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5 days 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 week 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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2 weeks 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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2 weeks 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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2 weeks 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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3 weeks 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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3 weeks 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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4 weeks 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.
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1 month ago | 
okayafrica.com | Amuna Wagner
Sudan's bid to sue the United Arab Emirates (UAE), alleging that the UAE is providing the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) with weapons that are being used to commit genocide in Darfur, has been dismissed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). On Monday, May 5, the United Nations' top court in The Hague announced that it "manifestly lacked" the authority to continue the proceedings.
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1 month ago | 
okayafrica.com | Amuna Wagner
"In the entrance hall of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), there's this gigantic statue of Ramses II. It's the largest standing statue of an ancient Egyptian king on Earth, and it's on a base surrounded by water in the shape of a pyramid," Ibrahim Morgan tells OkayAfrica. He chuckles. "Many guests are mesmerized and drawn by the statue's beauty, so they don't focus. They keep walking towards it and end up falling into the water."Morgan is an Egyptologist and tour guide with 29 years of experience.
