TweetIn the lead up to the short list announcement for the Nobel Prize in Literature on 30 May, headlines this week brought to the fore the problematic obsession that some people have with the Nobel Prize in Literature being awarded to the late Chinua Achebe. For years, the pre-announcement period has seen speculations demands as to whether [...]

TweetI am glad to share that I have won the ”Blogger of the Year” award at the Women4Africa Awards. The awards, which took place on 18 May 2013, was described as “the most honourable event for African’s by Africans ever in the UK”. Another attendee said “No organisation in Europe has ever created a platform to celebrate [...]

TweetI was fourteen the first time that I was molested. It was an incident that (in hindsight) ushered me into the awareness that womanhood was in many ways going to be quite the challenge. I was walking home after school, this was in Malmo, Sweden, where I lived at the time. As I approached the [...]

TweetThe world has never been as patriarchal as it is today. I’m not claiming that individual societies don’t treat their women better than they did previously, but in the globalised, interconnected world we live in, we can no longer consider issues in an isolated fashion. So as we now consider the situation of women everywhere, [...]

TweetI am happy to announce that I have won the ”Outstanding Achievement in Media” award at the African Diaspora Awards which took place on 2 May 2013. The African Diaspora Awards (ADA) ceremony is an event which pays tribute to African success across all walks of life; emphasising achievement and highlighting inspirational role models in the fields [...]

TweetIf the government passes a proposal that bans miniskirts, Uganda may soon join the list of countries to restrict women from making independent choices about what they wear. If the bill, which has been proposed by (insert drumroll) the minister of ethics, Simon Lokodo, is passed, women who fail to abide may be sentenced to a [...]

TweetConversations with women who empower is a quarterly interview series where women of African heritage share their views on work and life. The series highlights women whose work empowers and inspires in its skilfulness, ethos, creativity and impact and who also are women that I can picture myself having a tête-à-tête with. I’m delighted to feature Precious [...]

TweetOn 24 June 2011, over 5,000 people showed up for an event at the V&A Museum in London titled “Friday Late: Afropolitans”. Now, packing the world famous museum is usually the function of western art and high fashion, but on this night the crowd came to listen to artists like Spoek Mathambo, taste palm wine [...]

TweetOn Saturday, 6th April, I’ll be joining a host of inspiring speakers (see below) to address the matter of ‘Mobilising African Women in the Diaspora: Creating a movement for African women’s leadership, rights and development’.  The conference is hosted by FORWARD UK and will take place between 10.30am-6.30pm at Greencoat Place. If you would like to attend, complete the registration form which [...]

Tweet It is most often agreed that poverty, exacerbated by a lack of education, tends to lie behind a widespread belief in witchcraft. However, the reasons people seek scapegoats for their misfortunes is more complex than so. First of all, let’s establish that witch accusations are widespread around Africa. And not only accusations but also [...]

Tweet On April 11th, I’m in Stockholm as one of four keynote speakers at the launch of Africa is a Great Country, a photography exhibition by Jens Assur, taking place at Liljevalchs. I’ll be speaking alongside Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Richard Dowden and Hans Rosling and my speech is titled “Images of African women“. Africa is a Great Country is about seeing [...]

TweetTwo things are growing faster in Africa than anywhere else – religion and the economy. Africa is the most devout continent in the world with 89 percent of participants in a 2012 WIN Gallup survey saying that they were religious, compared to 59 percent in the world at large. In Ghana, the country with the [...]

Tweet When I was seventeen, I got a job as a telephone salesperson of ink cartridges. The worst thing about the job was that I was so good at it. I was promoted and was eventually earning a serious lot of money. I don’t know what made me a successful ink cartridge seller but I [...]

TweetA few weeks ago, ahead of FRIDA – Female Revolution in Dance & Art, I got “unibrowed”, moustached, red lippied and dressed up as the legend Frida Kahlo for the International Women’s Month event. Or rather, as Frida Kahlo in a selection of her self-portraits. The photos, which are part of the ongoing exhibition, were [...]

TweetAre you connected with MsAfropolitan on Facebook? It’s where I share great links, resources and discussions in addition to posts from the blog. For instance, I recently posted Mamphela Ramphele’s inauguration speech for the landmark political party Agang in South Africa, and news about bell hooks winning the 2013 Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s Best [...]

