For years, Starsamm has been building in plain sight. Long before the Nigerian singer-songwriter emerged as one of Afropop's most promising new voices, he was quietly refining his craft behind the scenes–writing songs, developing his sound, and earning the respect of industry insiders who recognized his potential early.

Born Samuel Iseoluwa Awelewa in Osun State, Nigeria, the budding artist’s journey eventually led to a songwriting credit on a Grammy-nominated record, ‘Tomorrow’ by Yemi Alade. This milestone reaffirmed his belief that the years of sacrifice were beginning to pay off. It also helped pave the way for his signing to KeyQaad, the influential Nigerian label known for nurturing distinctive voices such as Omah Lay and Kaestyle.

Since then, Starsamm has steadily carved out a lane of his own. His 2025 debut EP, ‘Love Is War,’ introduced listeners to a young artist documenting romance, longing, and self-discovery in real time. But on ‘Dawn’, his latest project, the perspective shifts. Written during a period marked by personal change, mounting expectations, heartbreak, and sobriety, the EP captures an artist learning how to navigate a new phase of life while remaining emotionally transparent.

In conversation with Deeds, Starsamm reflects on growing up in Osun State, moving to Lagos in pursuit of music, finding his voice through vulnerability, and why ‘Dawn’ represents far more than a new release–it marks the beginning of a new chapter.

Stanley for Deeds Magazine: Right now, in this exact season of your life, who is Samuel when the music is off, and nobody’s watching?

I've always been a family man. A lot of what fuels my hustle is wanting to take care of the people around me. When I'm not making music or out on the road, I'm usually at home trying to build real connections with the people I love. Life on the road ends on the road. Eventually, you have to come back home and connect with your people. I never want my family to feel like Sam only shows up when things aren't going well. I want to be present all the time. That's important to me.

Before there was Starsamm, there was Samuel. What kind of kid were you growing up?

I grew up in Osun State before moving to Lagos when I was around 14 or 15. I've always been a quiet person. Looking back, I spent a lot of time observing people and paying attention to my surroundings. Now that I'm older, I realise some of that was probably ADHD. I was constantly taking mental notes about what was happening around me. Whenever I wanted to express myself, I tended to do it intensely, and sometimes that made me retreat into my shell. So I became the kid who watched everything.

What first made music feel personal to you?

Church was where music became personal. I joined a dance-drama group where people would act on stage while others sang alongside the performance. Watching storytelling and music come together fascinated me. I wanted to be part of it. What's funny is that I wasn't actively listening to a lot of mainstream artists at the time. Most of my friends sounded like the artists they loved. They sounded like Wizkid, Kizz Daniel or Patoranking. I didn't really know those artists well enough to imitate them, so whatever I wrote came directly from me. Looking back, I think that's one of the reasons my music developed its own identity early.

When did music stop being something you loved and start becoming something you needed to pursue?

It happened naturally. I didn't wake up one day and decide I was going to be an artist. I just realised that whenever there were rhythms, melodies, or opportunities to create, I wanted to be involved. When I recorded my first song, I actually hid it from my dad for years because I didn't want to get in trouble. Later, I moved from Osun to Lagos to pursue the dream more seriously. For a teenager, that was a huge decision.

At first, my family worried about stability. They encouraged me to find a job alongside

You spent years building before wider recognition came. What did those years teach you?

It felt like I was writing a story. Leaving my state, moving to Lagos, attending music school, hustling and trying to survive–it all felt like chapters in something bigger. There were moments when I was exhausted. I wasn't going to quit, but I was definitely getting tired. Working with Yemi Alade changed everything for me. When a song I contributed to received Grammy recognition, it shifted something in my mind. I remember thinking: if something I actively worked on can reach that level, then this is only the tip of the iceberg. It reminded me that I was doing something right and that I needed to keep going.

Was there ever a moment when you questioned whether all of this would work out?

Of course. Unless you're completely delusional, everybody has those moments. There are nights when you're staring at the ceiling at 3 a.m., wondering whether you're on the right path. I've had those moments too. But eventually I stopped thinking only about results. Music became my way of life. I started viewing my career as a story that was still being written. Years from now, I won't just look back at songs. I'll look back at memories, sacrifices, lessons, and experiences. That perspective helps me push through uncertainty. Even today, I sometimes look back and think, "I can't believe I've made it this far."

A lot of people describe your music as incredibly vulnerable and emotionally honest. Was that always natural for you, or has music helped you become more open?

Not really. Earlier in my career, I spent a lot of time writing from other people's perspectives. I would take their stories and personalise them. But eventually I started losing myself in that process. The only way out was to become more honest about my own reality. I realised creativity is strongest when it comes from your own point of view. Once I stopped hiding behind other people's stories and started writing about what I was actually experiencing, everything changed.

Why is vulnerability so important to your music?

I think honesty is how you build community. A lot of people want escapism, especially in a place like Nigeria, where life can be difficult. But if you want longevity, you have to give people something deeper than entertainment. When I started meeting fans, I noticed they would open up to me emotionally. Strangers would tell me things they were going through because they felt safe. I think that's because I've opened up in my music first. When people feel like you're being honest, they trust you. That's how real communities are built.

Which artists, whether Nigerian or global, have helped shape the way you think about songwriting and storytelling?

Ed Sheeran was a huge influence on me. He's one of the greatest songwriters I've ever listened to. Beyond the melodies, he tells stories that make people feel something. The Lumineers also had a big impact on me because of their songwriting. Then there was Omah Lay. Listening to him changed something for me creatively. He showed me that storytelling could be deeply Nigerian and still connect universally. Before that, I felt like my songwriting leaned very Western. Omah Lay helped me realise I could embrace my identity, my experiences, and my culture without sacrificing quality. That was a major turning point.

What made KeyQaad feel like the right home for you?

The funny thing is that it happened very naturally. My manager was at the KeyQaad office and played some of my music. One of the CEOs heard it from another room and asked who the artist was. They played more songs, and apparently, both CEOs immediately felt they needed to sign me. What attracted me to KeyQaad was how much they allow artists to remain themselves. There wasn't pressure to become someone else or chase a particular trend. They believed in who I already was, and that meant a lot to me. 

Your debut EP, Love Is War, and your latest project, Dawn, feel like two very different chapters. How do you view them now?

‘Love Is War’ came from a very different place in my life. At the time, I wasn't trying to make a project. I was simply documenting my experiences. I was in love, I was making music, and I was enjoying life. The songs reflected that. They were about relationships, emotions, arguments, happiness, and everything that came with it. After the project came out, life changed. Suddenly, there were expectations. There was pressure from the label, pressure from management, and pressure from myself. The same relationship that had inspired so much of the music became harder to sustain because my life was changing so quickly.

That's where ‘Dawn’ begins. It’s me deciding that I want to restart my life. I had achieved things I once thought were impossible, but I realised success also brings new challenges. I needed to learn how to live this new life and how to manage everything that came with it. Unlike ‘Love Is War,’ which happened naturally, ‘Dawn’ was a very conscious project. These songs came from late-night thoughts, difficult conversations, anxiety, heartbreak, and self-reflection.

I used to smoke heavily, and while working on the EP, I decided to get sober. That decision forced me to sit with my thoughts instead of escaping them. There were emotions I couldn't run from anymore. There were memories I had to confront. Songs like ‘Sober’ came directly from those moments. ‘Dawn’ became a record about clarity, acceptance, and learning how to move forward. For me, it's more than just another project. It's the beginning of a new version of myself.

What do you hope people take away from Dawn?

I want people to listen to my music from a first-person perspective. I want them to imagine that they're the ones speaking the words and feeling the emotions. If they do that, they'll understand what I was going through when I made these songs. More than anything, I want people to feel safe, to feel understood, and like they're listening to someone who understands what they're going through because he's lived through similar things himself. And moving forward, I want to keep exploring that through Afri-pop. I want to continue blending strong songwriting with African rhythms and sounds while telling stories that feel honest and personal. That's always been the goal!

IG:@_stanleykilonzo 

Summer is just getting started, but the past few weeks have already delivered a dense run of fashion and beauty moments that signal where culture is headed next. Between high-street power plays, beauty campaigns as art objects, and sportswear slipping further into luxury’s language, these highlights have blurred every remaining boundary between runway, pop culture, and internet spectacle. Here’s a run down of some exciting things you might have missed.

Team Haiti turns a football jersey into a cultural statement

As Haiti prepares for its first World Cup appearance in more than 50 years, Haitian-Italian designer Stella Jean unveiled a series of limited-edition, hand-stitched jerseys celebrating the occasion. Each jersey features the number 26 on the back in honour of the 2026 tournament, marking Haiti's return to football's biggest stage after last qualifying in 1974.

What began as a sporting celebration quickly found traction across fashion circles, with many praising the collection's blend of national pride and craftsmanship. 

MAC teams up with Painted by Esther and Olandria

Beauty conversations this week were dominated by the launch of MAC's new MACzine editorial project starring makeup artist Ngozi Esther Edeme, better known as Painted by Esther, alongside reality TV personality Olandria Carthen. The collaboration arrives at a moment when conversations around recognition and authorship in beauty remain particularly relevant. The campaign centres Esther's signature blush techniques while spotlighting Olandria as the face of the feature. The rollout was widely celebrated online, with fans praising MAC for highlighting Black beauty creatives and deeper skin tones at the centre of a major campaign.

Casablanca stages an Egyptian fantasy for Pre-Fall 2026

For its latest campaign, Casablanca swapped its usual tennis courts and resort landscapes for the monuments of Egypt. Starring model Georgia Palmer, the imagery draws on cinematic references like The Prince of Egypt, placing the collection against ancient architecture and desert landscapes. The campaign continues creative director Charaf Tajer's ongoing fascination with travel and storytelling, while showcasing the label's signature mix of tailoring, sportswear, and elevated leisurewear.

