From Nigeria to the world: Afrobeats is having a global moment

Posted on Thu 21 April 2022 in Nigeria • Tagged with Afrobeats, Entertainment, Music, Fela, Grammys, Femi Kuti, Wizkid, Burna Boy, Davido, Yemi Alade, Tems, CKay, Pheelz, Buju, TikTok, Instagram

Tems performs in London in 2021. Photo by Joseph Okpako/WireImage

Garhe Osiebe, Rhodes University

Another Grammy Awards season and there is a growing list of African nominees. For African music enthusiasts, it is heartwarming that recognition is being accorded to practitioners in the Afrobeats space.

Afrobeat and Afrobeats, although …


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The story of how Swahili became Africa’s most spoken language

Posted on Mon 07 March 2022 in Africa • Tagged with Swahili, African Bantu, Mogadishu, Somalia, Sofala, Mozambique, African Union, AU, Uganda

Tanzanian leader Julius Nyerere, a Swahili advocate. Keystone/Getty Images

John M. Mugane, Harvard University

Once just an obscure island dialect of an African Bantu tongue, Swahili has evolved into Africa’s most internationally recognised language. It is peer to the few languages of the world that boast over 200 …


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