LIFESTYLE - The African Mirror

Jan

05

2023

Benin is building a theme park to remember slavery – is history up for sale?

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

THE Marina Project is a vast memorial and tourist complex under construction in Ouidah, a coastal town in the Republic of Benin in West Africa. The country hopes to market itself as a major destination for Afro-descendant tourists in the diaspora. Neighbouring Nigeria and its population of 220 million potential visitors also make serene and diminutive Benin an enviable location for large-scale tourist attractions. Author DOMINIQUE SOMDA, Junior research fellow, Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA), University of Cape Town The waterfront development is located at what was the main slave port for the Bight of Benin. From this region…

Jan

04

2023

By The African Mirror

Offering “community therapy”, this artist imagines peace

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

DORCAS BELLO, BIRD STORY AGENCY WHEN Jacob Onoja opens the door to welcome guests into his house in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria, the first thing that catches one's eye are the exquisite paintings on the walls. This is an artist who lives and breathes art. "As far as I can remember, I have always loved scribbling, drawing, painting and visualising imaginary things in the sky. I did it in my teenage years, and I still do in my adult life," he said. Onoja only started to paint professionally in 1987 when he opened a studio, the Diadem Art Gallery. To…

Jan

04

2023

By The African Mirror

Musician’s app helps Kenyan creatives sell music and merchandise

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

IN pink trousers and a matching puffer jacket, Grammy-nominated Kenyan musician Bien-Aime Alusa gyrates on stage as he sings to a bank of swaying fans, many capturing the moment on their mobile phones. When the curtain drops on the concert in Nairobi, Alusa keeps making connections and profits through a digital streaming and payment platform, HustleSasa, which he co-founded to help artists recover from revenues lost to the coronavirus lockdown. HustleSasa, which officially launched in November 2021, allows the singer-songwriter and fellow creatives to stream music or sell branded merchandise, concert tickets, food, fashion and other services in one mobile…

Dec

28

2022

By The African Mirror

Afrobeats in 2022: global mobility, election songs, placemaking albums – and Tems

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

MORE than Nollywood films, Afrobeats is arguably Nigeria’s strongest cultural export since the turn of the millennium. It is a hugely dynamic music category that incorporates a range of moods, languages, styles, and existing genres. To understand its impact, a cultural connoisseur has equated good Afrobeats music with well-made, smoky Nigerian party jollof rice! Author GARHE OSIEBE, Research Fellow, Rhodes University As suggested, the core of Afrobeats is celebratory pop music originating from Nigeria, West Africa and beyond. In 2022, Afrobeats artists were regular names on the global stage, winning awards, featuring on Hollywood soundtracks, packing out stadiums and even…

Dec

14

2022

By The African Mirror

Meet Carole Lubelo, the young Liswati fashion designer on the rise

BEAUTY AND FASHION

NOKUKHANYA MUSI, BIRD STORY AGENCY IN 2015, Carole Mngometulu took a bold, risky step. With no formal training, no money, and no mentor, she started on a new journey, determined to become a fashion designer. 'I only had God and my sewing machine," she explained. Closed off from most of the world during her boarding school days, it wasn't until her final year at high school that she learned of the fashion scene in Eswatini. Then, fresh out of high school, she landed her first job at Woolworth's retail clothing store, where she sketched and sewed, during her lunch break.…

Dec

17

2022

By The African Mirror

Dear Comrade President: book highlights ANC leader Oliver Tambo’s role in preparing South Africa for democracy

LITERATURE

MORE than three decades have passed since the apartheid government in South Africa unbanned the African National Congress (ANC), the country’s leading liberation movement, and released its leader, Nelson Mandela, from prison. This launched four fraught years of negotiations and violence that led to South Africa’s first-ever democratic elections. The book Dear Comrade President: Oliver Tambo and the Foundations of South Africa’s Constitution, by South African historian Andre Odendaal, focuses on a dimension ignored in previous histories and memoirs of this period: the ANC’s constitution-framing process, which would help to shape the future democratic South Africa. Author GAVIN EVANS, Lecturer,…

Dec

08

2022

By The African Mirror

For the love of books: This South African author, publisher is on a mission to get everyone reading

LITERATURE

BONFACE ORUCHO, BIRD STORY AGENCY LORRAINE Sithole credits her passion for books to a family tradition instilled in her by her grandmother decades ago. This meant that early childhood literary success was celebrated and reinforced. "One of the most profound moments for me when I was in primary school was when I was awarded an English book written by a local author," she said. Being recognised and awarded at a time when most of her peers were communicating exclusively in their mother tongue sparked a sense of ownership of her second language. Since then, she's been unstoppable. Years of networking,…

Dec

06

2022

By The African Mirror

Corruption in South Africa: new book lifts the lid on who profits – and their corporate enablers

LITERATURE

KEITH GOTTSCHALK THE new book The Unaccountables: The Powerful Politicians and Corporations who Profit from Impunity is welcome for the way it contextualises corruption. It shows how politicians and bureaucrats could not implement corruption without their corporate and professional enablers – the accountants, auditors and advocates who make it all possible. The book is the result of a decade of research by Open Secrets and other NGOs. It is edited by Michael Marchant, Mamello Mosiana, Ra’eesa Pather and Hennie van Vuuren (a blend of investigative journalists and activists) and has 11 named contributors. Analytically, it covers four overlapping issues: crimes…

Dec

02

2022

By The African Mirror

Koos Prinsloo: the cult Afrikaans writer has been translated to English – here’s a review

LITERATURE

THERE are some writers you wish you had encountered years ago. There are some authors you only discover – for many reasons – years after their death. The Afrikaans writer Koos Prinsloo is one such, for me. He wrote during the last violent decade of apartheid – a system of forced racial segregation implemented by the Afrikaans-speaking white minority rulers of South Africa. While the country was undergoing states of emergency and increasing internal revolt, Prinsloo wrote from deep within the dominant white patriarchal culture. But his work spoke directly back to this domination by representing a maligned and repressed…

Nov

18

2022

By The African Mirror

Juby Mayet, legendary South African writer and journalist, remembered through new book

LITERATURE

SOUTH African writer Juby Mayet passed away in 2019 at the age of 82. She wrote her autobiography in 1997 but it has only now been published, 25 years later. Freedom Writer: My Life and Times finally places the spotlight on an outstanding figure in South African journalism. Mayet was a reporter in Johannesburg from 1957 until 1978, and during those two decades, she wrote for important popular and political publications. These included the tabloid newspaper Golden City Post, the famous Drum magazine, the UBJ Bulletin published by the anti-apartheid Union of Black Journalists, and the anti-apartheid periodical The Voice.…