Bad Bunny x Zara pushes high-street into new territories

After months of teasing, Bad Bunny officially launched his collaboration with Zara online and in-stores worldwide. Titled Benito Antonio — a reference to the artist's full name, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio — the collection spans 150 pieces and was developed alongside his longtime creative director Janthony Oliveras and creative agency M/M Paris. The collection draws heavily from Puerto Rican culture, featuring oversized basics, tailoring, cargo styles, graphic tees, and lightweight summer pieces. Campaign imagery was photographed by Stillz in Puerto Rico, while a dedicated pop-up launched in San Juan ahead of the global release. 

A$AP Rocky's latest PUMA shoe arrives

A$AP Rocky and PUMA continued their partnership with the release of the Mostro 3.D Mule. First seen during Rocky's AWGE presentation at New York Fashion Week, the shoe reimagines PUMA's 1999 Mostro silhouette through 3D-printing technology. Available in black and gradient blue colourways, the mule retains the original Mostro's signature spiked sole while introducing an open-back design. The limited release launched globally on May 21 and quickly became one of the month's most discussed sneaker drops.

Olandria x Brandon Blackwood sells out in minutes

After the success of their first collaboration, Brandon Blackwood and Olandria reunited for a second accessories drop. Inspired by Olandria's self-described "Bama Barbie" aesthetic, the collection reintroduced fan-favourite pieces while blending feminine styling with Blackwood's contemporary approach to luxury accessories. The release sold out within minutes, reinforcing both Olandria's growing influence and the demand generated by their first collaboration.

Between World Cup jerseys, beauty editorials, celebrity collaborations, and sold-out accessories, the past few weeks have shown just how interconnected fashion, beauty, music, and sport have become. If this is any indication of what's ahead, summer is only getting started.

Thirty-three degrees is a dream for any Londoner. Now, imagine that with the infamous thrill of a long weekend. Nothing but good vibes and the scream “Melissa! I’m drunk and outside.” With summer just around the corner, the late May bank holiday is often the harbinger of what’s to come. And on Monday, the 25th of May, 2026, City Splash Festival in Brixton set the tone for a summer filled with nothing but enjoyment, with the weather simply subscribing to the fact.

Held in Brockwell Park, one of London’s infamous hubs for Black culture, City Splash held its sixth celebration of Caribbean and African culture. A lineup featuring artists and DJs specialising in everything from reggae to garage, held space for every kind of creative and a party that had people more than happy to work up a sweat.

Calling themselves “The Home of Culture,” the festival showcases the world's most exciting talent of today, championing Jamaican music, Black soundsystem culture, and emerging talent across the UK, Caribbean, and African diasporas. This year, that looked like the likes of trending rapper JELEEL!, dancehall legend Jada Kingdom, Soca up-and-comer V’ghn, homegrown talent BXKS, Afrobeats artist Juls, and over 70 others. 

Upon entrance to the park, the smell of salty sweat, spiced food, and earthy weed is fresh. With a long day ahead under the sun, crowds as far as the eye can see are sitting under shaded tables, fanning themselves beneath tented sets, and shimmying their way around the grounds.

The first stage, known as Formula Baad, held a selection of acts from around the world. Two of note were Parisian DJ Daddy Chulo, who stacked up the Francophone energy and, later on in the day, JELEEL!. With his catchy tunes grounded in Afrobeat sound, his emigration from the US to the UK has given him a crowd that can never seem to get enough of him.

What felt like a long walk under the beating sun rewarded guests with an array of food stands, water stations, market stalls, and bar sites as they wandered through the park. Dubbed the “purveyors and advocates for Black music, food, dance and style,” the festival’s partnership with Black Eats LDN kept the vibes going from the stages to the picnic tables. Home to over 60 food traders, festival goers had their choice from authentic Caribbean dishes, like jerk chicken and curry goat, to the basics, like pizza and fried chicken. Even going as far as Asian cuisine with Bao Mi stands, Japanese-style rice bowls, and Korean fried chicken.

And the day wasn’t complete with just music and food. At the far right side of the park, the Rastafari Reasoning Corner held conversations about empowerment, social progress, and industry growth with artists and creatives - grounding the day in cultural resonance. Women dressed in their finest carnival costumes made their way around as shops selling Caribbean essentials and merchandise enticed even the most frugal eye.

A group of smaller stages and activations were scattered around the green lawns as well, including CeraVe’s sunscreen station, RedBull’s energy zone, and Casamigos’ beach-house pop-up serving drinks, dancing, and DJs throughout the day. Soca music streamed from the Rampage Sound stage as Grenadian singer V’ghn led the crowd in a summer crash course filled with Jab Decisions. 

At the far end of the park, the Reload stage got everyone prepped and primed for the biggest names. Where drinks were flowing and ice cream cones being licked, performers Loyal Squad played the classics we grew up on as the crowds drew closer to the Yaad for premier acts. As Gyptian serenaded the beautiful ladies, Elephant Man and Aidonia held the crowd with back-to-back high-energy sets, before the sun set to the sound of smooth mixes by Seani B.

The last of the festivities came to a close as people scrambled to food stalls and drink stations before the main event. The festival’s biggest performer and, perhaps, most anticipated was Reggaeton legend Beres Hammond, who was set to close out the night with an exclusive UK performance.

Known for his 30-year-long career filled with lover’s rock jams, the crowd filled with young and old alike swayed and sang to old classics like Tempted to Touch and an expanse of his melodic discography. “Family,” Hammond yelled to the crowd. “What a combination. It’s England and Beres… in the same room!”

The final notes of his iconic song Rock Away fell upon the crowd as the stars rose and the cool of the night washed over London.

The sky painted a picturesque scene for the walk back to the train stations, as another successful fete for the diaspora and its culture came to an end. With 30,000 people to tell the tale, City Splash’s finger is on the pulse of the diaspora, bringing the culture together and calling the shots. Bank holiday and City Splash - what a combination, indeed.

IG: @clungaho

There was a time when music videos demanded patience. You watched them from beginning to end because the visual itself felt like an event. Directors treated music videos like miniature films, complete with story arcs, emotional pacing, costume changes, dramatic pauses, and cinematic reveals. Whether it was the glossy spectacle of early 2000s hip-hop or the aspirational storytelling that shaped older Afrobeats visuals, music videos once existed as experiences meant to hold a viewer’s attention for four uninterrupted minutes.

Today, many music videos seem designed for a completely different audience; people scrolling with one thumb.

Across Afrobeats, hip-hop, and pop music, directors are increasingly creating visuals that are not just meant to be watched, but redistributed. The modern music video now lives across TikTok clips, Instagram Reels, reaction edits, fan pages, and repost accounts. In many cases, the most important moment in a music video is no longer the ending or storyline. It is the fifteen-second clip that survives outside the video itself.

The shift is impossible to ignore. Asake’s visuals often thrive through chaotic crowd scenes, surreal transitions, repetitive choreography, and highly stylized frames that feel engineered for replayability. Rema has mastered dramatic imagery and fashion-forward aesthetics that frequently circulate online as standalone screenshots. Tyla’s visual appeal is deeply tied to movement, rhythm, and dance culture, making her videos naturally adaptable to short-form platforms.

This visual language extends beyond Afrobeats. In hip-hop, artists like Playboi Carti and Travis Scott lean into hyperactive editing styles, distorted visuals, chaotic lighting, and imagery that mirrors the pace of internet consumption itself. The audience has changed, and directors are adapting accordingly. A listener rarely experiences music in one place anymore. A song might first appear as a dance challenge on TikTok, then show up in a meme compilation on X, before eventually leading someone to the full video on YouTube weeks later. Music videos are no longer expected to function only as complete narratives. They must now survive fragmentation. Every frame has to compete for attention independently.

This is perhaps why modern visuals feel faster, louder, and overstimulating than before. Rapid cuts, exaggerated colour grading, dramatic transitions, choreographed “viral moments”,  and instantly recognizable aesthetics now dominate contemporary music videos. Directors understand that if a visual cannot generate conversation online within seconds, audiences may never engage with the full piece at all.The traditional music video rewarded immersion. Videos unfolded slowly, allowing emotion, storytelling, and symbolism to build naturally. Older hip-hop and R&B visuals often relied on cinematic narratives that mirrored film culture. Early Afrobeats visuals also leaned heavily into aspirational storytelling, luxury imagery, romance, nightlife, and carefully paced performance scenes. Now, the emphasis is increasingly placed on replayability rather than narrative depth.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. In many ways, short-form culture has pushed directors to become more inventive as audiences consume visuals so quickly; artists are experimenting more boldly with fashion, choreography, editing, animation, humour, and unconventional camera work. Internet culture rewards visual distinctiveness, and many directors are responding with more daring creative choices.  For African artists especially, this shift has opened new possibilities. Virality allows artists to travel globally without relying entirely on traditional media systems. A dance clip, transition sequence, or striking visual frame can circulate across continents within hours. Artists no longer need audiences to sit through entire interviews or television appearances to gain recognition. Sometimes, one visually memorable moment is enough. Yet something has undeniably been lost alongside this evolution.

Narrative-driven music videos are becoming increasingly rare. The slower pacing that once allowed viewers to emotionally connect with visuals is disappearing beneath rapid editing and constant stimulation. Some videos feel built for the algorithm, not for the story. Even the structure of music itself has started to change in response. Songs are shorter. Hooks arrive faster. Beat switches happen earlier. Visuals now mirror the same urgency. The goal is no longer simply to create art that resonates emotionally, but content that survives circulation. The modern music video exists in an era where attention itself has become currency. Maybe that is why today’s visuals often feel disjointed. Directors are no longer creating solely for television screens or YouTube premieres. They are creating for phone screens, repost culture, fan edits, and infinite scrolling timelines. The “moment” now matters more than the sequence.

This does not mean music videos are dying. Maybe they are simply evolving into a new visual language altogether.

A generation raised online does not necessarily remember entire music videos the way previous generations did. They remember frames. A dance move. A transition. A facial expression. A fashion look. A screenshot. A ten-second clip attached to a trending sound. The clip itself has become part of the storytelling process. In that sense, directors are not just filming for music anymore. They are filming for circulation. They are creating visuals designed to move through the internet at the same speed as culture itself. And perhaps the real question is no longer whether music videos are losing depth. The more uncomfortable question is whether virality has become our generation’s preferred form of storytelling.

