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Greatest AfricansAfricaJoburgSouth AfricaGreatest AfricansAlmost three decades into democracy, radio is thriving in South Africa. Radio listenership in the country is consistently higher than the global average. And it in fact increased during the COVID-19 lockdowns of the past two years. This is perhaps not surprising given that radio acts as a companion and that people were confined to ...
At many discussion panels about repairing the cultural and creative industries in South Africa, a familiar slogan is echoed: artists should solve their own problems. This seems fitting when one considers that this sector has unique problems understood mainly by those who work in it. It is an atypical sector. And to solve a problem one ...
Drummer, saxophonist, composer, activist – and anthropology student – Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuse has turned 70. If you wanted a guidebook to the distinctive character of the South African jazz scene, Mabuse’s 50-year career offers one. South African jazz occupies a landscape that is rarely elitist, never haughtily insulated from popula...
On Tuesday 5 October 2021, the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture (DSAC) noted an article titled “Mbuli slams Ramaphosa regarding artists’ plight”, where Mr Mzwakhe Mbuli alleges amongst other things, that the Government does not care about the plight of artists, that artists are being defrauded. Mr Mbuli further goes on to accuse t...
It’s been a great year for African writing, with Tanzania’s Abdulrazak Gurnah winning the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature. South Africa’s Damon Galgut lifted the Man Booker Prize for his novel, The Promise, and exciting prose continued to sprout. Peter Kimani, leading Kenyan author, journalist and academic, lists his top 5 picks.
Franz Fanon, the Martiniquan born psychiatrist, committed Algerian revolutionary and Pan-African thinker, died 60 years ago on December 6, 1961 just after the publication of his last book, The Wretched of the Earth. To mark this 60th ann...
The Nobel Prize in Literature, considered the pinnacle of achievement for creative writers, has been awarded 114 times to 118 Nobel Prize laureates between 1901 and 2021. This year it went to novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, who was born in Z...