ANF December Newsletter

Hello Reader, 

This year wasn't just about Omicron, coups and elections in Africa. On the flip side, the continent got its first homemade Cryptocurrency. Tanzania won its first Nobel Prize for Literature. David Adjaye became the first black person to be awarded the UK’s highest honour for architecture. The West African superfood grain fonio won an award for being an outstanding new product, and the Time 100 list of the most influential people featured seven Africans this year.

In other words, we have a lot to celebrate! Luckily it’s that time of year when you don’t need a reason. So we curated some things for you to do, watch, listen to, and read this holiday season in between celebrations. And they’re all from Africa with love!

1. Catch this romantic drama with a dark twist: Catching Feelings is a South African romantic drama written, co-produced and directed by Kagiso Lediga. We love the excellent dialogue, the way the continent and its people are portrayed with richness and complexity. 

2. Keep up with Africa’s contemporary art scene: Discover Africa’s best emerging and groundbreaking artists at ArtX Lagos and 1/54 Art Fair. Both are women-led international art fairs shedding light on the rich reservoir of Africa’s artistic talent. These art fairs are where you want to start looking to collect contemporary art from around Africa. 

3. Turn Geopolitics, global events, relationships, and even Covid into impeccable punchlines: Ugandan Moses Kiboneka is a shy engineer by day but put him in front of a camera in his garage, and he turns into Uncle Mo - the Youtube comedian who turned Uganda’s Covid lockdown into the launching pad for an award-winning career.

4. Tantalise your taste buds: We love it when personal interest turns into a narrative shifting moment. Take how Yasmine Fofana turned her love for food into Ivory Coast’s first foodie blog and the inspiration behind Abidjan Restaurant Week. 

5. TikTok, but make it a platform for feel-good African stories: @habari_njema has over 460k followers and 5.4 million likes on TikTok. The “It” factor? African news with a twist: one that tells feel-good African stories. The Good News Sunday series is a winner. 

6. Rediscover Accra with a pop of colour: Ghanaian photographer Derrick Boateng’s use of colour adds joy and energy to the ordinary moments he photographs, and the world can’t get enough - just ask the rapper Common, who used his photography on the cover of his album, A Beautiful Revolution.

7. Be on the pulse of African literature: Brittle Paper’s annual 50 Notable African Books is the ultimate guide for all things to do with books by Africans and authors in the Diaspora. The 2021 list includes The Sex Lives of African Women (Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah), All Gomorrahs are the Same (Thenjiwe Mswane), We Are All Bird of Uganda (Hafsa Zayyan), A Bigger Picture (Vanessa Nakate) and The Wayfarers Hymns (Zakes Mda).

8. Go on an epic road trip around Kenya with Legally Clueless: The podcast, created by Adelle Onyango, went on its first tour around Kenya, to the university towns of Nairobi, Kisumu, Mombasa and Eldoret, university towns, to speak to young people about their experiences. Expect laughter, lots of food for thought and a refreshing perspective on being young, African and represented beyond stereotypes. 

9. Travel from Morocco to South Africa by bicycle, skates and all means necessary: With just $80 in his pocket, Moroccan Othmane Zolati took the long way to South Africa by travelling through West and East Africa before finally skating to Cape Town. Africa and I is a nail-biting documentary that challenges every stereotype you can think of about travelling Africa, including that Africa is difficult to travel.

10. Jam to Ozumba Mbadiwe by Reekado Banks: We love that the killer Afropop beats are accompanied by lyrics that double as social commentary about the October 2020 events at the Lekki Toll Gate. 

What will you be reading, watching and jamming to? Tag @Africanofilter on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to plug your favourite African storytellers. Remember to follow @BirdStoryAgency on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with alternative stories about Africa.

Happy holidays!