LIFESTYLE - The African Mirror

Jan

21

2026

Rumba Royale’s actors praise the new Congolese film

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

THE melodious vibes of rumba waft through the streets of Brazzaville and Kinshasa, an infectious fusion of central African rhythms and Spanish folk music. The distinct style emerged in the late 19th century and had its heyday in the late 1940s through the early 1980s. Designated in 2021 by the UN as an intangible cultural heritage of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo, rumba is the backdrop and soundtrack for the film, Rumba Royale, which stars Congolese pop music star Fally Ipupa. Rumba Royale is now one of the most talked-about Congolese films on the international…

Jan

15

2026

By YASIR FAIZ FOR BIRD STORY AGENCY

“Khartoum” film breaks new ground for Sudanese filmmakers

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

SNOOPY, as filmmaker Ibrahim Ahmed likes to be called, is a third-culture kid. With his camera, he bridges worlds and amplifies unheard voices, particularly from communities shaped by conflict and migration. These are not just themes; they are his lived experience. Born in Lebanon in 1992, where his parents lived at the time, Snoopy moved to Sudan in 2009 to discover a homeland he had never fully known. He studied information technology at Sudan’s University of Science and Technology, but film quickly claimed him. He directed numerous projects in Sudan, including his award-winning debut, The Curse (2017), which earned the…

Jan

14

2026

By TINASHE MUSHAKAVANHU

Two Kenyan women rebuild libraries in a quietly powerful new documentary

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

TWO Kenyan women – Wanjiru Koinange and Angela Wachuka – set out in 2017 to do something both ordinary and radical: rebuild neglected libraries in Nairobi. What began as a small community project quickly revealed the tangled politics of and access to knowledge in a major African city still haunted by its colonial architecture. Their ongoing work to rehabilitate public libraries is captured in a new film, How to Build a Library, directed and produced by Kenyan filmmakers Maia Lekow and Christopher King. The film follows the protagonists as they navigate bureaucracy, gendered expectations and the structural decay of public…

Jan

08

2026

By OWN CORRESPONDENT

SHOWBIZ EXPLOSION: Three nations, one epic easter blowout as ChafZar drops the mic on regional entertainment

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

HOLD onto your hats, entertainment junkies! ChafZar Lifestyle, in Mbombela, South Africa, just threw down the gauntlet for what's being billed as the region's most ambitious cultural love-fest, and Easter 2026 is about to get a whole lot more interesting. Picture this: South Africa, Eswatini, and Mozambique walk into a bar—actually, scratch that—they're taking over an entire weekend at ChafZar for the inaugural Tri-Nations Weekend Festival (02-05 April 2026), and the lineup reads like someone's fever dream wish list of Southern African talent. "We're basically throwing five parties in four days," says ChafZar's MD Ndumiso Mona, who's clearly been drinking…

Jan

07

2026

By CONRAD ONYANGO, BIRD STORY AGENCY

Africa’s live performance festivals all grown up

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

AT a music festival in Copenhagen, thousands of kilometres from Nairobi, Kenyan artist Elsy Wameyo found herself smiling as a familiar Luo greeting cut through the noise of the crowd and landed squarely on stage. “I’ll never forget the day I played in Copenhagen and a fan greeted me in Luo,” the artist recalled. A greeting in the Kenyan vernacular was the last thing she had expected. For Wameyo, a Kenyan-born singer-songwriter and rapper whose sound fuses hip hop, traditional African music, rap and R&B, the fact that "Nairobi showed up in northern Europe" is a reminder that African music…

Jan

05

2026

By DEVIN SMART

Street food in Mombasa: how city life shaped the modern meal

FOOD

AS Kenya’s cities grew, more and more people left their rural homes and subsistence farming systems to go to urban settlements like Mombasa to find work. In the city, meals were paid for with cash, a major transformation in Kenya’s food systems. A new book called Preparing the Modern Meal is an urban history that explores these processes. We asked historian Devin Smart about his study. What’s the colonial history of Mombasa? At the turn of the 20th century, the British were expanding their empire throughout sub-Saharan Africa, including the parts of East Africa that would become Kenya. They built…

Dec

24

2025

By JOVIAL RANTAO

A voice that crossed oceans: Remembering Chris Rea

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

THE road has finally ended for Chris Rea, but the journey he shared with us - from the townships of South Africa to the streets of Lagos, from the highlands of Kenya to the heart of Zimbabwe - will echo forever. For generations of Africans, that raspy, world-weary voice was more than entertainment. It was a companion through our own struggles, our own dreams of something better. When Rea sang, he didn't preach from a pedestal. He walked beside us, dusty and tired, acknowledging the hardship while pointing toward hope. His philosophy resonated deeply with the African experience: we are…

Dec

20

2025

By PAUL ONANUGA

Revolutionary rap: Nigerian star Falz has kept protest music alive

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

NIGERIAN rapper, actor and social media star Falz released his sixth studio album, The Feast, in 2025. Few Nigerian popular musicians have shown as much versatility and staying power as the man behind the #ElloBae and #WehDoneSir social media trends. For over a decade now, Falz has been marrying musical skills and social activism with digital savvy and comedy. His rise to global prominence was solidified with his 2018 song This is Nigeria. But it began in 2014 with Marry Me off his debut album Wazup Guy. As a young artist known for his video skits, he created an online…

Dec

16

2025

By VERA OKOH FOR BIRD STORY AGENCY

How Chimamanda Adichie’s hair stylist went natural

BEAUTY AND FASHION

HAPPINESS Okorie’s dream came true in July 2025 when global literary icon Chimamanda Adichie travelled to Enugu and visited Okorie's salon to get her hair done. Okorie packed Adichie’s coiled tresses into a crown-like updo. Adichie smiled, turning her head from side-to-side to look at what Okorie had created. After the session, Okorie showed Adichie a copy of Adichie's book, “Half of a Yellow Sun.” In the back, Okorie had written, five years before: “Dear Chimamanda, this is to let you know that someday, I will style your hair.” The moment of the two women embracing each other after Okorie's…

Dec

08

2025

By VUSI MAVIMBELA

From Lusaka to Lyrical Mastery: Stogie T’s aNomy through his uncle’s eyes

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

STOGIE T’s new album, aNomy, consolidates lyrics in his rap music repertoire as the most politically sophisticated, most intellectually literate and most worldly and historically informed in the South African rap scene. I have not come across any other South African rap artist with the same political depth in their lyrical rendition. My musical appreciation runs across all genres; from classics, jazz, choral, maskanda, kwaito, amapiano and everything in between – only if they are well thought-out and well-constructed musical offerings. I have a liking for rap lyrics because I came into the liking of this genre through my love…