Systems of Governance

The Power of Green Crayons

Agri Ismaïl recalls growing up off the map… belonging to one of the largest diasporas on earth, but seemingly out of step with his state of being

The University of Soweto

Frank B. Wilderson draws from his memory of student protests in 1993 at Vista University in Soweto.

Ranga Mberi travels back in musical time to the 1980s and 1990s, the era of sungura music. Dubbed the “authentic sound of Zimbabwe”, sungura weaved together Congolese rumba with Zimbabwean jiti and Tanzanian kanindo.

A Night with a Elephant – a live reading

We are delighted to present a live reading of “Night with the Elephant”, as rehearsal for a radio play, and to launch “The Revolutionary Thoughts of Kwame Nkrumah”, a new collection published by Inkani Books (Jhb) and edited by Efemia Chela and Vijay Prashad – Efemia will present this new collection before the reading.

IZIMPABANGA ZOMHLABA – Ukulalela ukufundwa kwesiqephu noNombuso Mathibela

Thursday 22 August 2024, 6pm
Chimurenga Factroy
www.panafricanspacestation.org.za

NATIONAL HEROES ACRE II & III

by Brian Chikwa, Photographs by Jekesai Njikizanava

Festac: Idia Tales – Three Takes and a Mask*

By Dominique Malaquais and Cedric Vincent

BUILDING THE HOUSE OF LIFE

Ayi Kwei Armah traces the contour of an old conflict and a lifelong struggle for the birth of the beautyful ones.

pumflet ‘hophuis’

‘hophuis’ documents a series of journeys to and activations made at the Steinkopf Community Centre in Namaqualand in South Africa’s Northern Cape.

Nigerian Boycott of South African Goods poster

50 Years Ago: Zeke in Nigeria

Es’kia Mphahlele and the Anti-Apartheid Association of Nigeria

You Look Illegal

A mediation on skin, violence, and the limits of citizenship in a country where black lives have long been brutally (mis)handled by Paula Ihozo Akugizibiwe.

Calabash Afrobeat Poems

Dike Okoro interviews Ikwunga Wonodi

Guilt Trips

Kai Friese interrogates the colonial fantasy that lives on in the sententious philanthropy of ethical tourism.

Never, ever let any monster abuse your science!

Renfrew Christie’s Speech to the Science Graduation Ceremony of the University of Witwatersrand, 2008

Notes for an Oratorio on small things that fall

Aditi Hunma reviews the launch of Notes for an Oratorio on Small Things That Fall, the latest offering from Ari Sitas

La Discothèque de Sarah Maldoror (tracklisting)

decomposed, an-arranged, and reproduced by Ntone Edjabe

THE WRITINGS OF BINYAVANGA WAINAINA

Launching a new collection of writings by the late, great Binyavanga Wainaina

LIBERATION RADIO

an ongoing query on knowledge production via African sound worlds, and long-term research on broadcasting and cultural initiatives by liberation movements across the continent

PASS LANDING IN DAR-ES-SALAAM

From 10 – 14 August 2022, we presented another edition of “Liberation Radio”, an ongoing research conducted primarily through broadcasting practice

CHIMURENGA@20: MURIMI MUNHU

Panashe Chigumadzi travels to the rural Zimbabwe of her ancestors, onto land stolen and cash-cropped by a privileged minority under racist white rule.

CHIMURENGA@20: GENRES OF HUMAN

In his book, The Sound of Culture: Diaspora and Black Technopoetics, Louis Chude-Sokei samples freely from history, music, literature and science, conjuring new meanings from dead texts, to build an echo chamber where the discourses of race and technology collide

LIBERATION RADIO

We’re proud to present a new edition of “Liberation Radio”

CHIMURENGA@20: AZANIA SALUTES TOSH

On the eve of the tenth anniversary of the death of Bantu Steve Biko, a stunned and outraged Azania heard that the Vampire had martyred Peter Tosh.

CHIMURENGA@20: ONCE THERE WERE HUMANS

In the hills above Kingston, Jamaica Annie Paul unpacks some baggage in a rare interview with Peter Abrahams, the South African-born writer and ardent Pan-Africanist.

CHIMURENGA@20: WHEN YOU KILL US, WE RULE!

In 1996, Keziah Jones visited Kalakuta Republic every day for a week to interview Fela Anikulapo Kuti. On the fifth day, after waiting six hours, Keziah got to speak with Fela, who he remarked kept you in “constant and direct eye contact” and spoke “in short bursts of baritone.”

