ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT - The African Mirror

Dec

06

2025

Pops Mohamed mixed old and new to reinvent South African music

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

ISMAIL Mohamed-Jan – better known by South African jazz fans as Pops Mohamed – has passed away at the age of 75. His life in music represented a struggle against narrow, oppressive definitions of race, instrumental appropriateness and musical genre. A few days before his death, a remastered version of his 2006 album Kalamazoo, Vol. 5 (A Dedication to Sipho Gumede) had been released on digital platforms ahead of an official launch. Mohamed was born on 10 December 1949 in the working-class gold-mining town of Benoni in South Africa. By his mid-teens, the Group Areas Act – which divided urban…

Nov

29

2025

By AMY ROSS ARGUEDAS and NIC NEWMAN

News influencers are reshaping the media – insights from Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

NEWS creators and influencers have become increasingly important sources of news as more people turn to social media and video networks like Facebook and YouTube to inform themselves. By news creators, we mean individuals who create and distribute content mainly through social and video networks and have some impact on public debates around news and current affairs. While traditional news outlets and journalists still tend to dominate attention for news on legacy platforms like Facebook, data from our Digital News Report 2025 show that news organisations face growing competition from creators on other platforms, especially on newer video-heavy networks. In…

Nov

27

2025

By The African Mirror

Congolese activist creates community radio for farmers

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

ON a humid afternoon in North Kivu, a group of farmers crowd into a low, corrugated-roof community hall, passing around basic feature phones as a young facilitator replays a Jambo Radio podcast on shifting rainfall patterns and the economics of oil extraction in Africa. The audio cuts, and the questions begin: a few sharp, several hesitant, many shaped by longstanding myths about who profits from extraction and what it means for their land. Patricia Kasoki listens closely. She asks follow-ups, redirects assumptions, and invites elders to share what past seasons looked like, before the forests thinned, before heavy rains became…

Nov

18

2025

By ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER

The Magnificent Rebel: Fela Ransome-Kuti

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

SOME musicians entertain. Some educate. Fela Anikulapo Kuti? He declared war—armed only with a saxophone, a relentless groove, and the kind of audacity that made military dictators break out in nervous sweats. Nigeria's most flamboyant revolutionary didn't need grenades when he had a groove. While others whispered dissent in backrooms, Fela was broadcasting his contempt for corrupt authority through thundering horns, hypnotic drums, and lyrics so sharp they could slice through propaganda like a hot knife through butter. His weapon of choice? Afrobeat—that intoxicating fusion of jazz, funk, soul, and Yoruba rhythms that he didn't just create, he unleashed upon…

Nov

12

2025

By IMMANUEL MUASYA AND BONFACE ORUCHO, BIRD STORY AGENCY

Grassroots project keeps Mijikenda music alive

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

THE thatch throws a soft, familiar shadow. A woven fence creaks in the salty wind. Inside a cleared yard in Kilifi, twelve drummers set skins into place like clockmakers fitting gears, a pair of elders sits cross-legged on the grass and sunlight angles through palm fronds onto a scattering of wooden shakers and carved flutes. This is not a concert. It is a salvage operation for sound, careful, urgent and stubbornly human. Baobab Studio’s LUTSAGA project, which Flavour Polle, Baobab Studio’s manager and cultural liaison, described simply as a granary, is acting like one by collecting the rhythms, grooves and…

Oct

17

2025

By SETH ONYANGO, BIRD STORY AGENCY

Transforming a little-known Kenyan town into Africa’s film capital

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

THE morning sun falls gently over Kitale, a town where maize fields stretch beyond the horizon. Inside a modest studio, Peter Pages Bwire reviews schedules for the coming week, surrounded by cameras, scripts, and equipment stacked against the walls. He has just returned from Lagos, where he secured a partnership that will bring Nollywood filmmakers to Kitale. Among those coming to Kitale is Dr Inya Lawal, a renowned social entrepreneur and founder of the African Creative Market (ACM), who will bring her experience in bridging creative commerce and empowering African storytellers to join the programme. They will train local film…

Oct

15

2025

By YAKUBU MESSENI, BIRD STORY AGENCY

Trailblazing Ivorian journo inspires next gen

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT, MULTIMEDIA

FOR more than twenty years, M’ma Camara has covered current affairs in Côte d’Ivoire and the region for notable news organisations. A veteran on the security and defence beat, Camara has reported from conflict zones and experienced some of the profession’s harshest realities. Yet, she has found it hard to meet other Ivorian women to trade career stories with. “What’s unfortunate is that in Africa, we women represent less than 1% of video journalists. Some think it’s a job meant for men. But we absolutely belong here,” she told bird. Earlier this year, the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) said…

Oct

07

2025

By SETH ONYANGO, BIRD STORY AGENCY

New spinoff from Nigerian anime pioneer raises the bar

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

BLESSING Amidu, a film producer and chief executive of Hot Ticket Productions, who has established a bold new voice in African animation, is back. Her latest project, Secrets of the Multiverse, a full-fledged 13-part series, hopes to build on the reception and success of Lady Buckit. “With Lady Buckit, we built a door into the world of Nigerian animation for a global audience… now with the Secrets of the Multiverse, we are inviting them through that door to explore endless corridors of imagination, danger, and moral choices. We are challenging the very fabric of what our heroes can be.” Adebisi…

Oct

04

2025

By YASIR FAIZ FOR BIRD STORY AGENCY

An exiled Sudanese singer’s soulful protest

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

ON a starry night in Nairobi earlier this month, Sudanese singer Mohamed Adam Abbo, known by his artist name Wad Abbo, stood beneath the lights of Alliance Francaise’s concert stage to launch his first album. His voice, rich and stirring, carried verses in Sudanese Arabic and Darfuri dialects. The audience of Sudanese, Kenyans, other Africans, and Europeans responded in kind with swaying, clapping, and sometimes singing along. He sang for peace in Sudan, repeating lines that felt like prayers. “When hardship passes, peace comes to us. No matter how stubborn the quarrels, we live as dear ones.” In another song,…

Oct

01

2025

By TINASHE MUSHAKAVANHU

NoViolet Bulawayo wins the best of 25 years of the Caine Prize. Why she deserves it

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

ZIMBABWEAN writer NoViolet Bulawayo has been honoured as Africa’s best short story writer after winning the Best of Caine Award. The special recognition marks 25 years of the annual Caine Prize for African Writing. An esteemed panel of judges unanimously selected Bulawayo as the standout winner of the 25 stories awarded the prize so far. Her short story, Hitting Budapest, won the prize in 2011. She has gone on to publish two acclaimed novels, We Need New Names and Glory. Both were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. For me, as a scholar of African literary cultures, Bulawayo’s recognition by the…