Ali Zaidi was that éminence grise that all newspapers must have – that one in-house intellectual and grammarian commanding a battery of section editors. He was also an incredibly warm and genuine person who was happiest when surrounded by large groups of people.
Attitudes about death and bodies have evolved over time writes PATRICK GATHARA. But the politics of death in today's context has been marred with colonial myths and narratives that influence death and burial rights.
The members of Wildlife Utilization Task Force have attempted to facilitate the blatant colonization of our lands through wildlife management chicanery. Whether their respective roles were a deliberate conspiracy or unwitting, remains to be seen. However, we will never forget their names. We Kenyans deserve better and should never accept this shame they have visited upon us.
DAN ACEDA explores the new wave of contemporary pop music as one marked by urban, ahistorical, and accessible philosophy and idiom, and one that ironically, gospel music may have paved the way for – which is only possible because Kenyan gospel pop was only faintly related to religious or church music proper.
There is familiarity in veminization of marginalised people in cities, in places like Kibra in colonial Kenya and the first Chinatowns in North America that existed around the turn of the 20th century that continue to endure to date.
What if this ratchet music is a pushback against the bleak logics of a society that defiles in so many other ways, a society that ruthlessly forecloses on opportunities for the young and poor in particular? What if the ratchet offers an insurgent possibility of life after social death, of life beyond nihilism?
The songs don’t have the best beats out there, the artists don’t have makeup or extensive wardrobes nor do the video vixens necessarily appeal to the beauty ideal. They’re just normal people, who are easily relatable. Plus, the meme is the message, as researchers ODIPODEV explore.
Wife inheritance has been treated as one of the legacies of past backward African culture but as ADIPO SIDANG' argues, are we throwing the baby with the bathwater?
It can be argued that the whole football tournament, footballers, their emotions, their characteristic traits, actions on the pitch and activities of spectators are transformed into a war scenario through the commentary, indeed, as CAREY BARAKA argues, football remains as an arena for political expression for a long time to come.
The literary world has lost yet another icon. Another healer of wounds is no longer with us. But Morrison’s language and words will always comfort us, especially in these trying times when extremism, hate and paranoia are fragmenting societies and spreading fear.