Photo credit: Adobe stock

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Anybody who was not present at the Piano People Scorpion Kings show this weekend missed a day for the books. Kicking off festival season and the summer vibes in London, the sun was shining, the heat was at a high, and the vibes were flowing perfectly throughout Barking Park. With the anticipation for the Scorpion Kings' London return already at an all-time high, the duo came and once again left no crumbs. Playing a three-hour set, they once again showed why there is actually nobody like the Scorpion Kings, and they really are the kings of the game.

Before we got to the main act of the day, the vibes were set from the beginning. Arriving at the park almost halfway through the day meant we missed the early sets, but entering just in time to catch Sam Deep meant the vibes were set strong for us. Playing the Second Location stage, his set came at the peak of the heat and sunshine, and yet that did not stop a single person from vibing along, which started off with smooth vibes before going into his crowd favourites. Playing his latest single ‘Izospana’, which features Thatohatsi and Zuma, the crowd was already vibing to it despite it only being out for three days prior. The Shelaholics were also active and ready as soon as his hit came over the speakers, having everybody losing their minds and singing along at the top of their lungs. The rest of his set continued with other tracks, such as the Thatohatsi-featured standout ‘Who I Am’ track ‘Thandaza ’. 

From Sam Deep, we paid a brief visit to the Groove Station and caught the Qqom vibes, which we indulged in. One thing that was evident throughout the day is there was really something for everybody. With a rich diversity of South African sounds in the lineup, there was a strong display of South African music and the love and popularity it has travelled beyond its borders. 

A standout of the day was none other than Dlala Thuzkin, who, having now seen him perform live three times, has never performed a bad set. As the lead-up to the main act, the energy he brought to the masses on the main stage got everybody excited for the kings. As someone who has been a pioneer in the 3-Step space, he delivered a set that felt like the perfect moment at golden hour. The ladies of the mainstage, Thatohatsi & Tracy, also proved that they really are the top-tier vocalists that they are, as their vocals rang from the front to the back of the stage, bringing songs like ‘Abantwana Bhako’ to life in a different way that was sensational to experience. 

The Scorpion took to the stage and once again delivered a killer set that made three hours feel more like 30 minutes. If there was ever a question about the hype of Scorpion Kings as a duo, they really bring something different to the table. With Kabza’s gospel-soulful vibes, he ushered in the set very smoothly as we watched the sun set. Only to be matched by Maphorisha’s high-energy hits, he delivered. Joined by Uncool MC, who hosted the main stage all day and did what was needed without doing too much from an MC, allowing the Kings to shine. Their set certainly delivered and was worth all the wait. Never ones to disappoint, the range they bring not only of their songs but of amapiano in general really shows their star power in how they continue to showcase the genre, no matter the stage they are on. 

Overall, the day was a stunning vibe of music, food, drinks, and a cultural celebration of Amapiano and Southern African music and its global impact, which it continues to hold. 

On what felt like officially the beginning of summer, the masses gathered to London’s O2 Area to experience the legendary DJ that is Black Coffee take the centre stage joined by an orchestra as well as a few guest performers on stage as he played a 3 hour + set. 

The moment was no doubt a monumental one for him and brought his fans together for a unique offering. Accompanied by various musicians who brought their vocals to the O2 stage as they came on stage one by one. Stand out moments included an appearance by Msaki who joined him to perform their hit Wish You Were Here, as well as Delilah Montagu who performed Drive and even Alicia Keys who joined him to perform In Common. And as those moments brought the energy and love to the crowd to an all time high. 

The set that spanned 3 hours from when he came on at 7:45 was one that catered to the UK crowd. Bringing his collaborations from all over and infusing them all throughout his set. There was a moment in time which felt that perhaps sounded like it had fallen into one and called for an opportunity to bring back some of his classic hits. Having never experienced him before there was nothing to go off on except for the high expectations and hoping for some of his older hits. 

The set up itself was one that served its purpose with him centred in the arena on stage with the standing crowd all around him and the orchestra playing behind and surrounding him on stage for the moment they were on stage before they departed and came back towards the end of the show. The energy of the crowd definitely vibrated across the space of the arena and was very apparent throughout the duration of the show.

For all that was achieved it was certainly a moment for Black Coffee and marked another significant moment in his career and the levels he has been able to reach. Yet it somewhat felt like a reminder of what it really means to a global artist and such catering your sound for certain crowds in where you go in terms of how it impacts your sound and the music you make. In the case of Black Coffee who has become so global and playing for crowds with various musical palettes there felt like a bit of a loss to the classic sound of Black Coffee.  However the sentiment there is no doubt that this moment was a monumental one in the levels that he has been able to reach and his position in the international music scene.

Though the Super Eagles will not be at the tournament, Nigeria has two artists on the official FIFA World Cup 2026 soundtrack - Rema on 'Goals' and Burna Boy on 'Dai Dai' alongside Shakira. The irony writes itself: While the national team’s qualifying campaign collapsed, Nigerian artists were being called to soundtrack the most-watched sporting event on the planet.

That says something about where Afrobeats stands in 2026 and about where Rema stands within it.

“Goals”, the official FIFA World Cup 2026 anthem featuring LISA, Anitta, and Rema, dropped May 21. Produced by Grammy-winner Cirkut alongside Bava, PinkSlip and Tropkillaz, the multilingual track blends Latin pop, K-pop and Afrobeats into a percussion-soaked three-minute collaboration that pulls three continents into one stadium-ready record. LISA brings the precision and charisma of one of K-pop's most recognisable solo careers. Anitta brings the multilingual fluency and rhythmic confidence of Brazil's biggest musical export. Rema brings Afrobeats - and the specific, assured energy of someone who already knows the world knows his name.

The song has drawn inevitable comparisons to Shakira's 'Waka Waka', with fans split between nostalgia for older World Cup anthems and acceptance of a new, more globally fused sound. That debate misses the point. 'Goals' was not built to be 'Waka Waka'. It was built for 2026 - for an audience that consumes music in thirty-second clips, that follows artists across three continents simultaneously, that already knows every name on the track before the video drops. 

The conversation in Nigeria has been less about the song and more about the verse. Rema opens his section with intent: "Breaking all their records, now they wan shift the goal post / Normally Remy get unlimited flow / One of one, check around the world, me no get clone / From Nigeria to Monaco." It is confident, specific and fully Rema - a man who knows exactly what he is and where he stands. The frustration from Nigerian fans was never about quality. It was about appetite. The verse was good enough to make people want more of it, which is precisely the problem and precisely the point. 

Because 'Goals' did something that a World Cup anthem rarely does for a specific artist's fanbase - it reactivated a hunger. The announcement marked another major international milestone for Rema, who has continued to establish himself as one of Africa's most successful music exports. 'Calm Down' made him a global name. The FIFA stage - performing alongside LISA and Anitta at the opening ceremony in Los Angeles on June 12, in front of the largest audience a World Cup has ever commanded, is the next chapter of that story. 

Rema said it himself: "Three continents, one track… bringing all our sounds together like this is a big moment for music on the world stage." He is right. It is a big moment. It is also, for anyone paying attention, a reminder of what a full Rema project at this level of ambition and visibility could sound like.

The World Cup runs from June 11 to July 19. 'Goals' will soundtrack stadiums, opening ceremonies, highlight reels and closing nights. And when the last whistle blows, and the trophy is lifted, the question Nigeria has already started asking will still be sitting there, unanswered.

The verse was good. Where is the rest?

IG: @sophiannadozie

Sixteen years ago, Shakira stood on a South African stage and sang a song that has never fully left. 'Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)' became the standard by which every World Cup anthem since has been measured - not always fairly, but always inevitably. It had a euphoric chorus, an African heartbeat, and the specific warmth of a tournament that felt, for the first time, like it belonged to the continent hosting it. Every song that came after it has been living in its shadow. 

The official FIFA 2026 World Cup song arrived May 14 - a nearly four-minute track featuring Shakira and Nigerian superstar Burna Boy, blending Afrobeats, dance-pop, world beats and reggaetón into something that moves between continents without losing its footing. This is not Shakira attempting to recreate Waka Waka. It is Shakira's understanding that the world has changed, that the sound of football has changed, and that the artist best placed to meet her in that new world is the one they call the African Giant. 

The pairing was purposeful. FIFA wanted artists who would appeal to the Latin population and the sub-Saharan African population simultaneously and Burna Boy, the first solo Nigerian artist to win a Grammy and the first African artist to sell out a US stadium, was the clearest possible choice for what that ambition required. His presence on this record is not decorative. It is structural. Lyrically, both artists deliver something motivational and uplifting - Shakira opening with "You knew from the day you were born / That here in this place you belong," Burna responded with "Go follow your desire / Where there's a will, there's a way." The song name-checks Maradona, Maldini, Ronaldo, Beckham, Messi - a roll call of the sport's mythology delivered with the ease of two artists who understand exactly what the stage requires. 

The music video, directed by Hannah Lux Davis and shot in Miami, opens with Messi, Mbappé and Haaland declaring "We are ready" for Shakira - before she appears atop Mexico City's iconic Angel of Independence, then dances through a desert landscape alongside African children, then stands on a glowing globe amid a starry sky as Burna Boy arrives for his verse. It is cinematic, global, and completely aware of its own scale. The kind of visual that was built to soundtrack highlight reels and opening ceremonies in equal measure. 

'Dai Dai' is the song the Waka Waka comparison was always meant to be about. Not 'Goals' - the cross-continental LISA, Anitta and Rema collaboration that was never competing in that lineage - but this one. Shakira returned to the World Cup stage 16 years after she defined what a tournament anthem could sound like, this time with Afrobeats not at the edges but at the centre. 

The question 'Dai Dai' leaves open is whether you would sing along at the terrace, or whether it was built more for the social media algorithm than the stadium. The song is immaculately constructed, its melody lodges itself after a few listens, and the groove is undeniable. But Waka Waka had something beyond craft. The kind of chorus that removes the distance between you and the music entirely. 'Dai Dai' is the more sophisticated record. Whether it becomes the more beloved one depends on what happens when 80,000 people try to sing it together on July 19 at the World Cup final in New Jersey. 

