofmeyer 11.45 am on a Tuesday morning in October and […]
Lagos, Lagos
By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Chidera’s taxi crawled over Third Mainland Bridge, towards […]
The Amazing Career of Passport Number B957848
By Akin Adesokan (For Larry Siems & Aimee Liu) I The wait […]
Creating Theatre: A George Hallett Photo Essay
By Chronic on 30 September 2015 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Chimurenga Library, Chronic, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies, Media & Propaganda, Music
“Exile demands contemplation because it is unavoidably real for those who experience […]
Topaze
By Baudouin Mouanda Topaze is available in print as part of […]
Rumblin’
By Dominique Malaquais Tell It To The World April 1st 1974.[1] Before […]
Variations on the Beautiful in the Congolese World of Sounds
By Chronic on 3 September 2015 in Arts & Pedagogy, Chimurenga Magazine, Healing & bodies, Media & Propaganda
by Achille Mbembe; translated by Dominique Malaquais
Gordon Parks Photo Essay
Katherine and Elridge Cleaver (Algiers, 1970) Ethel Sharriff […]
The Sound of Freedom
[…]For over a decade Louis Moholo has been the only surviving member […]
Liner Notes
As listening trends move rapidly to the online interface, the knowing of […]
What We Did After We Lost 100 Years of Wealth
By Agri Ismaïl “World finance had, in 2008, a near-death experience.” The […]
Gospel Christian Porn Rap
Fucking with the puritanical social mores that pervade the world’s most religious […]
Invisible Borders
By Emmanuel Iduma Founded in 2009 by a group of Nigerian photographers […]
Mining the Biennale
In late 2012, two contemporary art exhibitions opened in the same country, […]
Love and Learning Under the World Bank
Stacy Hardy recounts seventeen stories of the hierarchies, the anti-heroes, the hard […]
Archie Shepp’s Shirt Suggests
By Dominique Malaquais and Cédric Vincent
A Silent Way: Routes of South African Jazz, 1946-1978.
By Julian Jonker First, a warning. The writer approaching the intersections and digressions […]
Together in the Picture
John Peffer scans the photographic styles that image a black South African […]
Land Homeland
Q&A with Mahmood Mamdani Chronic: Your book Define and Rule: Native as […]
Sounding the Horn on Reconstruction
The role of art and literature in countries of the Horn of […]
Queenstown
By Sandile Dikeni The grass in Queenstown was pink in 1996. Or, […]
Season’s Greetings
By Rayyane Tabet On the morning of 1 December 1960, thousands of […]
Ayinde Barrister: Tribute to a True Exponent
By Akin Adekosan The setting was a night party somewhere in Old […]
Jeune Afrique
By Moses Marz In 1968, Béchir Ben Yahmed launched his first attempt […]
Souffles
By Toni Maraini The first issue was thin, but it responded “to […]
El-Salahi – The Wise Enemy
By Hassan Musa I want to introduce Ibrahim El-Salahi here as “our […]
Al Fatah
By Anthony James Ratcliff Al Fatah was an extremely popular organisation at the […]
Trajectories of the Sudanese Gulf
By Michael Vasquez Hiwar The journal that the Congress for Cultural Freedom […]
Ibrahim El-Salahi
By Michael Vasquez Ibrahim El-Salahi had a show at the Tate Modern […]
Entretien Bouchra Khalili
An interview with Bouchra Khalili by Cedric Vincent Bouchra Khalili (née à Casablanca […]
1966
By Michael Vasquez After World War II, the idea was that there […]
Hiwar
By Michael Vasquez The journal that the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) published […]
The New Reading
By Chronic on 26 May 2015 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Cash & Commerce, Chronic, Media & Propaganda
Some argue that the new media has forever altered our attention span, that the experience of being completely lost and absorbed, an experience they say you only got from a printed book, has disappeared.
