Our website use cookies to improve and personalize your experience and to display advertisements (if any). Our website may also include cookies from third parties like Google Adsense, Google Analytics, and Youtube. By using the website, you consent to the use of cookies.

Congolese activist creates community radio for farmers

Congolese activist creates community radio for farmers

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…
Read More
The Magnificent Rebel: Fela Ransome-Kuti

The Magnificent Rebel: Fela Ransome-Kuti

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…
Read More
Grassroots project keeps Mijikenda music alive

Grassroots project keeps Mijikenda music alive

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

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

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…
Read More
Trailblazing Ivorian journo inspires next gen

Trailblazing Ivorian journo inspires next gen

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…
Read More
New spinoff from Nigerian anime pioneer raises the bar

New spinoff from Nigerian anime pioneer raises the bar

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…
Read More
An exiled Sudanese singer’s soulful protest

An exiled Sudanese singer’s soulful protest

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,…
Read More
NoViolet Bulawayo wins the best of 25 years of the Caine Prize. Why she deserves it

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

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…
Read More
“Art remains our oxygen”: DR Congo’s slam poets refuse to be silenced

“Art remains our oxygen”: DR Congo’s slam poets refuse to be silenced

ON the last Friday of every month, they would gather in public spaces to share their latest verses. At festivals and in stadiums, they would perform to packed audiences who would listen to every line. In classrooms, they stood before rows of students, guiding them through their craft. For the past decade, slam poetry – a form of performance poetry with bite – has thrived in the main cities of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, becoming one of the war-torn region’s most vital forms of cultural expression and political dissent. But the scene is now confronting unprecedented challenges. Since…
Read More
Where creativity conquers chaos: One man’s mission to transform lives through art

Where creativity conquers chaos: One man’s mission to transform lives through art

AFRIKABURN is rightly famous for gathering people to enter an otherworldly experience - without money or cell phones - where they build art, burn it, and celebrate music and life in the Tankwa Karoo. This year, 2025, my daughter Julia, an artist based in London, built a huge sculpture of an ancient beast that once ruled the food chain in those waters 285 million years ago. At AfrikaBurn, Julia also met Nelson Nganisa, who sparked her interest in his art club in Diepsloot. On Saturday, I was cajoled into visiting it. It was an extraordinary experience that made me want…
Read More