The 2026 FIFA World Cup begins June 11 at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. Shakira will headline the first-ever World Cup final halftime show. 'Dai Dai' will soundtrack the opening. Between those two moments, the song will have every opportunity to prove what kind of anthem it actually is - not in a streaming session, not in a review, but in a stadium full of people who came to feel something.

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The Cannes Film Festival continues to serve as one of the world’s most prominent film platforms, bringing together filmmakers, actors, and industry professionals globally.

At its 79th edition, held from May 12 to May 23, 2026 at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, three African titles were selected in the festival’s Un Certain Regard section, a category known for highlighting emerging filmmakers and distinctive storytelling.

This is not the first time African filmmakers have been recognised in this category. Previous selections include My Fathers Shadow , Nigeria’s first film to be featured at Cannes alongside titles like Aisha Can’t Fly and Promised Sky.

The inclusion of these films reflects the growing global attention on African storytelling particularly within the Un Certain Regard section.

‘Ben’ Imana ( Children of God)’

The film, Ben’Imana (Children of God), made history as the first film by a Rwandan director (Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo) to be chosen for the main festival.

The story follows a woman named Veneranda, who survived the horrific 1994 Rwandan genocide. Years later, her community holds local trials to try and find justice. At the same time, her young daughter gets pregnant. These two events force the family and the village to finally talk about their painful past, learn to forgive, and find a way to heal together.

‘Congo Boy’

Congo Boy , directed by Rafiki Fariala from the Central African Republic, was a co-production between companies from the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and France. Set in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, the coming-of-age story followed Robert, a 17-year-old Congolese boy whose family had been displaced by conflict in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo. The film focused on themes of displacement, identity, and survival.

‘Las Mas Dulce’

Also selected is La Más Dulce, directed by French-Moroccan filmmaker Laïla Marrakchi. The film marked her return to the Un Certain Regard section 21 years after her 2005 film Marock. Co-written with Delphine Agut, the international co-production involves Morocco, France, Spain, and Belgium. Inspired by real-world investigative reporting, the story followed two young Moroccan women, Hasna and Meriem, who travel to southern Spain to work as seasonal laborers on strawberry farms in Andalusia. The film examined issues around migration, labor conditions, and economic survival.

Adding to the continent's prominent representation, the festival also featured Clarissa, a major new drama from Nigeria. Directed by the acclaimed twin filmmaking duo Arie and Chuko Esiri, the film secured a prestigious spot in the Directors’ Fortnight (Quinzaine des cinéastes) section. The movie is a modern-day reimagining of Virginia Woolf’s famous 1925 novel Mrs Dalloway, shifting the classic story to contemporary Lagos, Nigeria. 

In addition to screenings, African filmmakers  also participated in the Marché du Film, the festival’s film market, which ran alongside the main event. The market provided opportunities for producers, distributors, and investors to negotiate deals and form partnerships.

Industry reports indicated that African participation at Cannes has remained consistent in recent years, with multiple films from the continent featured in previous editions. The 2026 selection continued this trend, highlighting productions from different regions of Africa.

Before We Fall Asleep came Before The Morning Light. One ends the day; the other starts it.
Johnny Drille is there before the day closes and before it opens, a cyclic love, all the way through. Five years between albums, and what a return. What a poet.

Johnny shows tremendous growth in sound and range on this project. Originally known for his British-inflected folk-pop, he now moves freely between pidgin, American and British cadences.
Every track carries a dreamy, intentional quality celebrating love, acknowledging its trials without condemning them, lifting the listener. For anyone who still believes in love, Johnny is that artist, and Before The Morning Light is the clearest proof yet of that conviction. Sequenced with intention, the album moves like a relationship itself, early wonder, deeper commitment, occasional ache, and a closing resolve that this is the one you're limited forever is for.

"In Time", featuring Angélique Kidjo, opens the album, and their voices blend beautifully, each expressing love in their respective native dialects. A Grammy-winning artist on track one? You already know what kind of album you're in for. "Mind" is where the pidgin lands best, fluent and completely at home in the melody. It's amazing hearing pidgin sung the way Johnny does. "Blown Away" carries beautiful strings underneath the feeling of being undone by someone, every single day, with the standout line: "If no be you, then I no do love again."

"Colorado", featuring Ayra Starr and Young Jonn, the album's pilot single, has garnered over six million streams on Spotify. Ayra's ‘no be by who perfect’ is one of the most quotable lines on the entire record, funny, because this song kind of is. "Waste Your Time" featuring Jerub speaks directly to someone carrying old heartbreak, telling her he is not that story. "Chokehold" featuring Aquila blends so naturally with Johnny as he speaks on a woman who has him completely and will not let go.“'Last Forever” has a cool flow that suits his tone with the resounding words, 'Girl, I want you in my world, you got my back, and I got yours, imma protect you with my life, my heart, my love.’ In “No Yawa”, he reinstates forever love to his lover, saying he's her sure plug, ‘No yawa for you.’

Fireboy on "Angelina" is a solid track. Tiwa Savage on "Over The Moon" outdoes herself, full stop.
Johnny probes the sour era of the relationship with Nonso Amadi on “What is this Love”, asking why the change in their connection; ‘Why so unsure…what you want more?’ putting his foot forward in fixing it.
Lojay on "Speak Up" carries a lost love confession so honestly it aches, a painful reminisce. "Baby, I still need your love, I still think of us."
"I'm Available" has top-tier production with over a million streams already, and a simple promise: "I'm available anytime you call me”

"Second Chance" closes the album with honest words: "God knew what I needed, so he gave me you." Perfect for a wedding. Perfect for an album entirely about choosing to believe in love.
With all the noise in the world right now: Divisions, disillusionment, the gender wars playing out online.
Johnny Drille quietly shows defiance in believing in romance and love. He holds a lighter in the dark and speaks from the heart, unabashedly. Before The Morning Light is a solid 10/10 and genuinely a beautiful listen.

IG:| @zoannafr

Sometime last year, while struggling to cover coursework on the relationship between law, morality, and religion in time for upcoming exams, I uploaded the materials for the course to ChatGPT and prompted it to explain how these concepts intertwined to me like a 10-year-old, and it performed excellently. Looking back at it now, what I remember most about that period is the fact that my reliance on artificial intelligence (AI) was instinctive, which has now become commonplace in many fields such as medicine, construction, entertainment and war. However, there are still hesitations  amongst practitioners in certain fields that are hesitant to use it, one of which is creative writing.

On May 13, 2026, the Commonwealth Foundation released the winners of its Short Story Prize. A few days later, the Caribbean regional winner, Jamir Nazir's winning short story, The Serpent in the Grove, was alleged to have been written using AI. In response, the director general of the Commonwealth Foundation, Razmi Farook,  stated that the allegations are being investigated. On why AI detection tools weren't used, she responded that doing so “would raise significant concerns surrounding consent and artistic ownership”, seeing as the writers themselves had already stated that no AI was used in their works.

Literature has always been viewed as a creative expression carried out by people, not machines. Readers themselves have also come to see every sentence by writers as a result of specific human consciousness and ingenuity, but AI has come to overturn this, putting creative writing in a crisis of authenticity and originality. This incident speaks to the cultural anxiety of readers and writers alike in the wake of the various ways in which AI can be used. It saliently asks: should writing still be regarded as one of the last cultural practices in which sole human genius is romanticized or should it seek to evolve, like many other aspects of human living have, in light of the AI bloom?

Writing has been understood as one of the highest forms of human intellect and expression. The works of Plato, Karl Marx, Shakespeare, Freud, Kant and many others are revered for their internalised experience and thought, which have been used to shape the world today. Literature, even in the minds of the illiterate, is respected because of the human mind behind it.

This is the background against which AI seeks to integrate itself into writing, especially creative writing. Creative writing seeks to strip layers that often seem complex to describe, to animate what would otherwise have been inanimate. This is why we have fiction, poetry, memoirs, playwriting, songwriting, and short stories, among others, writing that exists only if one taps into the deepest parts of their psyche and is true to themselves. This is perhaps why people feel betrayed when literature benefits from an AI assist. This is what informs the critiques of Jamir's submission, because even though the allegations may be wrong, the fact that the authenticity of his short story is in dispute in the first place is proof of the distrust that shimmers beneath the surface in literature these days.

It is noteworthy to mention that the idea of originality and authenticity, as is perceived in creative writing, is not as pure as many may think. Writing workshops, dictionaries, research assistants, and ghostwriting show that writing isn't something that is done alone by a writer, let alone creative writing. The relationship between an editor and a writer is explained here. The editor feeds the writer's work into a literary furnace to make it better, but the writer is still regarded as the author. This is a practice that has existed for decades, and the issue of authorship of the article, after editing, is never in dispute.

Inching closer to the present iteration, Grammarly, an AI, is used for grammatical and structural correction. More often than not, suggestions made by this AI in correcting one's work do not seem to compromise the integrity of said work, further establishing the idea that the myth of the completely solitary writer is a creation of literary culture. Even the concept of writing rooms, in the context of creative writing for TV/film scripts, was created so that writers can come together to collaborate on film scripts before production. AI simply represents the latest in supplementary tools created by technology to assist the creative writer in their work.

But merely summing up AI usage as a supplementary tool for creative writing would be oversimplifying things, especially without a basis. This is because AI, for all its benefits, sacrifices authenticity on the altar of simplicity. It recycles other people's works and ideas and then uses them as the basis for its inspiration. Once inspired by other people's works, it then simply reassembles them into a new text. This is why AI can only plagiarise and not create.

There's also the fact that AI effaces the voice of the creative writer. By itself, authentic creative writing is not perfect and involves a lot of flaws and mistakes. Throwing a prompt to AI to write an article from scratch makes things easier and probably better. However, such continued use would transform creative writing into something monolithic with repetitive rhythms and recognisable patterns such as the negative parallelism for which AI, like ChatGPT, is known, and which was also used as evidence of Jamir's alleged use of AI in his short story, thus defeating the need to create, one of writing’s primary purposes.