LIBERATION RADIO: PEOPLE WHO THINK TOGETHER, DANCE TOGETHER #7

Conversations with Christian Nyampeta, featuring Hannah Black, Sasha Bonét, Natacha Nsabimana, Olu Oguibe and Emmanuel Olunkwa.
Live on PASS – 24-26 May 2022 – from 6pm

LIBERATION RADIO: PUNGWE 1

Selected and mixed by Robert Machiri

CHIMURENGA@20: THE WARM-UP

The xenophobic violence that swept through many communities in South Africa in 2008 was not a sudden phenomenon. Victims and an alleged instigator date the origins of this wave to a township in Pretoria, writes Kwanele Sosibo.

Launching NOTES FOR AN ORATORIO ON SMALL THINGS THAT FALL

Wednesday, 13 April 2022
Chimurenga Factory
6pm

iPhupho L’ka Biko – live at the Chimurenga Factory

Thursday, 31 March 2022
7pm

Chimurenganyana: You Look Illegal by Paula Ihozo Akugizibwe (Feb 2022)

A mediation on skin, violence, and the limits of citizenship in a country where black lives have long been brutally (mis)handled.

Liberation Radio: Cape Town – 15-18 March 2022

Live on PASS: 15th-18th March 2022, 3-6pm

CHIMURENGA@20: Talkin’ ‘bout Survival – The Repatriation of Reggae

Where Apartheid and broadcasters divided South Africans culturally, here comes bongo natty dread to motivate U-N-I-T-Y.

The Africans, A Radio Play in Three Acts

Worldwide premiere live on PASS – 09-11 February 2022

You Look Illegal by Paula Ihozo Akugizibwe

The latest addition to the Chimurenganyana series available now

Pieces of Dominique

The writings, translations and ideas of our dearly departed friend, comrade and co-conspirator Dominique Malaquais (1964-2021), in Chimurenga

Koltan Kills Kids

By Tsuba Ka 23 (Dominique Malaquais, Mowoso, Kongo Astronauts)

That Thing We Dreamed

By Dominique Malaquais

Rumblin’

By Dominique Malaquais

FRANTZ – A STORY OF BONES

By Dominique Malaquais

SEXING AFRICA, AGAIN – POP AS POLITICS: WATCH IT TONIGHT ON HBO

By Dominique Malaquais

Blood Money – A Douala Chronicle

By Dominique Malaquais

LINDELA (The Winnie Suite)

By Dominique Malaquais

The Franc-maçonnerie Suite

by Henri Kala-Lobe and Dominique Malaquais

PAINT THE WHITE HOUSE BLACK – A CALL TO ARMS

By Dominique Malaquais

WHO WILL SAVE THE SAVIOURS?

A close gaze at the collective apathy that killed Dr. Sebi

THIRD TRANSITION

Shoks Mzolo and Bongani Kona trace the path of South Africa’s transformation from a criminal apartheid state to a criminal neoliberal state

“Angazi, but I’m sure”: A Raw Académie Session

Between the Lines of an Unpatriotic Presidential Pre-Recorded Address

FOURTH REPUBLIC 19 conducts a post-mortem on not-so-presidential minutes in recorded Nigerian history.

RADIO MAC ON PASS – 14-21 June

Chimurenga and Hangar (Lisbon) present Radio MAC live on PASS 14-21 June 2021, 6pm.

The Enemy in Her Imagination: A Fable

Rahel first met the young, 11-year old boy, on December 21, 2006. That was the day after the war in Somalia was declared.

Remember Glissant

Moses März writes of Édouard Glissant, Martinican, poet and compatriot of the more celebrated Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon

CHIMURENGA CHRONIC – IMAGI-NATION NWAR – OUT NOW!

“The Oppressor Remains What He Is”

Your Own Hand Sold You: Voluntary servitude in the Francafrique

In the CFA franc, the French colonial mission in West Africa found a way to ensure a paternalist and pernicious stranglehold on the economies of a vast region of the continent.

Chimurenganyana: Becoming Kwame Ture by Amandla Thomas-Johnson (Oct 2020)

THIRD CLASS CITY

South Africa thinks that India owes it one for putting Gandhi through revolution school; India thinks South Africa owes it for sending him over to show the natives how it’s done.

Ibadan, Soutin and the Puzzle of Bower’s Tower

The jingle would survive the event, as the poetry of a battle-cry outlives a war, but that eventuality belonged in the future.

Where Terror Lies

The rhetoric of ‘radical’ and ‘fundamentalist’ Islam, of ‘global jihad’ and ‘terror’ is, ironically, historical and recoverable from the irrational.

