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Archive | Arts & Pedagogy RSS feed for this section

Thinking of Brenda

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 […]

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“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.

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Reform and Revolution at the University of Lovanium

In this essay on the gestation, articulations and manipulations of student politics […]

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Marcus Garvey is Alive in East Africa

A university in eastern Uganda, named in honour of the pan African […]

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The Picture

By Suren Pillay The picture swayed from side to side like a […]

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Inaudible I

By Salim Washington and Winston ‘Mankunku’ Ngozi Winston ‘Mankunku’ Ngozi: Ja, well, […]

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Giant Steps – from a film by Aryan Kaganof and Geoff Mphakati

By Aryan Kaganof & Geoff Mphakati We’re only preparing you to get […]

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Dear Dr. Schwab, Queen of Jordan

Binyavanga Wainaina responds to an invitation to participate in Young Global Leaders 2007

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Folk Dancing for Beginners

By Karen Press   (He sets the tone) In my country the […]

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Dansons Donc le Zouglou

By Henri-Michel Yere Déscolarisé In 1980s Côte d’Ivoire, exclusion from the schooling […]

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Sermon on the Train

By Isabel Hofmeyer 11.45 am on a Tuesday morning in October and […]

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Lagos, Lagos

By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Chidera’s taxi crawled over Third Mainland Bridge, towards […]

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The Amazing Career of Passport Number B957848

By Akin Adesokan (For Larry Siems & Aimee Liu) I The wait […]

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Creating Theatre: A George Hallett Photo Essay

“Exile demands contemplation because it is unavoidably real for those who experience […]

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Topaze

By Baudouin Mouanda     Topaze is available in print as part of […]

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Rumblin’

By Dominique Malaquais  Tell It To The World April 1st 1974.[1] Before […]

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Variations on the Beautiful in the Congolese World of Sounds

by Achille Mbembe; translated by Dominique Malaquais

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Gordon Parks Photo Essay

Katherine and Elridge Cleaver (Algiers, 1970)         Ethel Sharriff […]

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The Sound of Freedom

[…]For over a decade Louis Moholo has been the only surviving member […]

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Liner Notes

As listening trends move rapidly to the online interface, the knowing of […]

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What We Did After We Lost 100 Years of Wealth

By Agri Ismaïl “World finance had, in 2008, a near-death experience.” The […]

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Gospel Christian Porn Rap

Fucking with the puritanical social mores that pervade the world’s most religious […]

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Invisible Borders

By Emmanuel Iduma Founded in 2009 by a group of Nigerian photographers […]

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Mining the Biennale

In late 2012, two contemporary art exhibitions opened in the same country, […]

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Love and Learning Under the World Bank

Stacy Hardy recounts seventeen stories of the hierarchies, the anti-heroes, the hard […]

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Archie Shepp’s Shirt Suggests

By Dominique Malaquais and Cédric Vincent

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A Silent Way: Routes of South African Jazz, 1946-1978.

By Julian Jonker First, a warning. The writer approaching the intersections and digressions […]

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Together in the Picture

John Peffer scans the photographic styles that image a black South African […]

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Land Homeland

Q&A with Mahmood Mamdani Chronic: Your book Define and Rule: Native as […]

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Sounding the Horn on Reconstruction

The role of art and literature in countries of the Horn of […]

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Queenstown

By Sandile Dikeni The grass in Queenstown was pink in 1996. Or, […]

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Season’s Greetings

By Rayyane Tabet On the morning of 1 December 1960, thousands of […]

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Ayinde Barrister: Tribute to a True Exponent

By Akin Adekosan The setting was a night party somewhere in Old […]

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Jeune Afrique

By Moses Marz In 1968, Béchir Ben Yahmed launched his first attempt […]

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Souffles

By Toni Maraini The first issue was thin, but it responded “to […]

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El-Salahi – The Wise Enemy

By Hassan Musa I want to introduce Ibrahim El-Salahi here as “our […]

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Al Fatah

By Anthony James Ratcliff Al Fatah was an extremely popular organisation at the […]

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Trajectories of the Sudanese Gulf

By Michael Vasquez Hiwar The journal that the Congress for Cultural Freedom […]

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Ibrahim El-Salahi

By Michael Vasquez Ibrahim El-Salahi had a show at the Tate Modern […]

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Entretien Bouchra Khalili

An interview with Bouchra Khalili by Cedric Vincent Bouchra Khalili (née à Casablanca […]

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1966

By Michael Vasquez After World War II, the idea was that there […]

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Hiwar

By Michael Vasquez The journal that the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) published […]

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The New Reading

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.