Though its continued use is one of the many causes of cognitive debt, outright refusal of its use in creative writing is perhaps unrealistic. For a creative writer, there are 2 types of thinking: irrational (divergent thinking) and rational (convergent thinking). The former involves the chaotic process of brainstorming ideas, while the latter is methodically and consistently arranging those ideas into points. A creative writer needs to possess both mindsets as well as the dexterity to switch between them; otherwise, the work would be incomplete. While putting pen to paper, there is a strong likelihood of deviating from the consistency that the creative piece demands. In this regard, an assistant may be necessary, especially one versed in outlining, editing, and restructuring pieces to suit one's tone and voice based on experience.

Outside the creative writing space, AI is used to write, improve and remix songs, for digital production of art, CGI in films and for photoshopping images. Technology used in each of these fields did not destroy them. If anything, it improved them, none more so than AI in contemporary times. Since that's the case, why do many fear the death of creative writing in the age of AI?

The real issue here then seems to shift from AI itself and towards the unclear boundaries of how to use AI in creative writing, misrepresenting AI-generated works as solely carried out by the “author” and the issue of secrecy. If AI was used to write a creative piece, the questions should be: to what extent was it used, in what manner was it used, should such disclosures be compulsory and who actually authored the article? AI cannot replace human creativity, and the literary community can't say that AI won't pervade creative writing. Rather, the focus should be on deciding what kinds of human originality and authenticity matter in light of the growth of mimetic machines that question such.

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In its sixth edition, the Red Bull Dance Your Style Kenya arrived at Nairobi’s KICC Tsavo Hall on May 24. Built around one-on-one freestyle battles and unpredictable music selections, the competition challenges dancers to adapt instantly while winning over the crowd rather than a traditional judging panel. But beyond the competition format itself, the event also highlighted something much larger happening across the continent–the growing visibility and interconnectedness of African street dance culture.

As Red Bull Dance Your Style continues expanding through countries including Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda, the competition has become part of a wider ecosystem connecting dancers, creatives, and youth communities across borders. In many ways, the event reflects how African youth culture itself is becoming increasingly collaborative through music, fashion, internet culture, and movement.

That transformation is happening both online and offline. Through TikTok, Instagram Reels, and music-driven creator communities, dance trends now circulate rapidly between African cities, often blurring distinctions between local and regional styles. Amapiano choreography, Afro-fusion movement, dancehall influences, and street-inspired freestyle routines have become part of a constantly evolving visual language shared by young people across the continent.

For PESOS’s founder and creative director, Edmund Eldridge, Red Bull Dance Your Style arrived at a moment when African youth are already actively shaping and expanding these cultural movements on their own. “It strongly highlights how the African youth are actively taking part in growing the subculture and pushing the boundaries to evolve the movement art,” Eldridge says.

PESOS collaborated with Red Bull Kenya on the event’s creative direction and campaign visuals, bringing together dancers and artists already rooted within Nairobi’s street culture. Eldridge describes the collaboration as a natural intersection between fashion, dance and youth identity. “Streetwear and dance emerged together from the same cultural DNA; hip-hop,” he explains.

The campaign featured collaborators including dancer Ian Tico, artist Xenia Manasseh, and the Legitz dance collective, all chosen for their connection to the culture beyond performance alone. According to Eldridge, the goal was to document Kenyan street dance culture through a contemporary visual lens while still preserving its authenticity. “The idea was to merge the Kenyan street dance art with our contemporary style of documentation to uplift the visuals,” he says. That emphasis on authenticity speaks to a larger shift currently happening within African creative industries. Historically, many dance communities existed outside institutional or commercial support structures, developing instead through community-led spaces, informal networks, and online sharing. 

Events like Red Bull Dance Your Style are now bringing greater visibility to those communities while simultaneously creating new opportunities for dancers and creatives. This year’s edition ultimately crowned dancer Zac_the.great as Kenya’s representative for the World Final set to take place later this year in Zurich, Switzerland, where dancers from over 50 countries are expected to compete.

‍

The event also created moments of cultural exchange that extended beyond the competition floor itself. Eldridge recalls international dancers connecting with Kenyan performers throughout the weekend, sharing routines and learning local dance styles from one another. “We saw Kenyan dancers teaching the Kenyan street dances to one of the foreign dancers,” he says. “That shows you that the youth want to connect beyond borders.”

Those moments reflect a broader reality within contemporary African youth culture: connection increasingly happens through shared creative language. Music has already demonstrated Africa’s global influence over the past decade through genres like Afrobeats and amapiano. Dance culture now appears positioned for similar expansion, fueled largely by young creators building audiences online while simultaneously developing local scenes on the ground.

Still, Eldridge believes recognition for many African creatives remains overdue, admitting, “These subcultures are lives we see people live every day, and it’s painful to see very gifted people not getting the recognition they deserve.” For him, collaborations like Red Bull Dance Your Style are not simply about entertainment or short-term visibility, but about long-term cultural investment and changing perceptions around creative work itself. “We want more kids growing up to be confident that they can follow their passions, get recognition and also get paid for it,” he says.

Later this year, Kenya’s newest Red Bull Dance Your Style champion will carry that same energy from Nairobi to Zurich for the world finals, representing not only personal ambition but the momentum of a dance culture increasingly refusing to remain local. As African street dance continues evolving across borders, competitions like Red Bull Dance Your Style are becoming more than performance spaces; by helping document, connect and legitimize creative communities already shaping the future of African youth culture in real time.

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A sixth sold out appearance at the O2 Arena finalised a homecoming, crowned in glory and cloaked in anticipation, for 28-year old singer and songwriter Rachel Keen, better known as Raye. The final show of her global tour on the 20th of May for her second studio album, This Album May Contain Hope, marked her independent debut and solidified her as an artist in the truest sense of the word.

The tour - a personal and professional triumph - was a family affair, opened by the singer’s two younger sisters, Amma and Absolutely. 

Starting the night with a nostalgic sound, reminiscent of Y2k whimsy, middle child Lauren Keen, professionally known as Amma, held the audience in her hands as she joked and chatted between songs. A joy in energy and presence, the singer’s tenderly familiar tone and lyrical prowess shone through hits from her solo project Middle Child and a comforting rendition of The Climb.  

As she floated off the stage, the youngest of the three strutted in with an allure that was all her own. What her sister exposed in glowing vulnerability, Abby-Lynn Keen, known by the moniker Absolutely, continued breaking away with cutting lyrics wrapped in electronic and alte-R&B rhythms. From a shy girl “deathly afraid of performing and being seen by people” to a woman having performed over 50 shows in a year, Absolutely’s performance was grounded in a unique prose that set the scene for the story of hope everyone came to see.  

In true eldest sister fashion, Raye appeared on stage beaming with pride for her sisters and, what I imagine to be, excitement for the performance to come. Covered head to toe in a hooded gown, the set began with the story of depression and despair that had plagued the Tooting-born vocalist. As trumpeters and violinists scurried across the stage, the dark rain cloud that boomed overhead stood no chance as the curtains opened, and the hope that was once contained, spread around the arena. 

A six-time Brit award winner and three-time Grammy nominee, Raye’s vocal expertise and knack for artistry was never really in question. Widely known as one of the best artists of this generation, the stakes were high. As the night went on, though, a reverence for the art of performing bled through the night in an indescribable way. The kind that solidifies legends and stakes claim to mastery. 

The album’s tracklist emphasised  heavy jazz influences and symphonic melodies throughout, with mentions of pop, blues and classical laced in the seasonal shift in songs. Opening strong with her now infamous track from the summer season of the album, Where the Hell is my Husband set the tone for the kind of performance to expect from performers to come. The inclusion of a brass section, live strings, soulful background vocals, and an interactive set created an immersive experience from the standing room to the seating area. Flowing seamlessly into tracks like Beware.. The South London Lover Boy, Flip a Switch, and Winter Woman brought the characteristic storytelling style we’ve come to love from the songstress into full effect. Annotated screens, her flowing bob flipping to the choreography, and the soulful tact applied to a discography with a range as far and wide as her dreams will take her. 

Where the attention to detail was placed in the album, the same was felt in the production. Changing from a concert venue to a jazz bar to a rave, Raye’s versatility was on full display - regaling the crowd with stories behind beloved tracks, a plea for some much-needed deodorant (her words not mine), and a venerating vocal performance that tackled everything from modern day dating to the traumas, pain, strength, and rebirth of humans.

The only disappointment came when the night ended. As her sisters Amma and Absolutely rejoined her on stage in an upbeat production of their song Joy, the crowd lingered for a promised encore in throes. As promised, as quickly as the curtains closed, they went right back up to a boisterous performance of her hit song Escapism. 

The only disappointment came when the night ended. As her sisters Amma and Absolutely rejoined her on stage in an upbeat production of their song Joy, the crowd lingered for a promised encore in throes. As promised, as quickly as the curtains closed, they went right back up to a boisterous performance of her hit song Escapism. 

In her final moments on stage, Raye thanked the crowd profusely, speaking of her plans to escape to the countryside for some rest, reflection, and a chance to let the reality of her life sink in. 

But while she’ll be in the meadows, the rest of us will be escaping to the memories of the final night of her This Tour May Contain New Music - writing her name amongst the greats. 

There’s a certain form of nostalgia stitched into the world of Kwasi Paul. It’s not the polished, trend-driven nostalgia fashion often romanticises, but something much warmer and more lived-in. It’s the kind found in old family photo albums with folded edges, inherited stories passed down over time, heirloom weaving techniques, and memories that refuse to disappear.

“What I like to tell everybody is that Kwasi Paul is my personal diary,” says Sam Boakye, founder and creative director of Kwasi Paul, over a call earlier this month. “A reflection of my upbringing, living in a space I like to call the in-between.” At the time of speaking to Boakye, he'd been moving through “different time zones,” but his voice sharpens the moment he begins talking about the brand. Kwasi Paul, he tells me, is less a fashion label than it is a diary. It’s built from the emotional contradictions of being Ghanaian-American, raised between the Bronx, Queens, and West African culture.

