"Ice Shock is an attempt to rethink and rewrite how we inhabit the planet." - Rodwell Makombe theconversation.com/ice-shock-is...

"Makemation as a vital intervention that challenges the dominance of western techno-narratives. It places AI within local histories of inequality, aspiration and improvisation." - Tinashe Mushakavanhu theconversation.com/makemation-a...

"The Ghana declaration sets a precedent. It seeks to redefine the moral language of the international order. Elevating it as the gravest crime underscores slavery’s scale and duration." - Kwasi Konadu theconversation.com/the-transatl...

"Afcon is not just a football tournament. It is a continental sports brand. Its value does not rest solely on the quality of the play or its audience reach. It is also about story." theconversation.com/senegal-stri...

"At one of her last public performances, in 2025, she declared: “Hulle het nog by die hek gestaan om my uit te hou, toe staan ek al op die dak!” (They were still standing at the gate to keep me out, when I was already standing on the roof!)" theconversation.com/diana-ferrus...

"Muholi’s work never shies away from pain and loss. But, like all the best forms of visual activism, it shows us the darkness to take us to the light." theconversation.com/zanele-muhol...

"Victims are lured with promises of football trials, academy placements or opportunities in Europe, only to end up in exploitative conditions in Nigeria. " theconversation.com/human-traffi...

"Nostalgia poisons your ability to understand your place in your own narrative, therefore in history too" theconversation.com/memory-is-no...

"The deal raises a difficult question: what does it mean to sell your digital self in a world where Black and African bodies have been used and profited from for centuries without consent and fair compensation?" theconversation.com/khaby-lame-i...

"The songs in our study all contain explicit references to online fraud. All were performed by male artists. And all were globally available. What we found goes well beyond glorification. Afrobeats, we argue, is functioning as a moral text ." theconversation.com/afrobeats-ce...

"We have to understand the impossibility of this work under occupation by design; how occupation makes their lives impossible and literally makes this little girl’s life impossible." theconversation.com/the-voice-of...

"Boncana Maïga was never especially interested in the traditional instruments, his real passion was composing and arranging for dance bands. This skill was to have a major impact on the popular music of Mali." theconversation.com/malis-maestr...

"She challenged the assumption that African philosophy was merely folklore. To her it was a rigorous intellectual tradition." theconversation.com/sophie-oluwo...

"IThe people who truly understood the extent of the rape and violence against women were not the police or other authorities. Rather, it was the quiet presence of the church pastors and the wives of the imams that the women confided in." theconversation.com/faith-leader...

"We often chase the extraordinary, forgetting the power of the ordinary, the mundane, and the everyday." theconversation.com/zimbabwean-a...

"I argue in my study that this affirmation of life allows for a happiness that can include and respond to unhappiness and chance." theconversation.com/what-is-happ...

"Digital religion is not only about spreading faith. It is also about expanding influence and, in some cases, monetising belief." theconversation.com/prophets-and...

"In aiming for zero tolerance, the state has policed intimacy instead of teaching consent." theconversation.com/sierra-leone...

"The film moves between personal memory and historical reckoning, asking how lives shaped by political struggle are remembered and who gets to do the remembering." theconversation.com/south-africa...

The levels of subterfuge involved in attempts to sabotage Gabrielle Goliath's work hints at the expansive nature of contemporary warfare - where borders are made conveniently permeable if and when a powerful state suppresses dissent @hyperallergic.com hyperallergic.com/gabrielle-go...

"This matters because being represented is not only about being visible. It’s also about producing audiences. More than depicting queer lives, films like Rafiki shape new viewing communities and new forms of recognition." theconversation.com/rafiki-unban...

"The business model that made street food work in Mombasa’s economy also brought these vendors into regular conflict with the city’s administration." theconversation.com/street-food-...

"My study found that night running as understood in modern times is a duality: the ritual of persons running naked at night and causing havoc, and a symbol of navigating the nocturnal city against the grain." theconversation.com/kenyas-night...

"Apongo’s story offers an opportunity to better understand the complexities of west African identity and to put a more human face on those enslaved." theconversation.com/apongo-was-a...

"Many VJs are celebrities in Uganda and possess loyal fans who regularly turn out to watch them perform. In fact, the VJ is often more of a draw for audiences than the film they are voicing over." theconversation.com/inside-ugand...

