The first time Omar Viktor Diop had to sit for a studio portrait, it did not go well. It was his first year in an all-boys primary Catholic school in Dakar and the school had arranged for all students to be photographed. Diop remembers it well: the photographer set up a grey fabric as a… Continue reading Harper’s Bazaar Arabia ART: On Omar Viktor Diop
On February 18, 1977, a black Range Rover sped through the open gates into Kalakuta Republic, No 14. Agege Motor Road, Idi-Oro, Mushin – the home of Afrobeat legend, and one of the most successful African musicians of the 20th century, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti .One of Fela’s assistants, Roy Smith, who had been driving the Range… Continue reading The Guardian: Loving Fela, a tale of two Kalakuta queens
Credit: Joseph Okpako/WireImage When ClassiQ, a singer and rapper born in Bauchi state, wanted to connect old Hausa music from northern Nigeria to his contemporary sound, he bought an MP3 player. He loaded on about 400 songs by Hausa music legends such as Mamman Shata, Alhaji Musa Dankwairo and Dan Maraya Jos. ClassiQ listened to… Continue reading Financial Times: Nigerian musicians inspired by deep cultural legacy
The history of (West) Africa’s most famous, loved and easily identifiable fabric – the Ankara – is a book written with half-truths, missing many scripts and authored by interlopers. Their version of the story begins once upon a time, in the Netherlands where ‘African prints’ (which Ankara is sometimes also called) was first manufactured. Conveniently… Continue reading We Are Dressed Up in Conflict and Appropriation, Colonial Legacy
As I was rounding up my tour through the fair on its last day, a shot rang out. A bulb had exploded. I thought it was a gunshot. I had just read some information on Kupa’s work that mentioned the Marikana Massacre, police violence, gunshots. I had ducked reflexively on hearing the bang. I looked… Continue reading Art Forum: Fair and Folly – Ayodeji Rotinwa on the 11th Joburg Art Fair
About a week ago, Nifemi Marcus-Bello, a 30-year-old Nigerian product designer, walked into a high-end lifestyle store in Victoria Island, Lagos’s central business district. He asked if they might stock his “LM Stool,” named after a dear friend. The two-legged stool—created by bending, welding, and laser-cutting metal—looks weightless, and comes in two colors. It’s currently on… Continue reading VOGUE: Meet the Nigerian Product Designers Behind a New Brand of Minimalism
“Made-in-Nigeria goods are taking on a new shine,” says Femi Olayebi, founder of the Lagos Leather Fair and the designer of an eponymous handbag label. “In the past few years a surge of designers has conscientiously made grand efforts to offer beautifully made goods.” Now everyone wants a piece. Read more HERE
Michael Soi was hard at work in his Nairobi studio, speckled in acrylic paints, when four unidentified Chinese men and women walked in, demanding to see some paintings. It was July 2015, and Chinese President Xi Jinping was visiting Kenya. Soi’s visitors didn’t wait for him to respond. They moved around the studio, shifting cans… Continue reading OZY: Africa’s New Satirists Draw Political Fire
Dr. Bola Oyeledun arrived at General Hospital in Kafanchan, Kaduna State in 2005, during the peak of Africa’s HIV and AIDS epidemic. Scores of patients awaited her. An emaciated, possibly HIV-positive baby was rushed to her attention by a distressed head nurse and the mother who, sobbing, begged Oyeledun to save her child. She couldn’t. Read more… Continue reading Devex: Uncertainty over PEPFAR support prompts concerns from HIV advocates in Nigeria
Florine Demosthene imagines a new kind of black heroine in “The Stories I Tell Myself,” on view through May 6th at Gallery 1957 in Accra, Ghana. The exhibition, which includes work created during a four-month residency with the gallery, incidentally arrives at the same time as the record-smashing Marvel Studios film, Black Panther. That movie presents a… Continue reading Artsy: Florine Demosthene Is Conjuring the History of Black Heroines—and Creating New Ones
The Rotinwa Read 