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CHIMURENGA@20: WAITING FOR WAME

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.

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Authority Stealing in Kenya

In pursuit of some scriptwriter talent, Billy Kahora discovers that academic mantras, […]

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Under the Caine Bridge

by Bwesigye bwa Mwesigire 2000 There are two rivers of Literature, so-called […]

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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.

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The Shifting Fortunes of a Performing Poet

Post-apartheid poetry and its makers have witnessed the commodification of the art […]

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Black Man in the White Suit

A Letter from Cape Town by Kiluanji Kia Henda. In 2008, the […]

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The Institute

Cultural institutes are considered effective instruments in foreign policy for any nation-state […]

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Manufacturing African Celebrity

Jesse Weaver Shipley* explores the power of celebrity in contemporary African pop culture […]

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Soft Power Desire Machines and the Production of Africa Rising

      Alongside texts by Jesse Weaver Shipley, Moses März and Oribhabor […]

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Creative Industries as Underdevelopment

Are the creative industries turning the tide against urban development in the […]

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Reviews in Brief

by Stacy Hardy.   Our Lady of the Nile Scholastique Mukasonga (transl. […]

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Portrait of the Artist as a Daughter

by Ed Pavlić. “Where material is absent, dialectics is groundless.” – James Snead, […]

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Undoing the Spell

by Ben Verghese. Many of the dominant narratives of the partition focus on […]

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Which Africa Are We Talking About?

In the era of rapid globalisation the exemplary novelists seem to be […]

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Shooting From Point Blank Range

Moses Serubiri turns on the television and watches the news unfold, in […]

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We almost died thrice…

A letter from Lagos by Wanlov the Kubolor. I dey lie for […]

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How Close Are You To This Place?

by Karen Press. Where is the heart of darkness? We think we know. It’s […]

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Preliminary Notes for a Mediterranean Manifesto

Connecting ancience and modern roots/routes Rasheed Araeen redraws the boundaries and limits of identity. […]

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Gateway

A video-work from Berni Searle‘s “Black smoke rising” trilogy; the title alluding to the […]

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What Follows? The State of Black Collectivity in the Year of the Sheep

Continuing to sing a vital and urgent message of black collectivity, Harmony Holiday writes from […]

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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 […]

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Dispatches from Beirut

Comic artist and musician Mazen Kerbaj keeps a visual diary of a week […]

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In the Listening Room with Neo Muyanga

This Thursday (January 15), Pan African Space Station present “Revolting Songs”,  a concert-lecture […]

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The African Renaissance Hoer-o-scope for Politicians

by Zebulon Dread ARIES Your best bet at survival is not a […]

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The Story of an African Farm

The Chronic visits wine farms across the Boland area of the Western Cape and […]

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The Alternative is at Hand

Working within the black radical tradition, Fred Moten and Stefano Harney frame a […]

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Propaganda and Politics tunnel vision history of art activism in South Africa

The important contribution of the Black Consciousness Movement to art activism in […]

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The New Thing

Out of the silence, the crevices, cracks and forgotten places of Cape […]

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Midway Between Silence and Speech

The art and incarnation of Justine Gaga explores the multi-layered and emotionally […]

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Exitour as Rhizome

“Why did we embark on this insane trip?” Having journeyed together from Douala to […]

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Une Hommage à Goddy Leye

With his imagination, sharp wit and all-round uncontournable wholesome beautyness, Goddy Leye has […]

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The Beautiful Beast

by Goddy Leye         This still from Goddy Leye’s […]

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The G.Spot Protagonists

by Goddy Leye I am sitting in front of the Cologne cathedral, amazed by […]

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Philatelic Pan Africanism

The Otolith Group, founded by Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun in 2002, uses […]

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Poets Pressing Record(s)

by Harmony Holiday  Privacy is dead and the word itself sounds a […]

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Mythscience Records

Mythscience Records, a label arkiving necessary voices for us all to learn from. Poet Harmony […]

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Floyd Mayweather and Improvised Modalities of Rhythm

by Steve Coleman What makes boxing the sweet science is not two […]

