The genuine goema captain of Cape Town
The musician Mac McKenzie, who passed away in April 2024, helped pioneer a sound that captured the Mother City’s Creole heritage.
508 Articles by:
Sean Henry Jacobs
Sean Henry Jacobs is publisher of Africa is a Country and on the tenured faculty of The New School. He edits the substack, Eleven Named People.
Quando eu digo África
Por que as histórias sobre o sofrimento africano são tão persistentes?
When I say Africa
Why are stories about African suffering so persistent?
There are no monuments
Gladys Nzimande-Tsolo, who died on 27 September 2023, was a South African freedom fighter. Why has she been forgotten?
The next episode
We announce some major changes at Africa Is a Country. A director of operations and a new editor.
More than a building
The film ‘No Place But Here’ uses VR or 360 media to immerse a viewer inside a housing occupation in Cape Town. In the process, it wants to challenge gentrification and the capitalist logic of home ownership.
On Safari
It’s time for our annual end of the year publishing break.
A fundamental reimagining of who we are
The future of Stellenbosch University does not depend on whether white people there can transcend individual stereotypes and prejudice. It depends on whether they can articulate anti-racism as a genuine political position.
Put your crown on your head
A new exhibit of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s life and work explores the influences of his family and the African world on his visual sensibilities and identity.
On safari
For the 10th anniversary of the Marikana massacre, we are planning a public event on August 20th to reflect on its legacies.
A big African literature prize in an African language
The Kiswahili Prize works to undermine the marginalization of African languages in literary culture. An interview with one of its founders.
Inhabiting the shapes and sounds and patterns of other people
May 21 marks the anniversary of the writer and commentator Binyavanga Wainaina’s untimely death in 2019. He was 48.
Where is black feminism?
The first book collection dedicated to contemporary Black South African feminist perspectives has seen the light. One of the editors breaks down the content.
A question of color
Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu’s novel “The Theory of Flight” may be the first to take seriously Zimbabwe’s complicated race politics, beyond the obvious black vs whites.
The art of football
Why should people be invested in a football game in a bubble called the art world? “Exhibition Match,” a multifaceted installation, explores responses to this question.
Not so quiet resilience
David Samaai was the first black (and coloured) South African to play at Wimbledon in 1949. He was 21 years old. He did so before the Americans, Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe.