Our top stories of 2024 are not so much our most-read pieces as they are the pieces that reflect the range of subjects we covered in the year, and that we therefore recommend, in case you missed reading them. They show our deep work in finding untold stories, contextualizing developments in African literature and Nollywood, and highlighting the shapers of culture and industries. Individually and collectively, they, like our other longform stories, dismantle patronizing expectations of African media stories — the suggestion that “we are not there yet” — and set new industry standards of quality, depth, and originality. These, dear reader, define our fourth year.

Longform Profiles & Artists’ Stories

The fact that Cardinal Arinze — in seven decades of unparalleled service in the Catholic Church, during which he came close to becoming pope — had never been the subject of a major Profile puts in focus how much of contemporary African history remains uncontextualized. People know that people like him — members of the first generation of post-Independence Africans — are icons; but most people don’t know why exactly. This then is how a young priest from Onitsha, Nigeria, became the highest-ranking African and Black official of the Roman Catholic Church, and a storied icon of modern apostolicism. It is our August 2024 cover story — our tenth overall.

The Prodigious Arrival of Arinze Ifeakandu
In an era of unearned hype, the novelistic short stories of God’s Children Are Little Broken Things established him as a major talent, earning him the Dylan Thomas Prize. But as potent as fiction is in combating queer erasure, he believes in the supplement of living openly. Story by Paula Willie-Okafor.

A Poet Imagines Dreams for the Displaced
In Exodus, his debut collection, ‘Gbenga Adeoba threads the histories, migrations, and traumas of people forced to sea. Story by Iheoma Uzomba.

Momtaza Mehri’s Fluid Diasporas
Having traversed regions, her poetry, including the Forward Prize-winning Bad Diaspora Poems, interrogates a race- and class-conscious world — and her place in it as a Muslim Somali woman. Story by Iheoma Uzomba.

A Navy Pilot Pivoted to Writing, Spurred by Surrealists
While flying military helicopters, Umar Abubakar Sidi wrote the two top-selling poetry books in Nigeria. Now he has a novel. One day, he will write about military life: “It is a reality I cannot escape.” He is part of a small but storied history of soldiers in Nigerian literature, a list that includes Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu and Mamman Vatsa. Story by Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera.

Inventing Ńdébé, an Indigenous Script for the Igbo Language
A script is an emblem of cultural memory, which is why the Latin script immerses us in Western power and the Arabic script reminds us of Islamic civilization. It is why a Nigerian linguist, Lotanna Igwe-Odunze, created Ndebe, placing it in a history that includes the famed Nsibidi script. This story is from our Folio Nigeria partnership.

Aiwanose Odafen’s Duology of Womanhood
For the Nigerian novelist, women’s lives are the plot. With Tomorrow I Become a Woman and We Were Girls Once, the first two books in a planned cross-generational trilogy, she takes us into the burdens of marriage, motherhood, ethnicity, and class. Story by Iheoma Uzomba.

A Tech Startup Took on the Gender Gap
The first time that Tech4Her Africa, the award-winning Nigerian startup founded by Elizabeth Olorunleke Edwards, visited a girls’ secondary school, the students were surprised. “Tech expert” was not what they were used to seeing women as. This story on Tech4Her Africa — part of a thriving ecosystem of female-led organisations, most of which were founded in the 2010s, all on a succeeding mission to bridge the gender divide in tech in Nigeria — is republication from our Folio Nigeria partnership.

Out of a Lagos Street Boxing Academy, Big Dreams & a Child Star
One evening in 2013, Coach Tipo, a former boxer-turned-trainer in Egbeda, Lagos, sat outside his apartment, eating cashew with his brother, his boxing kit on the ground in front of them, when a child, passing with his mother, left her and ran to the kit. The boy picked the gloves and started hitting other kids around, in sport. The child, Sultan Adekoya, was only five years old then. Years later, clips of him blew up on social media. This story of dreams and a failed public promise is from our Folio Nigeria partnership.

From our Folio Nigeria partnership, the story of the ascent of, at the time, the only woman playing polo in northern Nigeria, and one of the very few in Nigeria.

Features

There is no literary bookstore in Africa’s oldest modern country. But, after civil wars and an epidemic, its writers are writing, and hoping. Story by Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera.

With the S16 Film Festival, an Arthouse Collective Locks Its Focus
A trio of young filmmakers banded together as the Surreal16 Collective, to resist Nollywood clichés. At their festival, Michael Omonua, C.J. “Fiery” Obasi, and Abba T. Makama curate a haven for unorthodox filmmakers. Story by Michael Aromolaran.

New Writing

Morality as an uncanny city in Teju Cole’s second novel: “And if we are to think of music as a sort of shield for him, then we are invited to think of his dead friend as having once played that same role in his life.” Essay by Reyumeh Ejue.

Interviews

How Tolu Obanro, Nollywood’s Top Composer, Crafts the Sounds of Its Biggest Hits
Hopping between genres, his scores are heard in almost every major recent box office and streaming success, including A Tribe Called Judah, Jagun Jagun, Gangs of Lagos, and Battle on Buka Street. “I’ve been trusted by filmmakers,” he said. Story by Paula Willie-Okafor.

“A Richness of African Consciousness”: How a Spiritual Novel Influenced a Music Album
Booker Prize winner Ben Okri, author of The Famished Road, and Ghanaian rapper Delasi, with the EP The Audacity of Free Thought, in a deep, rare reflection on storytelling, art forms, and their quests for origins. Story by Michael Chiedoziem Chukwudera.

“I Used to Think Stories Only Had Artistic Value if They Were Tragic”: Feel Good Hums with Queer Joy
Editors Daniel Orubo and OluTimehin Kukoyi, and contributors Olakunle Ologunro, Innocent Ilo, Edwin Okolo, Fareeda Abdulkareem, and Ani Kayode, on the freedoms and radicality of fictionalizing happiness for LGBTQ+ Nigerians. Story by Victor Orji Ebubechukwu.

The OCM Curatorial Fellowship Presents: It’s Bloom Time, a 3-D Fashion Story Collection
Crafted by the Nigerian designer Izuchukwu Udokwu, with sponsorship by Africa No Filter, it weaves fashion, music, and poetry to show that “you don’t have to create physical pieces that would probably end up in the waste bin and contribute to the wastes in our environment.”

A Small Indie Producer Bets on Social Justice Cinema
Godwin Harrison’s “advocacy-led” HUG Media Concept is “about using cinema to address issues.” His new film Ima’mi is based on his life as an Efik prince who was outed as gay. Story by Victor Orji Ebubechukwu.

The OCM Curatorial Fellowship Presents: Among Us, Scans of Ancient Nok Art for an AR-scape
Created by the Nigerian artists Vetum Galadima and Amaka Obioma, with sponsorship by Africa No Filter, it “combines museum technology and art direction to create a perspective for art preservation.”

Nonzo Bassey’s Songs of Heartbreak
On his debut album Diary of a Loverboy, the Nigerian singer and actor channels frustration, anger, and love. Story by Victor Orji Ebubechukwu.

Hosted by the East African activist Name Redacted, with sponsorship by Africa No Filter, “conversations like these provide a counter-narrative to predominant Western narratives of ‘coming out.’”

The New York Times bestselling author of The Girl with the Louding Voice and And So I Roar on her writing process. Story by Victor Orji Ebubechukwu.

The OCM Curatorial Fellowship Presents: Luba, an Exhibition on Malawian Flora
Staged by the Malawian artist Mirriam Francesca Nkosi, with sponsorship by Africa No Filter, it “focused on preserving, celebrating, and documenting these native plants and the traditional knowledge associated with them.” ♦
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