"For over a decade now, Falz has been marrying musical skills and social activism with digital savvy and comedy." theconversation.com/revolutionar...

The impact of labour migration on women in Botswana - when men return home. "From what they told me, it became apparent that most marriages did not work out for the best." theconversation.com/marriage-and...

"The increasing ability of regimes to narrowly target shutdowns on specific areas is of great concern as it allows the state to punish opposition areas while privileging others." theconversation.com/internet-shu...

"Throughout history, valley communities have often been loosely organised around spirit shrines with mediums. These are very influential in providing stability and direction for people’s lives." theconversation.com/the-history-...

"The influence of African consumers on global markets is far from a new thing. In the 1800s, the continent’s consumer demand called the tune for European factories." theconversation.com/early-shoppe...

"He held on to his mission of 'taking the old and mixing it with the new. We’re not destroying the music: we’re giving it a way to live on.' Through his recordings, it will." #RIPPopsMohamed theconversation.com/pops-mohamed...

It was a foregone conclusion that Let My People Go would be banned and Luthuli knew it was unlikely to enlighten apartheid rulers. Nonetheless, the narrator insists that: "If the whites are ignorant of the realities, the fault does not lie with us." theconversation.com/who-was-albe...

"Debates about whether Christianity has been good or bad for Africa, and Nigeria in particular, can probably never be settled, because so much depends on context and perspective. Nigeria’s writers offer just that." theconversation.com/god-in-niger...

"In South Africa, for example, Facebook, YouTube and X users still pay more attention to traditional news media and journalists than news creators and influencers. But traditional media are now overshadowed by creators on Instagram (59%) and TikTok (52%)." theconversation.com/news-influen...

"If there’s no space for the kraal other than near the toilet, people can’t go to the toilet freely. The kraal is a sacred space and non-family members or new brides are not allowed in it. This makes toilets in the middle of the backyard a real problem." theconversation.com/no-space-for...

"We found that migrant men tend to experience stress in the form of pressure and migrant women in the form of tiredness." theconversation.com/high-rise-li...

"As Africa transforms its history into diplomacy, its diplomacy runs the risk of being less about genuine reuniting and more about using identity as a marketing strategy – selling the idea of 'returning home' to improve an African nation’s global image." theconversation.com/ciaras-benin...

"For many South Africans, religion or spirituality is something they lean on to navigate the struggles they face in one of the most unequal societies in the world." theconversation.com/south-africa...

I spoke with Kojo Baffoe about three decades of arts journalism, the power of stories, new media, poetic earworms and how you never make the journey you think you're making. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrjO...

"Recent studies highlight what most African city dwellers already know: walking is the main way of getting around, and essential for daily life. This is true for people who live in low-income neighbourhoods across the world." theconversation.com/we-studied-t...

"Skit-making is estimated to be Nigeria’s third largest entertainment industry sector, with a net worth of over US$31 million." theconversation.com/the-comedy-e...

"What the New Generation African Poets Chapbook Series tells us: that African poetry is thriving, diverse and globally mobile. What it does not tell us: how poets working entirely from the continent might imagine and enact African poetics differently." theconversation.com/african-poet...

"This proposed route is counter to the current belief among most scientists that the Out-of-Africa migration began in eastern Africa and not southern Africa." theconversation.com/where-did-th...

"Admitting the variety, embracing the fractures, this was the lesson of all of Wicomb’s writing." theconversation.com/south-africa...

"Tango dancers showed brains that appeared more than seven years younger than their chronological age. Musicians and visual artists had brains about five to six years younger. Gamers, about four years younger." theconversation.com/creativity-i...

"In what sense does a person belong to a place, or a place to a person? Does one carry belonging with one, or is it something one leaves behind when one moves?" #RIPZoëWicomb theconversation.com/zoe-wicomb-t...

"When a language isn’t in the data, its speakers aren’t in the product, and AI cannot be safe, useful or fair for them." theconversation.com/african-lang...

"Participants in my marital rape research expressed how police sometimes mock wives seeking help. They believe it’s not possible for a husband to rape a wife." theconversation.com/rape-within-...

"Those still alive to remember get fewer." theconversation.com/windhoeks-ol...