Explainers, analyses, and essays on government policies, and political trends and movements around the continent
“Which line, let them bring it out, has had more impact than that like on Cast,” Odumodublvck asks in a radio interview with Beat 99.9FM’s Osi Suave. “Which Hip Hop song,” he continues, “has had more cultural impact, in the last 20 years? Brother in the history of Nigerian Hip Hop, no song has had […]
1 week ago
A significant portion of Wizkid’s imminent HBO documentary Wizkid: Long Live Lagos is devoted to excavating the suffocating grief that arrived in the wake of his mother’s passing. As the documentary reveals, on the day of his historic show at the 60,000-capacity Tottenham Stadium, his mother, Morayo Balogun, was undergoing an emergency surgery. In clips […]
2 weeks ago
My Father’s Shadow is a personal, semi-autobiographical exploration of the Davies brothers. It’s charged as an attempt to make sense of the absence that shaped their formative years.
2 months ago
Despite his embattled situation, writing Wizkid off is a bit premature, he still has a huge fanbase and the talent to command rave reviews from critics.
2 months ago
Maybe Your Idea of Nollywood is Patience Ozokwor in the 2000s Sometime in late January, in a sea of standoffish bodies on an early morning train to Central London, I noticed a bespectacled Black lady rubbing her palms against each other with urgency and felt the need to break the ice. A twenty-minute conversation was […]
2 years ago
Victor Eyike, bird story agency When Moses Aiyenuro fell into a depression in 2019 after failing his engineering exams, he was unable to access mental healthcare. “My life turned around. I felt like a failure. I withdrew from people,” he explained. Luckily for him, he came into contact with a trained therapist, and they started […]
2 years ago
Joshua Idehen’s identity is what should strike you first about him. He is a British-born Nigerian, but he stays in Sweden. His mixed experiences give him an Afropolitan tilt. On the other hand, though, his music style, UK electronic/jazz, is frankly off-Afrobeats, the mainstay of the Nigerian music scene. Yet the themes of his songs […]
2 years ago
Take a trip from Nigeria and Ghana to South Africa with some of the funniest African political moments you’ll ever hear of.
2 years ago
Music rollout processes have taken a new look in recent years. Before an artist releases a song officially, they sometimes tease the track by sharing snippets on their social media platforms. Some artists even incentivise their audiences to participate in challenges to boost the song’s popularity prior to the official release. However, snippets aren’t the […]
2 years ago
In Gangs of Lagos, the Eyo masquerade, which is one of the many cultural emblems of Lagos, is captured. At the start of the movie, during an Eyo procession, the voiceover describes the mystical figures as “guards of the highway of the dead” but also calls them “the first gang in Lagos” and “our most […]
2 years ago
African folktales are stories about the autochthonous people of Africa which are just as old as the continent and are usually handed down from one generation to another. These stories often feature anthropomorphic characters such as animals, ghosts, djinns, etc, and may contain elements of superstition and myth. Ruth Finnegan, in her book Oral Literature […]
2 years ago
By Charles Wachira, bird story agency At just two years of age, Fredrick Ouko contracted polio. The disease left him with both of his legs permanently damaged. It has also left him determined to ensure that people with disabilities get equal opportunities. Today, the 40-year-old identifies with the 2.2% of his fellow countrymen and women […]
2 years ago