CHIMURENGA@20: WAITING FOR WAME
By Chimurenga on 26 May 2015 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Chronic, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies
I am hungry. Tempted. In pain. I reach for the pack. Pop out another capsule. One minute. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. The pain has reduced to a dull throbbing. I am floating.
Authority Stealing in Kenya
In pursuit of some scriptwriter talent, Billy Kahora discovers that academic mantras, […]
Under the Caine Bridge
by Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire 2000 There are two rivers of Literature, so-called […]
A Petition for Mongo Beti
Patrice Nganang recalls the duel between politics and the literary sphere in 1990s Yaoundé – a time when the campaign for ‘democracy’ exposed the chiasmus that is the Cameroonian intelligence, and the words of Mongo Beti ignited a movement for dissent, return and reconstruction.
The Shifting Fortunes of a Performing Poet
Post-apartheid poetry and its makers have witnessed the commodification of the art […]
Black Man in the White Suit
A Letter from Cape Town by Kiluanji Kia Henda. In 2008, the […]
The Institute
Cultural institutes are considered effective instruments in foreign policy for any nation-state […]
Manufacturing African Celebrity
Jesse Weaver Shipley* explores the power of celebrity in contemporary African pop culture […]
Soft Power Desire Machines and the Production of Africa Rising
By Chronic on 19 March 2015 in Arts & Pedagogy, Cash & Commerce, Faith & Ideology, Media & Propaganda, Systems of Governance
Alongside texts by Jesse Weaver Shipley, Moses März and Oribhabor […]
Creative Industries as Underdevelopment
By Chronic on 19 March 2015 in Archive, Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Cash & Commerce, Faith & Ideology
Are the creative industries turning the tide against urban development in the […]
Reviews in Brief
by Stacy Hardy. Our Lady of the Nile Scholastique Mukasonga (transl. […]
Portrait of the Artist as a Daughter
by Ed Pavlić. “Where material is absent, dialectics is groundless.” – James Snead, […]
Undoing the Spell
By Chronic on 19 March 2015 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies, Systems of Governance
by Ben Verghese. Many of the dominant narratives of the partition focus on […]
Which Africa Are We Talking About?
By Chronic on 19 March 2015 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Faith & Ideology, Media & Propaganda
In the era of rapid globalisation the exemplary novelists seem to be […]
Shooting From Point Blank Range
By Chronic on 19 March 2015 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Media & Propaganda, Systems of Governance
Moses Serubiri turns on the television and watches the news unfold, in […]
We almost died thrice…
A letter from Lagos by Wanlov the Kubolor. I dey lie for […]
How Close Are You To This Place?
by Karen Press. Where is the heart of darkness? We think we know. It’s […]
Preliminary Notes for a Mediterranean Manifesto
By Chronic on 15 February 2015 in Arts & Pedagogy, Cash & Commerce, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies
Connecting ancience and modern roots/routes Rasheed Araeen redraws the boundaries and limits of identity. […]
Gateway
A video-work from Berni Searle‘s “Black smoke rising” trilogy; the title alluding to the […]
What Follows? The State of Black Collectivity in the Year of the Sheep
By Chronic on 20 January 2015 in Archive, Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Faith & Ideology, Media & Propaganda, Systems of Governance
Continuing to sing a vital and urgent message of black collectivity, Harmony Holiday writes from […]
Between Worldliness and Exile Homelessness and Cosmopolitanism
With essays by Akin Adesokan, Imraan Coovadia and Ngugi wa Thiong’o bound together, Sean O’Toole examines idiosyncratic writing […]
Dispatches from Beirut
Comic artist and musician Mazen Kerbaj keeps a visual diary of a week […]
In the Listening Room with Neo Muyanga
This Thursday (January 15), Pan African Space Station present “Revolting Songs”, a concert-lecture […]