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Accordion Cowboys

Tseliso Monaheng explores famo, a popular form of accordion music that blends […]

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Why music is better than photography

Why music is better than photography: An argument in two parts by Sean […]

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Palestine Journey

In February 2005, Ishtiyaq Shukri’s novel The Silent Minaret, won the first European […]

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Searching for Augusto Zita

From the Namib desert to an interrogation room on US soil, Victor Gama tracks Augusto […]

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A New Myth

Illustrator Nolan Oswald Dennis’s ongoing collaboration with Johannesburg-based performance art ensemble The Brother […]

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Masquerade

Michael Jackson alive in Nigeria Featuring the maverick Ejiogbe Twins Photographed by […]

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11 YRS OF DEMONCRAZY!!!

11 YRS OF DEMONCRAZY!!! O nee Got.!! Got!!! Got!! ! I can’t […]

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Historieda

In his letter from Agolam, Yvan Alagbé riffs off a recent visit […]

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New Bush, Old Ghosts

Cyber crime is a burgeoning business in West Africa, despite often primitive […]

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When You Kill Us, We Rule

Audre Lorde‘s poem, “The Black Unicorn”, is woven into rhetorical charcoal drawings by […]

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Obstacles

by Anna Kostreva   You know those days when it’s so hard […]

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A Brief History of Throwing Shit

by Rustum Kozain.  Shit, muck, drek, kak. Faecal matter. We humans have a […]

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On Mermaids and Microwaves

Diriye Osman is a storyteller – on page, stage and canvas. His […]

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“Nice Nice” Will Get You Nowhere

Boniface Mwangi is a Kenyan photographer who pulls no punches in using […]

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Happy Valentine’s Day

Exactly twenty five years ago today, Salman Rushdie received an unusual Valentine: a […]

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Method After Fela

by Akin Adesokan   “You reckon a guy just goes and cuts […]

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Translations – A Call For Proposals

      This call is published in the December 2013 edition […]

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Woza Moya

Maakomele R. Manaka revisits a soundtrack of his dreams, long and rhythmic […]

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The Last Angel of History

Filmmaker, theorist and co-founder of the Black Audio Film Collective (BAFC) John […]

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Say What You Mean

Vocabulary and translation, exercises, games — lessons — from Karen Press for you to get your […]

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Americanah and other definitions of supple citizenships

Yemisi Aribisala reads the new novel by Nigeria’s ‘woman of letters’ and encounters […]

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Depth of Field

Depth of Field (DOF) collective, a group made up of six Nigerian […]

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When We Hear the Name of President

Nigerian poet Tanure Ojaide evokes a language of high stakes, hi-jinx, and […]

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Lagos Underground

In the 1930s, Harry Beck published a map of the London Underground […]

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Lagos: A Pilgrimage in Notations

Having lived away from Nigeria for most of his adult life – […]

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Mining Sounds: Lagos – Cairo

Emeka Ogboh‘s art works require audiences to hone their listening and hearing skills. Turning […]

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Washing Henry – a letter from New York

by Dave McKenzie As a memento of the process, I received a […]

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Interactions: A Strategy of Difference and Repetition

Interactions Interactions is an edited excerpt from filmmaker, writer and artist Aryan […]

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Death by Memory [of Freedom]; Truth & Reconciliation

A tryptych in honour of Steve Biko. Firstly, Graeme Arendse, as his alter-ego Ramgee, presents In […]

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America Will Always Blame…

Rigo 23, born Ricardo Gouveia, is a Portuguese muralist, painter, and political […]

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Senselessness

Stacy Hardy reviews the English translation of Horacio Castellanos Moya‘s Senselessness (New Directions, 2008, Katherine […]

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Rest In Peace Chiwoniso Maraire

Zimbabwean musician Chiwoniso Maraire, died on July 24, 2013, at age 37. […]

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Godhead

Excerpted from Godhead, Ho Che Anderson‘s science fiction novel. A kind of class struggle […]

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In Defense Of The Films We Have Made

by Odia Ofeimun On the theme of Motion Picture as a tool […]

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I Smoked A Spliff With Jesus Christ

I smoked a spliff with Jesus Christ last night. Then leaned over […]

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Who Killed Christopher Okigbo

1.Night/Outside At sea. Mythic times There is a storm. We see wooden […]