Tweet Four things happened on February 14th, 2013, that were strung together in an eerie way. These were the celebration of Valentine’s day, the One Billion Rising protests in over 200 countries around the world, the murder of Reeva Stenkamp by Oscar Pistorius, and, Asteroid 2012 DA14 almost wiping us all out. You probably agree that [...]

Tweet   I don’t consider myself a poet but that’s an odd thing to announce given that I am next going to offer you to download cache, my poetry book. And for free too in the spirit of Valentine’s day and love! Poetry is a form of writing that I’m compelled to engage in when [...]

Tweet “I leave you my portrait so that you will have my presence all the days and nights that I am away from you.”  ― Frida Kahlo To celebrate the forthcoming International Women’s Month 2013, join us (Pia Cabble, Bumi Thomas, CRE8 LIFESTLE CENTRE & MsAfropolitan) for a spectacular multidisciplinary art project inspired by the legacy of [...]

Tweet  One of the most popular articles in 2012 was “Why women still can’t have it all“, by Anne-Marie Slaughter in The Atlantic. It received the most facebook likes any Atlantic article has ever received and everyone from Michelle Obama to Gloria Steinem weighed in on the matter. Whether or not women can have it [...]

Tweet When it comes to places, the affection that I have for my hometown, Lagos, is matched only by a sort of nostalgia that I harbour towards Tampere, the Finnish city I’m from, which shapes many of my memories but in which I’ve never lived. Yet, my being Scandinavian feels like a secret. Not from anyone, [...]

TweetI can’t believe I fell for your schemes, I’m smarter than that/So dumb and naive to believe that with me you’re a changed man/Foolish of me to compete when you cheat with those women /It took me some time, but now I moved on/Cause I realized I got/Me, myself and I/That’s all I got in [...]

Tweet  Is Africa hopeless, hopeful, sinking, growing, shrinking or rising? Such preoccupations repeatedly appear in analyses of Africa. Here are, for instance,  1, 2, 3, 4, 5 articles from The Guardian discussing the theme,  1, 2, 3, 4 articles from African Arguments, and from Africa Unchained and TIME to link to just a few. These ruminations are no [...]

TweetSpike Lee did the right thing in publicly taking issue with Django Unchained, the latest Quentin Tarantino movie about a freed African slave who embarks on a violent journey to save his wife. The wife character, Broomhilda, played by Kerry Washington is monotonous to discuss for hers is a shockingly flat role. Her character serves [...]

Tweet I’d like to end the year here with a short recap.  I posted 72 blogs in 2012. They featured original content about race relations, pop culture, African affairs and psychology which are four of the five key themes of MsAfropolitan. The list below consists of the most popular blogs from the fifth major theme – [...]

Tweet This is a guest post by Solome Lemma – Before we start, it is important to recognize that what we refer to as the African diaspora is not monolithic. There are many diaspora communities with their own histories, interests, needs and opportunities. That said let me get straight to the point. Namely that it [...]

Tweet   I have a post at Black Feminists UK today, Results of the 2011 census were published in the UK this week revealing that the number of mixed-race people in Britain has almost doubled in ten years. As a result, several journalists distributed what I’d call “unwarranted postracialism”, suggesting, for instance, that thanks to people like Jessica [...]

Tweet  I’m slowly recovering from Trust Women, a two-day women’s rights conference co-organised by Thomson Reuters Foundation and the International Herald Tribune that brought together pioneers of women’s rights including Nobel laureates Aung San Suu Kyi and Shirin Ebadi, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Lydia Cacho, Queen Noor of Jordan Oscar winner Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy among others. I use the word ‘recovering’ because it [...]

Tweet Tuesday, June 26th, 2012 I attend ‘hip hop on trial’, a global debate discussing whether hip hop is the authentic, revolutionary voice of the oppressed or if it is a glorification of all that holds back oppressed minorities and hinders them from mainstream assimilation. At 32 minutes into the discussion, which is streamed live, there is an [...]

TweetBBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour is to publish a Power List to rank the 100 most powerful women in the UK at the start of 2013. The list will answer – Which women have the biggest impact on our economy, society, politics and culture? Who has the ability to inspire change as a role model or [...]

Tweet“I’ll tell you what’s unnatural. Forcing a cock into a woman’s cunt!” These are the heated words that Charlie Browning,  a character played by Mojisola Adebayo, yells halfway through a new theatre and dance collaboration at the Ovalhouse Theatre, I Stand Corrected. The production sees two of Africa’s most renowned performers, the critically acclaimed Danish-Nigerian playwright, Mojisola Adebayo, and Mamela [...]