Nigeria’s Superstar Men Of God

Who needs the God of the bible with his promises of trials and tribulations, crosses and paths of repentance? Yemisi Aribisala listens to the sermons, counts the money, watches the high-flying life of Nigeria’s mega-preachers and wonders.

African Cities Reader I: Pan-African Practices

Featuring writing and musings by Rustum Kozain, Jean-Christophe Lanquetin, Gabebab Baderoon, Karen Press and more…

African Cities Reader II: Mobilities & Fixtures

The second installment of the Reader features Sean O’Toole, David Adjaye, Vicotr Lavalle, Martin Kimani, Sherif El-Azma and more…

African Cities Reader III: Land, Property & Value

The third installment of the Reader explores the unholy trinity of land, property and value – the life force of cities everywhere. In this issue António Andrade Tomás reveals the vice and violence that permeate the act of securing land and home in Luanda;

The Meaning of Being Numerous

The man who sets up the bomb is long gone before it goes off.

How Third World Students Liberated the West

In a twist to mainstream tropes of radical student movements of the 1960s, and their impact on the history of political thought and action, Pedro Monaville argues that the terrains of the Third World, and particularly the history of student movements in Congo, are vital to explore if we are to makes sense of how that period informs the present.

Monumental Failures

By Dominique Malaquais

Urbanism Beyond Architecture – African Cities as Infrastructure

Vyjayanthi Rao, in conversation with Filip de Boeck & Abdou Maliq Simone

Remembering Biafra

In 1968, Nigeria’s finance minister, agricultural produce mogul Obafemi Awolowo declared: “Starvation is a legitimate weapon of war, and we have every intention to use it against the rebels.”

Wrestling With A Warlord

Louis Chude-Sokei narrates a story of Nigeria, of splintered identity, of exile, and of the Biafran War and its godfather – his godfather – General Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu

HOW THE WEST WAS LOST

If one thinks about it the whole thing goes back to amaQheya; the cultural proletariat… a proletariat with a cultural history that has taught it to be careful of an African existence…

FESTAC 77 BOOK (Oct 2019)

Early in 1977, thousands of artists, writers, musicians, activists and scholars from Africa and the black diaspora assembled in Lagos for FESTAC ’77, the 2nd World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture. With a radically ambitious agenda underwritten by Nigeria’s newfound oil wealth, FESTAC ’77 would unfold as a complex, glorious and excessive culmination of a half-century of transatlantic and pan-Africanist cultural-political gatherings.

SALUT GLISSANT

“Nothing is true, everything is alive.”
Moses März, imagines a conversation between Edoaurd Glissant and Patrick Chamoiseau about the Philosophy of Relation.

IN MEMORIAM: Binyavanga Wainaina (1971 – 2019)

A friend, a Chimurenga founding father, an award winning writer, author, journalist, chef, lover, a literary revolutionary and an inspiration. We pay tribute.

Frantz Fanon’s Uneven Ribs

For me knowledge is very powerful. Any knowledge has claws and teeth. If you don’t see the teeth and the claws then it is useless, then somebody has emasculated it.

Search Sweet Country

In conversation with Binyavanga Wainaina, Kojo Laing talks to a future Ghana by exposing its present, full of the jargons and certainties of one dimensional nation building.

The Agronomist

Stacy Hardy follows the path of JJ Machobane, the social visionary, writer and agronomist from Lesotho, who challenged orthodox colonial thinking about land and land use.

The Pharaoh’s New Clothes

Its location, vocation, and publication intended to speak to a politicised Third World imaginary.

Who Killed Kabila

New Cartographies

MOLOTOV COCKTAIL

LAMALIF

A Day in the Life of Idi Amin

The hot dry breeze is lazy. It glides languorously collecting odd bits of paper, they tease the ground, threaten to take flight, tease the ground.

How To Be A Dictator

Binyavanga Wainaina presents 16 Rules for Big Man aspirations

WHAT AFRICAN WRITERS CAN LEARN FROM CHEIKH ANTA DIOP

In a testament to Cheikh Anta Diop, Boubacar Boris Diop raises radical views on creative writing, a challenge to what he laments as our literary Sahara.

The Chronic: Who Killed Kabila II

On January 16, 2001, in the middle of the day, shots are heard in the Palais de Marbre,the residence of President Laurent-Désiré Kabila. The road bordering the presidential residence, usually closed from 6pm by a simple guarded barrier is blocked by tanks.