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What’s Next

Socially conscious rhymes and hipster swag; sexy dance moves and magical mbira; […]

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Rotimi Fani-Kayode (1955-1989)

Photographs by Rotimi Fani-Kayode. These photos first appeared in print in Chimurenga Vol. 4: Black […]

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We Used To Dance

Sandile Dikeni reviews We Used To Dance, an album from Andile Yenana.   Listen. […]

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Relaxing

Okello Sam, a dance and theatre artist (amongst other things), examines the […]

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Graveyards, monuments and African Studies

by Nicole Sarmiento. “I have argued that the problem with this course is […]

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Moses’ outro

Does life begin at 40? That’s the time signature Moses Taiwa Molelekwa […]

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Ten paragraphs of Music Criticism

More Brilliant Than the Sun? Kodwo Eshun discusses ten paragraphs of music criticism. […]

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Bajove Dokotela

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.

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The night Moses died (Parts one and two)

The night Moses died (Part one) by Nicole Turner   The night […]

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Kin La Belle

Yvonne Owuor takes a pilgrimage to Kin La Belle and finds a […]

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To Be or Not To Bop

 To Be or Not To Bop by Amiri Baraka   I was […]

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The anti-art of Kongofuturism

In the multidisciplinary lifework of Bebson Elemba, Eléonore Hellio discovers the mind […]

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Call for an Archive of AfroSonics

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.

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Language Games

For poet Karen Press opposites are already united; they depend on each […]

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Letters to Hillbrow

As part of a walk-in research project inspired by the novels Welcome […]

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Bra Tebs talks

Was Bra Tebs’ “4 Blokes & 1 Doll” show the highlight of Cape […]

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All Roads Lead to Hendrix

Greg Tate‘s epic Hendrixian map hyperlinked to the hilt.  As all roads […]

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San Pedro V: The Hope I Hope

Identity, politics, rock ‘n roll, soap operas and sentimental songs; humor, hysteria and […]

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The Afflicted Yard: The Rock

In 2004, the famously anonymous British artist Banksy visited Jamaica, and met Peter Dean Rickards, […]

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Salut Deleuze!

Culled from a comic book tribute to, and intellectual biography of, Gilles Deleuze […]

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Did You Kiss the Dead Body?

Two in one: firstly Rajkamal Kahlon introduces her project, Did You Kiss the Dead Body?, then […]

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An Introduction to Arithmetic Sorcery

Cyclonopedia – Complicity with Anonymous Materials (re.press, 2008), a “theoretical-fiction novel” by Iranian […]

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The Boys are Doin’ it!

Fela is dead and so is his anti-materialist political message. Modern Afropop […]

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52 Niggers

By Stacy Hardy. Julius Eastman had a way of walking. He had […]

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Under the rainbow rays

Dathini Mzayiya‘s new exhibition Onder die reёnboog strale (Under the rainbow rays […]

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Dr Satan’s Echo Chamber

Reggae, technology and the diaspora… Louis Chude-Sokei documents the transatlantic (un)making of […]

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The Adventures of Dr Evil in Dakar

  President Abdoulaye Wade recently claimed intellectual property rights of the “African […]

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Les Saignantes

          A young woman, beautiful, 20-something, is fucking […]

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This Young (Wo)man

  Tumelo Khoza at Poetry Africa 16 By Rustum Kozain   As […]

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Yellow Fever, NKO?

Skin bleaching is often described as a manifestation of ‘colo-mentality’. However, argues […]

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Folk Dancing For Beginners

Karen Press (He sets the tone) In my country the president rises […]

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Do Right Women: Black Women, Eroticism and Classic Blues

By Kalamu ya Salaam   1.    I’m going to show you […]

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Evidence

Brent Hayes Edwards The cell is four meters long and two meters […]

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Somewhere between a scream and a lullaby

In a city where the boundaries between life and death are laid […]

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Sortir de la grande nuit. Essai sur l’Afrique décolonisée

Norbert N. Ouendji interviews Achille Mbembe before Afropolitanism (circa 2010) « Sortir de […]

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Calabash Afrobeat Poems

by Dike Okoro Ikwunga Wonodi is not a new face among Afrobeat […]

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Felasophy Through the Years: Fond Recollections of Fela Kuti

Growing up in post civil-war Kaduna, Northern Nigeria, in the early seventies, […]

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