By Carmen McCain, Director, Hausa Home Video Resource Center, Bayero University; Nazir Ahmed Hausawa, Manager, Golden Goose Studio; and Ahmed Alkanawy, Director, Center for Hausa Cultural Studies

Nigeria’s northern city of Kano was until last year the home of a thriving film industry in the Hausa language. Hausa language “video-films” are similar to the larger “Nollywood” Nigerian film industry but are stylistically different from their southern cousins, with most films including song and dance sequences influenced by Indian films and hiphop music videos. In August 2007, a sex scandal involving a leaked cell phone video of a Hausa film actress Maryam “Hiyana” Usman having sex with her boyfriend Usman Bobo instigated a change in the leadership of the Kano State Censorship Board.

Negotiating the Terms of Recognition: Achille Mbembe in conversation with Vivian Paulissen

Africa Remix was an international success. The Johannesburg Art Fair is becoming a fixture in the international art circuit. Major academic interventions such as Sarah Nuttall’s Beautiful/Ugly are redefining the boundaries of African aesthetics. William Kentridge, Penny Siopis and countless  individual African artists are making a name of their own in the world market. A silent revolution in contemporary art is in the making.  Its ramifications extend to other domains such as literature, fashion, music, architecture and design. As jazz and cubism in the 20th century, it is to a large extent engineered by African forms.

Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo (From the Dutch-language ZAM Africa Magazine): 

By Jennifer Bryant

A Beautiful Blonde is Dead. This image is the spark that ignites the international crime drama Nairobi Heat, the debut novel by acclaimed Kenyan writer Mukoma wa Ngugi. From the evocative title of the first chapter to the last line readers are  forced to grapple with the touchy subjects of race, class, and the sometimes relative concept of justice. I recently had the pleasure of dialoguing with Mukoma about his new novel, his thoughts on writing, and his plans for the future.

by Mukoma Wa Ngugi

by Pius Adesanmi

In the Free State, local black literature is thriving as never before, with many popular writers emerging from the grassroots with startling regularity. Although the process started about ten years ago over fifty poplar books penned by local authors have been published with thousands of copies distributed in the many libraries that throng the Free State . The process has been referred to as the “renaissance of FS Black Writing”. The most important and pivotal figure in this literature has been OMOSEYE BOLAJI who apart from publishing over fifteen popular books, has also helped to encourage, nurture, and discover other budding authors in the Province.

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This is how British journalist Patrick Neate describes his introduction to Mr Fat, one half of the nucleus of Brasse vannie Kaap in his book, the hip hop travelogue Where You’re At: Notes from the Frontline of a Hip Hop Planet :

par Patrice Nganang