Born in the Bronx and raised in Queens by Ghanaian parents, Boakye describes the brand as an extension of that duality that's both African and American, traditional and contemporary, and deeply personal yet communal. That in-between feeling exists everywhere in the brand’s language. Across Kwasi Paul’s universe, cowrie shell embellishments sit beside sharply tailored coats, heirloom-woven cotton is transformed into contemporary menswear, and family portraits are embedded into garments. Much of the brand’s visual language pulls directly from the textures of memory, from music and childhood nostalgia to the emotional residue of growing up across cultures.

“It’s luxury,” Boakye says later, pausing briefly before clarifying, “but it’s not luxury European-coded. It’s luxury African diaspora with real culture, real meaning, real history.”

What makes Kwasi Paul most compelling is not just the craftsmanship, though that’s certainly part of it. It’s the emotional intentionality underneath it all. Every collection feels like a preservation exercise and an attempt to archive memory before it slips away. His latest collection, Keepsakes, leans furthest into that intimacy yet, drawing from childhood innocence, Anansi stories, books, games, family photographs, and folklore to reconstruct what Boakye describes as “child joy” in the middle of an increasingly exhausting world.

“The world is obviously a shitshow at the current moment,” he tells me bluntly. “So sometimes I like to get lost in the past. Specifically when I was a child.”

That emotional honesty runs throughout our conversation. Fashion, for Boakye, is about storytelling, time travel, and building a world expansive enough for diaspora identity to exist without explanation.

Below, Boakye speaks to Deeds Magazine about music as memory, rejecting creative boxes, childhood nostalgia, and why Kwasi Paul is only just getting started.

‍Hi Sam – Tell me a little bit about yourself and how Kwasi Paul came to be.

Sam Boakye: I was born in the Bronx and raised in Queens. I’m first-generation by way of Ghana, West Africa. I actually got into fashion through a friend, and over time I developed a strong passion for it and decided I wanted to create something more personal. That’s how Kwasi Paul came about.

What I like to tell everybody is that Kwasi Paul is my personal diary. It’s a reflection of my upbringing, living in a space I call “the in-between,” being influenced by two different worlds. A lot of what you see is direct influence from the diaspora and West African culture, but there’s also a lot of New York personality and Western influence in the DNA of the brand too.

It’s really a combination of my experiences and also curiosity. I’m always thinking about: what does the world look like in the future? And how do I implement that into my design world?

That idea of a “personal diary” feels really central to the brand. As Kwasi Paul has grown, has that relationship changed for you at all?

Sam Boakye: I think it’s still personal, but it’s more of a public diary now. By sharing my experiences and being vulnerable through my art, people now have access to it. Fashion became my outlet. And once you start doing collections, you realise so many people share the same experiences, the same beliefs, and the same views that are relatable. So yeah, it went from being a personal diary into a public diary.

‍How would you describe the world of Kwasi Paul to somebody discovering the brand for the first time?

Sam Boakye: Somebody told me recently that it’s for the person who wants to walk into a room and draw attention without doing too much. It’s innovative leadership through cuts, craftsmanship, and styling.

There’s a bit of 70s flair, maybe some 80s and 90s references too, and classic gentleman-like menswear tailoring. But what really makes it unique is the fabric. We work a lot with heirloom-woven cotton, which has existed across West Africa for centuries, so the story is already rich.

We also create our own patterns and use colour combinations that aren’t always popular. Sometimes you’ll find cowrie shell embellishments or portraits of my family and buttons. It’s really a combination of many things existing together.

There’s a very intentional sense of world-building in the collections and campaigns. What perspective guides that?

Sam Boakye: That’s a good question. I guess my perspective has always been creating a lifestyle for people within the diaspora. I don’t like being put into a box. Sometimes, especially when you come from both worlds, people try to place you into either category. Like, okay, I’m a Black designer or I’m an African designer. But technically, I’m both, right? I’m African-American.

So I think my perspective is really about not being boxed in creatively. If I were to describe the world of Kwasi Paul, it’s a free world for people of the diaspora and allies of the diaspora. It’s an acquired taste too. It’s luxury, but it’s not luxury European-coded. It’s luxury African diaspora — real culture, real meaning, real history. I’m always thinking about innovation too. How do we continue taking what we know, our culture and history, and continue to innovate it in ways that still feel fresh while still holding onto that history tag?

What’s interesting is that even when you speak about clothes, you speak about them emotionally first. When you’re beginning a collection, where does that process usually start for you?

‍Sam Boakye: The story. Always the story.

I’ll sit down and think about what’s happening in the world right now, what happened in the past, and how I can create something that represents the future. Once the story is there, then we develop the garments around it.

Most of our pieces are made from heirloom-woven textiles, but after that we start building the colour story, the stitching, and the silhouettes around the narrative. Music is a huge part of that too. I usually create playlists for collections because music really sets the mood. It helps me understand what the world of the collection feels like emotionally. It’s kind of like writing the first journal entry. Like, what are we going to write about today?

You mentioned music there, and it seems deeply tied to the brand, especially with Diaspora FM. What role does sound play in your creative process? 

Sam Boakye: Music helps me time travel.

If I’m listening to Teddy Pendergrass or Barry White, it takes me back to when my pops used to play those records all the time. Then I start thinking about what I was seeing around me during those years, what influenced me visually, emotionally, culturally.

Sometimes I’ll listen to traditional highlife music from before I was even born and imagine myself in that era through family photo albums and stories. I’m definitely an old soul, so a lot of what I listen to are classics. Music allows me to travel emotionally, and that rhythm influences the silhouettes too. It shapes the entire mood of the collection.

Your latest collection, Keepsakes, feels especially emotional. What was the starting point for that project?

‍Sam Boakye: Keepsakes was very personal. I wanted to tap into a childlike spirit.

As we get older, we lose ourselves a bit. We get caught up in work and responsibilities, and the world is obviously a shitshow right now. So sometimes I like to revisit the past, specifically childhood, because that was when everything felt innocent and pure. I wanted the collection to feel like joy and nostalgia. I pulled from things I kept dear to my heart as a kid: my grandmother’s photographs, my parents’ photo albums, games I used to play, books I used to read, all the way down to Ghanaian folklore like Anansi stories.

Then the research became about memory, family, and storytelling. We started thinking about how Anansi connects to weaving and memory itself. So Keepsakes became this folklore-inspired collection centred around childhood joy and emotional escape.

‍Now that Keepsakes is out in the world, what’s next for Kwasi Paul?

‍Sam Boakye: Honestly, the world-building is only just beginning.

People know us for the clothes and the tailoring right now, but I want to continue expanding the universe around the brand. We’re working on new collections, new silhouettes, and different forms of storytelling beyond fashion too. We’re about to release an animation project connected to Keepsakes, which I’m excited about. More than anything, I just want to keep having fun and continue sharing dialogue with the world through Kwasi Paul.

‍Kwasi Paul SS26 collection is available for order at www.kwasipaul.com

Ashley wants the start of her 28th year to be more than just a birthday, but as emotional evidence of her blossoming and the beginning of a new age. A groovy stylist and arguably one of the continent’s superb IT girls, she’s taking us on a journey of how she spent her years bridging worlds of fashion, creative direction, and unrestrained performance. Ashley is using A28 to break down the walls between her craft and her actual identity.

She sat down for an openhearted interview with Deeds Magazine to talk about moving on her own terms, finding absolute peace, and accepting vulnerability in the midst of a chaotic creative life.

Hi Ashley, how’re you? What have you been up to lately? First off, Happy birthday in advance! Let’s talk about A28, how does it feel to be 28? ‍

‍Ashley: I’m doing waaay better than I started the week, so that’s a huge win for me. Definitely felt like the world (my mind) was out to get me. Ayy! Thank you so much! Truly appreciate the birthday wish.
What have I been up to? PLOTTING! Hustling like I've never hustled in my life.  
How it feels? Ask me how it feels again, in a couple days, hehe!

Back to A28, your work crosses creative direction, styling, performance and many more. but A28 explores the friction between these different versions of yourself.  How have you been able to build and navigate these layers as a creative when they are so deeply intertwined with your actual identity and who you represent as a person?

‍Ashley: The friction between these versions is actually where everything interesting and authentic about me comes from. There were moments this year where I genuinely couldn’t tell if I was creating or collapsing. And A28 kind of came from just deciding that distinction doesn’t matter. My story, and work inspired by these stories, hold all the power.

‍Becoming older is one of the greatest blessings life gives us. Reflecting back on your years so far, what is something you’ll always be grateful for? And on the other side of the coin, what is something you wished had happened but never did because you waited or doubted yourself and what has that taught you? 

‍Ashley: I’ll always be grateful for my ability to genuinely learn from my mistakes and not just move past them, but let them actually change me. It makes me even more excited about aging.

If I’m honest, it’ll be my first real paid opportunity as a creative. I had significant money in my hands for the first time, and I didn’t have the financial knowledge to use it wisely. But I don’t fully regret it because most of it went toward seeing the world and travelling internationally for the first time on my own terms. I was learning how to be the person that opportunity was meant for.

In a broader sense, I don't really doubt myself,  I just get stuck between seeking clarity and realising it was always inside me. My focus now is making sure I’m moving toward what I actually want, which is peace of mind and stability. There’s no manual. Not repeating what I know doesn’t serve me.

In a broader sense, I don't really doubt myself,  I just get stuck between seeking clarity and realising it was always inside me. My focus now is making sure I’m moving toward what I actually want, which is peace of mind and stability. There’s no manual. Not repeating what I know doesn’t serve me.

If you could look back at the years that molded you, what are the mistakes you're most grateful for  and what would you tell the younger version of yourself who was still figuring out how to carry all these different parts and layers of yourself? 

‍Ashley: “BREATHE, it’ll ALL make sense soon.” That’s exactly what I would tell a younger version of me. I wouldn’t say being rebellious, outspoken, and a go-getter is a mistake, but I am extremely grateful for my mind and resilience.

“BREATHE, it’ll ALL make sense soon.”

Why A28? What inspired the Film A28? What was the thought process ? and what was it like? 

