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3 days ago | 
okayafrica.com | Amuna Wagner
2025 rolled in slowly for North African music. This might be due to various reasons, such as the shifting music industry, which is increasingly dominated by Western labels setting up shop, as the Middle East and North Africa have been named the world's fastest-growing recorded music region for the second time in three years.
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2 weeks ago | 
okayafrica.com | Amuna Wagner
Female Genital Mutilation Amongst Sudanese Migrants In Greater Cairo: Perceptions And Trends is the first study looking at FGM in Sudanese communities in Egypt. "Sudanese families are not aware that Egyptians practice FGM. Amongst them, type three [the most extreme] is usually known as Pharaonic. So when we ask them whether Egyptians practice FGM or not, they realize that Egyptians must practice FGM because it's Pharaonic," Dr. Yussra Mohammed tells OkayAfrica.
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3 weeks ago | 
okayafrica.com | Amuna Wagner
WhenSmall X wakes up in the morning, he listens to lo-fi music to start his day with good vibes. One of his favorite artists isSaib, a well-known name in the genre. "I like this way of producing, mixing jazzy melodies and funk with hip hop," Small X tells OkayAfrica in a Zoom call alongside his manager, Othmane Bellamine. "When Othmane told me that Saib is a Moroccan guy, I said, 'We are two Moroccans. Two different types of music, and we both love hip-hop. Why not?
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1 month ago | 
okayafrica.com | Amuna Wagner
On May 25, 2020, a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd, giving fuel to the largest protest movement in U.S. history. Millions mobilized against police brutality, and for a while, their rallying cry, "Black Lives Matter" (BLM), echoed across the world. At the time, I was stuck in Germany because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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1 month ago | 
okayafrica.com | Amuna Wagner
According to South African filmmaker and National Geographic explorer Noel Kok, the moment you see your first rhino will stay with you forever. In his case, the rhino was a bumper sticker on the back of a white woman's car that read "Save the rhino." Kok grew up in the late 1970s during Apartheid and noticed that only white people had this bumper sticker. "In my mind, I thought, 'this is not our animal, it's a white person's animal,'" he remembers in an interview with OkayAfrica.
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1 month ago | 
okayafrica.com | Amuna Wagner
As one of the fourKhartoum co-directors, Sudanese film director, editor, and producer Timeea Mohamed Ahmed has successfully brought the experience of fleeing Sudan's ongoing war to international screens and attention. The documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and received multiple honors at the Berlinale. But Ahmed, whose films mostly explore themes of conflict, identity, and cultural resilience, has not finished advocating for and raising awareness about Sudan.
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1 month ago | 
okayafrica.com | Amuna Wagner
Libya is not often in the news, but when it is, the headlines tell gruesome stories about mass graves, slave markets, and migrants being tortured in detention centres. The situation for migrants and asylum seekers has been dire for years, and it continues to worsen as Libya, like other North African countries, falls prey to populist rhetoric, xenophobia, and EU border policies.
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1 month ago | 
okayafrica.com | Amuna Wagner
"I was riding a microbus while visiting Ain Shams, and I noticed an African girl with a tired face resting her head on the glass and sleeping next to me. She suddenly woke up frightened and crying hysterically, startling me and the other passengers. Then she left without any explanation. That was the trigger for this project," Egyptian filmmaker Morad Mostafa tells OkayAfrica.
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1 month ago | 
okayafrica.com | Amuna Wagner
Before she became the owner of a Michelin-recommended restaurant in Toronto, Maha Barsoom used to cook and garden as a hobby in Cairo. Raised by a grandmother and parents who were phenomenal cooks, she learned to appreciate the art of food from a young age. Instead of enjoying recess, she would go to the school library, peruse cookbooks for recipes, and reinvent them at home. "The first thing I [ever] made was chocolate cake with toffee caramel," she remembers in an interview with OkayAfrica.
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1 month ago | 
okayafrica.com | Amuna Wagner
In the Arabic-speaking world, Marwan Moussa needs no introduction. The Egyptian German rapper and producer has dominated the rap scene for years, rising to fame for his hard-hitting bars and effortless flow. A man who enjoys bragadociousness and does it well, Moussa is the third most-streamed Arab rapper of all time and has received three All Africa Music Awards. After losing his mother to illness in October 2023, Moussa did not listen to music for six months.
