11 min read. Taarab is one of the oldest music forms in the East African region and amongst the earliest to be recorded commercially and exported. From its cradle at the East African coast arose new genres of music and a cast of iconic musicians whose influential contribution to world music continues to receive scant attention in popular literature.
11 min read. Billy Kahora is a writer of the impact of an age in Kenyan history. In his writings, you piece together the etymology and see that at soul, the stories begin in the first decade of Kenya’s independence.
10 min read. Critics of the Kaduna Book and Arts Festival-KABAFEST- claim that it is a public relations gimmick for a controversial State Governor but as Isaac Otidi Amuke argues collaborations between politicians and artists raises various counter-arguments.
10 min read. Some pointed to his turbocharged shoes; others came up with culturally reductive theories about why he ran a marathon distance in under two hours. However, Eliud Kipchoge has shown the world that only discipline and endurance can create champions.
8 min read. The Machakos People’s Park is more than a public green space, it is a symbol of re-imagination and negotiation from a time when proximity to the Capital City Nairobi determined who or what mattered writes Lutivini Majanja.
8 min read. The backlash against the women’s movement has seen a rise in the hypersexualisation and infantilisation of women, especially in music videos, says RASNA WARAH. This has had a negative impact on how women view their own bodies.
10 min read. Ali Zaidi and I parachuted into Kenya when it was easier to form relationships and friendships based on shared interests and common humanity. We arrived as outsiders and Kenya became the reality wreck that forced us to co-evolve.
9 min read. CHRISTINE MUNGAI travelled to western Kenya to meet farmers who had only good things to say about One Acre Fund’s activities in their communities, as the organization fills a gap created by the abandonment of smallholder farmers by government authorities. But more questions arise on how exactly the organization is able to circumvent the cartels that have gripped the sector, and on the structural inequalities that the company exploits and even exacerbates.
7 min read. Food has never been about the simple act of eating; food is history, and identity. Hence, colonialism, as a violent process, fundamentally altered the way of life of a people, including their culinary habits.
7 min read. Peoples are what they eat and the dietary consumption and what we choose to imbibe, or not consume based on habits, health, religion, or taboos symbolically reflect this dynamic.