Ashley: A28, whew! Firstly, I didn’t want just another traditional Instagram post. I wanted to mark turning 28 in a way that felt honest, a real reflection. Because 27 was a lot. It was the year I felt the most powerful I’d ever felt and also the most stripped. And I couldn’t find a way to talk about that in a caption or a conversation, so I made a film instead.

The thought process was really just: “What did this year actually feel like in my body?” Not what I achieved, not what I lost, but the actual feelings attached to it.

“What did this year actually feel like in my body?”‍

I won’t lie, it wasn’t easy to make. I’m someone who doesn’t find it easy to be an open book, so there’s something very exposing about being in front of a camera when the subject is yourself. But I think that discomfort was kind of the point. It was a quiet act of courage for me, even if it doesn’t look like it from the outside.

A28 is what I made at the end of a year that tried to undo me and didn’t quite manage it.

With A28, Ashley isn’t glamorizing becoming. She is showing it as it is: the uncertainty, the confusion, and the exhaustion. A year held together by both clarity and chaos becomes something she learns to sit with rather than escape.

In leaving 27 behind, she begins to trust herself more, even when things feel open and unresolved. The need to perfect her story falls away, replaced by something more honest: experience.

If A28 is any sign, her 28th year won’t be about having everything figured out. It will be about continuing to choose herself.

Happy Birthday, Ashley.

‍Team Credits:
Written & Directed by Ashley Okoli
Nwobu Kenechukwu (@onlykene) - Producer & Set design
Uzuegbunam Gabriel Ebuka (@slumhabibi) - Asst. Director & Editor
Gospel Coker Chibueze (@isboyyeenagram - Sound design/Composer
Ayanfe Olarinde (@un.earthical) - Photgrapher
Ashley Okoli - Stylist
Lolu Pinheiro (@loludoesmakeup) - Makeup Artist
Joke Lawal (@nifemilarj) - Hairstylist
Ruqayyah Sadiq(@ruqayyahsa) - Writer

‍

The first time African music conquered the world, Africa barely got the credit.

Long before streaming platforms renamed playlists as “Afrobeats essential” and global superstars scrambled for Lagos features, African sounds had already been circulating through Western pop music like ghosts without passports in the early 1980s-2000s.  From polyrhythms bedded in discos and dance halls to the unmistakable bounce of Afrobeats-inspired percussion in mainstream pop music, African music was consumed as texture rather than authorship. It’s in the log drums under Drake’s “One Dance”, the Afroswing percussion driving Beyoncé’s “Already” and the talking drum patterns in Rihanna’s “Work”, all of which are global hits where African sonic fingerprints are clear but the African creator was footnoted. 

What is different in today’s soundscape now  is the audience’s ability to place African sounds back to their source. Streaming platforms flattened geography, and social media weakened the old gatekeepers  that once filtered African music through Western approval first. Those gatekeepers were label executives, radio programmers and media outlets that controlled global distribution and narratives, therefore letting African artists reach audiences directly and forcing the industry to meet them on their terms.

African artists no longer appear  as anonymous inspiration buried inside global pop records; they are arriving as visible collaborators, charting acts, Grammy winners and industry powerhouses. 

In 2024, Rema’s “Calm Down” became the first African-led track to surpass one billion streams on Spotify, while the remix with Selena Gomez crossed billions more across other streaming platforms. The achievement was not symbolic. It signalled a redistribution of cultural authority because African artists now own publishing in global hits like Wizkid’s One Dance headline 60k capacity stadiums from London to New York City and entered the Grammy as lead nominee rather than afterthoughts. 

Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s sonic influence echoed through jazz, hip-hop, funk and contemporary pop, yet his name was treated as a niche reference rather than a foundational innovator. South African house music shaped electronic dance long before Amapiano became a global festival obsession. Caribbean genres carrying a deep African lineage gained legitimacy only after being repackaged through Western markets. 

The problem was never whether music should travel. Music has always travelled. The issue was who got recognised as the creator and who got reduced to inspiration. 

Now the imbalance is harder to sustain because African artists are too globally visible to erase. A listener discovering Davido, Burna Boy  or Ayra Starr would encounter them as primary artists, not cultural accessories attached to American or European acts. The collaboration economy has changed because African music is no longer orbiting the mainstream; it has a hand in its definition. 

The shift matters beyond charts. It changes the politics of visibility. When Beyoncé assembled African artists and producers for The Lion King: The Gift, the project was praised precisely because of its foregrounded African participation instead of just borrowing African aesthetics. When Drake collaborated with Wizkid on “One Dance”, global audiences could no longer pretend Afrobeats existed only as an unnamed Sonic influence floating around Western pop music. Credits suddenly became culturally important because listeners started asking where the sounds came from. 

However, collaboration is not automatically fair. Some cross-continental collaborations feel genuinely reciprocal, artists exchanging rhythms, languages, audiences and histories in ways that expand music itself. Some feel suspiciously market-driven, appearing the moment African music became commercially unavoidable. It is possible to create the visibility these collaborations create while questioning who ultimately benefits most from them. 

The global music industry has always known how to monetise Black creativity. What it struggles with is surrendering narrative control. Afrobeats disrupted that control, not because it begged for entry into the Western music space but because it built a global audience large enough to force those spaces to respond and did not wait for Western validation. There is a difference between being invited into a room and becoming the reason why the room rearranged itself. Unlike earlier eras where African artists needed foreign co-signs in order to access international audiences, today's Afrobeats stars can fill arenas in London, Paris, New York City, and perform at festivals like Coachella while remaining culturally rooted in Lagos, Pidgin slangs, Akwuaba, African percussion and local storytelling traditions. The power dynamics shifted because the audience was already there. But this moment still deserves scrutiny.

Global visibility can quickly become another form of dilution of African music that begins to sand down its capacity for Western consumption. There is always the danger of turning African culture into a permanent global mood board where they are endlessly sampled, aesthetically celebrated but disconnected from investments in local industries and infrastructures. Representation alone does not equal equity. 

However, something undeniably important has changed. African artists are entering global music conversations with more leverage, more authorship and greater awareness of the history behind these exchanges. They are no longer influencing the world from the margins; they are shaping what the centre looks and sounds like. ‍

Cover credit: YouTube 

As rom-coms continue to be dismissed as “cringe,” Nollywood’s latest romance asks whether we have simply forgotten how to feel something without apologising for it.

"You are the sugar in my tea." "You are the air that I breathe." "If you leave me yawa go dey" - roughly, if you leave me, trouble follows - Tekno warned in ‘Yawa’ - and Nigerians turned it into a flirting line. The sincerity of the original, dissolved into a joke. Say either of those sentences out loud in a room full of Nigerians and watch what happens. Someone will laugh. Someone will cringe visibly. The people who would mock it online would screenshot the words and miss the feeling underneath them entirely. We have decided, collectively and without much debate, that this kind of language is embarrassing. That saying something beautiful to someone you love - out loud, with sincerity, without a punchline - is the cultural equivalent of showing up to a party overdressed. The word for it is cringe, and it has become the default response to Nigerian romance on screen.

‍Call of My Life, directed by Dammy Twitch, produced by Blessing Uzzi, written by and starring Uzoamaka Power as Soluchi, is a film that will give the cringe crowd exactly what they came looking for. Eli, the calm, handsome TV presenter played by Andrew Bunting, does a lot of talking. He says things with his whole chest. In one scene, Soluchi is wearing his shirt. They are having the kind of conversation that exists only inside the emotional logic of a romance, and Eli tells her she is lava. He wants to be her boss. The internet would have a field day.

The film has spent its runtime building the specific world in which those words make sense. Soluchi - colourful tights, block heels, a woman who celebrates everything and apologises for nothing - is not the kind of person who would accept a muted love. She is lava. The film has shown us that. Eli calling her that is not a writer reaching for a metaphor. It is a man who has been paying attention. The cringe crowd would screenshot the words and miss the feeling underneath them entirely.

This is the problem with how Nigerians engage with romance on screen right now. The mockery is not really about quality. It is about discomfort with verbal sincerity. We have become a culture that processes emotion through deflection - through jokes, through irony, through the safety of not being the person in the room who admitted they felt something. Words of love, spoken plainly and without hedging, expose you. And nobody wants to be exposed, so we reach for mockery instead. 

‘Call of My Life’ gives Nkem Owoh and Patience Ozokwo - two of Nollywood’s most beloved legends  - the roles of Soluchi’s parents, and through them the film offers something quietly devastating: proof that an older generation understood something about love that the online generation is too defensive to access. Their love story, told in fragments, is the emotional foundation of everything Soluchi believes. She did not invent her extravagance. She inherited it. That inheritance is the most honest thing in the film.

Justin Ugonna, in his first major acting role as Ezekiel - caught in an enemies-to-lovers orbit with Beverly Osu’s Zim - is warm, funny, and fully present. A debut that earns its place in the film.

The airport scene is where the film makes its fullest argument. Soluchi, stripped of her colourful armour, in a blue gym outfit, tells Eli exactly why she has been resisting him. She is not performing. She is not hedging. She is saying the thing she means, the way she means it, in the specific language of someone who has always believed that love is worth the exposure.

The cinemas are full. Nigerians are watching romance and calling it cringe in the same breath -  consuming the feeling while performing detachment from it. ‘Call of My Life’ does not negotiate with that contradiction. It simply asks: what if you let the thing move you? What if the sugar in the tea, the air in the breath, the lava - what if all of it was just someone telling the truth about how they feel?

The film stayed earnest. We stopped allowing ourselves to express our genuine feelings with the vocabulary that reflects them. 

IG: @ffeistyhuman

Ivy Winfrey feels like she’s “in the twilight zone.” What began as a series of nudgings and notes filed away in her mind, turned into a video Winfrey posted on Instagram early last week. The topic? The increasingly obvious disconnect between the potential of Kenya’s sports team, and their performance - that is the women’s football team and the lack of diasporic influence on its roster. 

With an estimated 3 to 4 million Kenyans abroad, there’s a guarantee of sports players, coaches, and enthusiasts all waiting to get involved in their nation’s system. But where do these people fall in the list of priorities for the Football Kenya Federation (FKF)? As a former player with every aspiration to represent my nation, the wait came with no happy ending. But for others, like Gianna Maina, the story is still being written. With a daughter heavily involved in the American soccer system, the same wait that had been staring Winfrey in the face became all the more weighted. So now, instead of waiting for the answers to her questions, she decided to make one.