The African Renaissance Hoer-o-scope for Politicians
By Chronic on 8 January 2015 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Faith & Ideology, Systems of Governance
by Zebulon Dread ARIES Your best bet at survival is not a […]
The Story of an African Farm
By Chronic on 8 January 2015 in Arts & Pedagogy, Cash & Commerce, Healing & bodies, Media & Propaganda
The Chronic visits wine farms across the Boland area of the Western Cape and […]
The Alternative is at Hand
Working within the black radical tradition, Fred Moten and Stefano Harney frame a […]
Propaganda and Politics tunnel vision history of art activism in South Africa
By Chronic on 9 December 2014 in Archive, Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Media & Propaganda, Systems of Governance
The important contribution of the Black Consciousness Movement to art activism in […]
The New Thing
Out of the silence, the crevices, cracks and forgotten places of Cape […]
Midway Between Silence and Speech
The art and incarnation of Justine Gaga explores the multi-layered and emotionally […]
Exitour as Rhizome
“Why did we embark on this insane trip?” Having journeyed together from Douala to […]
Une Hommage à Goddy Leye
By Chronic on 21 November 2014 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies, Media & Propaganda, News
With his imagination, sharp wit and all-round uncontournable wholesome beautyness, Goddy Leye has […]
The Beautiful Beast
by Goddy Leye This still from Goddy Leye’s […]
The G.Spot Protagonists
By Chronic on 19 November 2014 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Healing & bodies, Systems of Governance
by Goddy Leye I am sitting in front of the Cologne cathedral, amazed by […]
Philatelic Pan Africanism
The Otolith Group, founded by Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun in 2002, uses […]
Poets Pressing Record(s)
by Harmony Holiday Privacy is dead and the word itself sounds a […]
Mythscience Records
Mythscience Records, a label arkiving necessary voices for us all to learn from. Poet Harmony […]
Floyd Mayweather and Improvised Modalities of Rhythm
by Steve Coleman What makes boxing the sweet science is not two […]
Accordion Cowboys
Tseliso Monaheng explores famo, a popular form of accordion music that blends […]
Why music is better than photography
Why music is better than photography: An argument in two parts by Sean […]
Palestine Journey
By Chronic on 22 August 2014 in Archive, Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Faith & Ideology, Systems of Governance
In February 2005, Ishtiyaq Shukri’s novel The Silent Minaret, won the first European […]
Searching for Augusto Zita
From the Namib desert to an interrogation room on US soil, Victor Gama tracks Augusto […]
A New Myth
Illustrator Nolan Oswald Dennis’s ongoing collaboration with Johannesburg-based performance art ensemble The Brother […]
Masquerade
Michael Jackson alive in Nigeria Featuring the maverick Ejiogbe Twins Photographed by […]
11 YRS OF DEMONCRAZY!!!
By Chronic on 2 July 2014 in Archive, Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Cash & Commerce, Faith & Ideology, Media & Propaganda
11 YRS OF DEMONCRAZY!!! O nee Got.!! Got!!! Got!! ! I can’t […]
Historieda
In his letter from Agolam, Yvan Alagbé riffs off a recent visit […]
New Bush, Old Ghosts
Cyber crime is a burgeoning business in West Africa, despite often primitive […]
When You Kill Us, We Rule
By Chronic on 18 June 2014 in Archive, Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies
Audre Lorde‘s poem, “The Black Unicorn”, is woven into rhetorical charcoal drawings by […]
Obstacles
by Anna Kostreva You know those days when it’s so hard […]
A Brief History of Throwing Shit
By Chronic on 9 May 2014 in Archive, Arts & Pedagogy, Healing & bodies, Media & Propaganda, Systems of Governance
by Rustum Kozain. Shit, muck, drek, kak. Faecal matter. We humans have a […]
On Mermaids and Microwaves
Diriye Osman is a storyteller – on page, stage and canvas. His […]
“Nice Nice” Will Get You Nowhere
Boniface Mwangi is a Kenyan photographer who pulls no punches in using […]
Happy Valentine’s Day
Exactly twenty five years ago today, Salman Rushdie received an unusual Valentine: a […]
Method After Fela
By Chimurenga on 6 February 2014 in Archive, Arts & Pedagogy, Healing & bodies, Systems of Governance
by Akin Adesokan “You reckon a guy just goes and cuts […]
Translations – A Call For Proposals
This call is published in the December 2013 edition […]
Woza Moya
Maakomele R. Manaka revisits a soundtrack of his dreams, long and rhythmic […]
The Last Angel of History
Filmmaker, theorist and co-founder of the Black Audio Film Collective (BAFC) John […]
Say What You Mean
Vocabulary and translation, exercises, games — lessons — from Karen Press for you to get your […]
Americanah and other definitions of supple citizenships
By Chronic on 8 October 2013 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Chronic, Faith & Ideology, Media & Propaganda
Yemisi Aribisala reads the new novel by Nigeria’s ‘woman of letters’ and encounters […]
Depth of Field
Depth of Field (DOF) collective, a group made up of six Nigerian […]
When We Hear the Name of President
Nigerian poet Tanure Ojaide evokes a language of high stakes, hi-jinx, and […]
Lagos Underground
In the 1930s, Harry Beck published a map of the London Underground […]
Lagos: A Pilgrimage in Notations
Having lived away from Nigeria for most of his adult life – […]
Mining Sounds: Lagos – Cairo
Emeka Ogboh‘s art works require audiences to hone their listening and hearing skills. Turning […]
Washing Henry – a letter from New York
by Dave McKenzie As a memento of the process, I received a […]
Interactions: A Strategy of Difference and Repetition
Interactions Interactions is an edited excerpt from filmmaker, writer and artist Aryan […]
Death by Memory [of Freedom]; Truth & Reconciliation
By Chronic on 5 August 2013 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Healing & bodies, Systems of Governance
A tryptych in honour of Steve Biko. Firstly, Graeme Arendse, as his alter-ego Ramgee, presents In […]
America Will Always Blame…
Rigo 23, born Ricardo Gouveia, is a Portuguese muralist, painter, and political […]
Senselessness
Stacy Hardy reviews the English translation of Horacio Castellanos Moya‘s Senselessness (New Directions, 2008, Katherine […]
Rest In Peace Chiwoniso Maraire
Zimbabwean musician Chiwoniso Maraire, died on July 24, 2013, at age 37. […]
Godhead
Excerpted from Godhead, Ho Che Anderson‘s science fiction novel. A kind of class struggle […]
In Defense Of The Films We Have Made
by Odia Ofeimun On the theme of Motion Picture as a tool […]
I Smoked A Spliff With Jesus Christ
I smoked a spliff with Jesus Christ last night. Then leaned over […]
Who Killed Christopher Okigbo
1.Night/Outside At sea. Mythic times There is a storm. We see wooden […]
What’s Next
Socially conscious rhymes and hipster swag; sexy dance moves and magical mbira; […]
Rotimi Fani-Kayode (1955-1989)
Photographs by Rotimi Fani-Kayode. These photos first appeared in print in Chimurenga Vol. 4: Black […]
We Used To Dance
Sandile Dikeni reviews We Used To Dance, an album from Andile Yenana. Listen. […]
Relaxing
By Chronic on 31 May 2013 in Archive, Arts & Pedagogy, Cash & Commerce, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies
Okello Sam, a dance and theatre artist (amongst other things), examines the […]
Graveyards, monuments and African Studies
by Nicole Sarmiento. “I have argued that the problem with this course is […]
Moses’ outro
Does life begin at 40? That’s the time signature Moses Taiwa Molelekwa […]
Ten paragraphs of Music Criticism
More Brilliant Than the Sun? Kodwo Eshun discusses ten paragraphs of music criticism. […]
Bajove Dokotela
By Chronic on 14 April 2013 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Chimurenga Magazine, Faith & Ideology, Healing & bodies
Let the good Dr [Philip Tabane] inject you in three ways; music, words, video. Records for Bajove Dokotela mix selected and blended by Ntone Edjabe, quotes from Sello Edwin Galane’s thesis.
The night Moses died (Parts one and two)
The night Moses died (Part one) by Nicole Turner The night […]
Kin La Belle
Yvonne Owuor takes a pilgrimage to Kin La Belle and finds a […]
To Be or Not To Bop
To Be or Not To Bop by Amiri Baraka I was […]
The anti-art of Kongofuturism
In the multidisciplinary lifework of Bebson Elemba, Eléonore Hellio discovers the mind […]
Call for an Archive of AfroSonics
By Chimurenga on 13 April 2013 in Archive, Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Chronic, Healing & bodies, Media & Propaganda, Music, PASS
The collective improvisations of black America – and their profound impact on poetry and sound – are near impossible to find in the annals of US academe. In fact, their absence is as stark as the control of archiving is white, writes Harmony Holiday.
Language Games
For poet Karen Press opposites are already united; they depend on each […]
Letters to Hillbrow
As part of a walk-in research project inspired by the novels Welcome […]
Bra Tebs talks
Was Bra Tebs’ “4 Blokes & 1 Doll” show the highlight of Cape […]
All Roads Lead to Hendrix
Greg Tate‘s epic Hendrixian map hyperlinked to the hilt. As all roads […]
San Pedro V: The Hope I Hope
Identity, politics, rock ‘n roll, soap operas and sentimental songs; humor, hysteria and […]
The Afflicted Yard: The Rock
In 2004, the famously anonymous British artist Banksy visited Jamaica, and met Peter Dean Rickards, […]
Salut Deleuze!
Culled from a comic book tribute to, and intellectual biography of, Gilles Deleuze […]
Did You Kiss the Dead Body?
Two in one: firstly Rajkamal Kahlon introduces her project, Did You Kiss the Dead Body?, then […]
An Introduction to Arithmetic Sorcery
Cyclonopedia – Complicity with Anonymous Materials (re.press, 2008), a “theoretical-fiction novel” by Iranian […]
The Boys are Doin’ it!
Fela is dead and so is his anti-materialist political message. Modern Afropop […]
52 Niggers
By Stacy Hardy. Julius Eastman had a way of walking. He had […]
Under the rainbow rays
Dathini Mzayiya‘s new exhibition Onder die reёnboog strale (Under the rainbow rays […]
Dr Satan’s Echo Chamber
Reggae, technology and the diaspora… Louis Chude-Sokei documents the transatlantic (un)making of […]
The Adventures of Dr Evil in Dakar
President Abdoulaye Wade recently claimed intellectual property rights of the “African […]
Les Saignantes
A young woman, beautiful, 20-something, is fucking […]
This Young (Wo)man
Tumelo Khoza at Poetry Africa 16 By Rustum Kozain As […]
Yellow Fever, NKO?
Skin bleaching is often described as a manifestation of ‘colo-mentality’. However, argues […]
Folk Dancing For Beginners
Karen Press (He sets the tone) In my country the president rises […]
Do Right Women: Black Women, Eroticism and Classic Blues
By Kalamu ya Salaam 1. I’m going to show you […]
Evidence
Brent Hayes Edwards The cell is four meters long and two meters […]
Somewhere between a scream and a lullaby
In a city where the boundaries between life and death are laid […]
Sortir de la grande nuit. Essai sur l’Afrique décolonisée
By Chimurenga on 8 December 2010 in Arts & Pedagogy, Books & Oration, Media & Propaganda, Systems of Governance
Norbert N. Ouendji interviews Achille Mbembe before Afropolitanism (circa 2010) « Sortir de […]
Calabash Afrobeat Poems
By Chimurenga on 15 October 2010 in Arts & Pedagogy, Media & Propaganda, Music, PASS, Systems of Governance, Video
by Dike Okoro Ikwunga Wonodi is not a new face among Afrobeat […]
Felasophy Through the Years: Fond Recollections of Fela Kuti
Growing up in post civil-war Kaduna, Northern Nigeria, in the early seventies, […]