After growing up in Kenya and relocating to Texas, Winfrey knows all too well the disconnect between the best infrastructure and the developing ones. Co-owner of Afroballers and creative in the entertainment and sports industries under the Dallas Mavericks, she grew up and works within basketball - another leading sport in the women's sport scene across Africa. The biggest differences being the systems in place and their intentions. Where North America’s system champions competition, quality, and opportunity, Kenya’s barely begins to scratch the surface. From a federation riddled with scandal to an under established grassroots foundation, the infrastructure simply doesn’t measure up. 

Kenyan-Tanzanian football player Gianna Maina represented Kenya internationally in 2023. Growing up across the eastern coast of the United States, she grew up playing football at a high level from a young age, and currently plays at Suffolk University on a football scholarship. 

“From the moment I could walk, I couldn't keep my feet off a ball. My parents always saw something in me, so I've been playing since I was about four years old. Honestly, it started as a way to burn off energy as a kid, but by the time I was six, I was training and competing with U10 and U11 players,” she said, exclusively.

As she progressed through the ranks, Maina came across a tension many players in the diaspora, particularly in the West, arrived at: I’m good but am I good enough? With such thorough infrastructure, the rate of girls competing in football across North America is high - making the pool for eligible youth and women for national team representation that much more competitive. Winfrey noted this as well mentioning the appeal of young sports players seeking dual nationalities to stand out. 

“At the end of the day, it’s all marketing - especially in America. I’m having conversations with my daughter about the best partnerships, opportunities, schools, for her brand because that’s what’s being sold. She is an asset - in life and especially in sports.”

It’s that same mindset that led Maina to represent Kenya. Through a family member at the Embassy of Women's Sports, she was able to get her name on women’s coach Beldine Odemba’s radar.

“Through that connection, I was reached out to and given the opportunity to train with the Harambee Starlets before their big match against Ethiopia. I had to send multiple rounds of my highlights, along with recommendations from my coaches, to even be considered,” Maina said. 

But while Maina’s nepotism brought her a “one in a million” experience, her presence broaches two questions: what about those without the family connection? And where are the others meant to walk through the door she opened?

As Winfrey mentioned in her video, it’s not the fault of a child that their parents relocated to the diaspora in search of better opportunities. And it certainly does not make them any less Kenyan. But, if Maina’s example is anything to go off of, it is that a family connection is like marketing with a network. Without it, though, the FKF doesn’t seem to be paying any female players in the diaspora any mind.

Kenya’s male football teams have performed at the highest level domestically, but never abroad. In their last 6 appearances in the Africa Cup of Nations, the Harambee Stars have returned home in the group stages - long before any hopes of competing in the World Cup. Their teams, in what looks like a response to the zeitgeist, have begun to integrate diasporic players, like British-Kenyans Zech Obiero, Zak Vyner, and Sammy Henia-Kamau, into the rosters.

Their female counterparts, though, have shown more promise, appearing in the U17 World Cup for the first time in 2024 and winning in their final match of the group stage against Mexico. Goalscorers Valerie Nakesa and Lornah Faith made history as the first Kenyans ever to score in a World Cup, under the leadership of Mildred Chehche. Two years on, the girls, though still a force, have not returned to the world stage or responded to the cultural shift the men and other women’s teams are relying on - at any level.

Make no mistake: what the men’s rosters have just begun to integrate is exactly as it sounds — new; having only started in the last five years. But as Winfrey pointed out, there begins to be questions about a system and its intentions when the same opportunities are not being applied to or simply being ignored at the women’s level - especially with a competitive team.

As WAFCON looms large in the next two months, the Harambee Starlets have the opportunity to make a statement in their return to the tournament after a group stage exit in 2016. But there’s a noticeable gap between Kenya’s presence and their counterparts, which Winfrey believes starts abroad.

“I’m just sick of the lack of our leaders' understanding of seismic opportunities that benefit the industries I built my career on… we just fail to do it the right way. We’re not really worried about championing our stories. When journalists wrote about the U17 team in the World Cup, they’re not even mentioning the girls by name. You can’t scout the Harambee Starlets, you can scout the players by name,” she said. 

“Let’s think about how to reverse engineer a problem into an opportunity: when these girls [in the diaspora] come they bring eyes, they bring conversations, they bring opportunities. But it all starts with opening the door.”

She hopes to open a door with coach Lawrence Olum, the first Kenyan MLS player and former Kenya men’s national team player. Now a youth development coach at Alliance FC in the States, Olum’s 14 year career is hallmarked with an MLS Cup winning season in 2013. While he echoed much of the concern and sentiment that Winfrey stated about the resources available, he offered another unique perspective.

“The idea that the U.S. is not a big soccer powerhouse - in Kenya - [is something] I find to be so crazy. The U.S has been ranked in the top 40 consistently over the last 20 years, and Kenya hasn’t even brushed 100. And for [Kenyans] to have that mentality that the U.S is not good? It’s wild to me. The leagues they play in here, we could not even match, yet they overlook the US,” he said. 

“Even at the college level here, you train better than a Kenyan…I’d been in the MLS for 8 years and won the MLS Cup and yeah, some people heard about it…but until [Victor] Wanyama started playing here? Then it was like ‘The U.S. is this, the U.S. is that.’”

At a time where female football is at peak interest globally, it’s in the FKF’s best interest to get involved in what can only be called an untapped market. Projected to garner $3 billion in global revenue, women’s football drives 35% of that. High performing women’s football programmes, like Nigeria’s Super Falcons, have long begun sowing the seeds and already reaping the rewards. Why can’t the Starlets?

Winfrey and Olum’s goal now is to show the FKF what they’ve been missing, or simply ignored. In the final seconds of her post, Winfrey made a call to action for anyone in the diaspora looking to represent Kenya, girls aged 14-17. From Toronto to Spain to the U.S.A, the two are looking to put together an exhibition or ID Camp to showcase the kind of talent present and palpable across the diaspora. Hoping to shift the narrative around the present system and start conversations around its resources and outreach, this would be an opportunity to put more of Kenya on display and, hopefully, even higher stages as a community. 

Olum said, “It took a foreign coach to invite me to play on the national team… the mind needs to shift in terms of looking at the first generation of diaspora-born Kenyans. I have Kenyan girls and boys here who play at local clubs and may never represent the United States, but they could represent Kenya… all I ask is for coaches to just look at them. And that should start from a federation level.”

Winfrey, always a mother first, said, “I can’t do it for everybody, but if I can do it in my household then sure…maybe that’ll be the change you see because maybe sharing starts at home. Let’s show what’s possible when someone just decides to start.”  

IG: @clungaho

Recently, news about Michael B. Jordan's role as executive producer of the upcoming TV series adaptation of BookTok darling and New York Times bestseller, Fourth Wing, made the rounds. Jordan's role was positively received and signalled a turning point for Black people in fantasy films. Fourth Wing has been endeared to readers for two cogent reasons: (1)the kind of romance it breeds between main characters, Xarden and Violet, and (2) the presence of dragons, magic and the like, leading to it being dubbed a “romantasy” novel, a portmanteau of “romance” and “fantasy”. Its plot centres on Violet Sorrengail, daughter of military general Lilith Sorrengail, who is forced to give up her dream of being a scribe and fulfil her mother’s wishes to be a dragon rider of the fictional kingdom of Navarre. Violet has to undergo strict and brutal dragon rider training at Basgiath War College, to prove to herself and her mother that she is tougher than perceived. The goal of Violet’s dragon rider training, other included, is to bond with a dragon to gain powers that can be used to defend the kingdom. However, as the book goes on, this training is put to the test sooner than later as she’s forced to fight, alongside other dragon riders, against dark forces, the Venin and Wyvern as well as other threats within Navarre’s government.

Fantasy movies cannot be divorced from being seen through the perspective of the White man due to the social and cultural history from which it was conceived. The easiest proof of this are franchises and series like The Lord of the Rings, Underworld, Merlin, Legend of the Seeker, which were all Eurocentric and replicated tales similar to those born from the Medieval era or Middle Ages. Watching these fantasy movies and shows by white producers reinforced the fact that fantasy traditionally built its conventions around race and gender, which, usually, were White, middle-class and male, although Black people constituted a large part of fantasy culture. 

However, Jordan's role as executive producer shows the new zeitgeist regarding Black audience and fantasy culture: the movement from representation in fantasy movies as playing the roles of slaves and dressed in drab clothing in movies to control and ownership of the institutions that shape the genre. The timing of this could not be more important in light of Hollywood's search for the next major fantasy franchise or series after Game of Thrones, the rise of romantasy as more than just a concept created by fans, and Black creatives opting for more ownership and authorship roles in the movie industry.

Fantasy films and TV have traditionally centered whiteness. As fans often argue, fantasy adaptations are expected to maintain faithfulness to their source material, that is, preserving whiteness as the default visual identity of the genre. Fandoms attached to historically white fantasy worlds have often demanded the removal of the Black cast members of the cast. Anything short of this attracts accusations like “going woke equals going broke”. These reactions followed, for instance, Steve Toussaint as Lord Corlys Velaryon in House of the Dragon. This just goes to show that race doesn't just serve as a pillar in fantasy movies; it is a towering cornerstone which holds the fantasy world together. 

But, Black people have always been present in fantasy worlds and fandoms: Usopp from One Piece(1997), Killer Bee, jinchūriki of the Eight Tails, from Naruto(2002), and Ogun Montgomery from Fire Force(2015) stand as clear examples of Black representation in fantasy, even if filtered via stereotypes. Black audiences have also shown love for fantasy through gaming, cosplay, and sci-fi communities, albeit with more controversy than reception. This just shows that the issue was never about participation but power: to show who is in charge. Black people existed in these fantasy worlds but were prevented from shaping the institutions, aesthetics and storytelling architectures that governed them.

As executive producer, Jordan occupies a position that can challenge this perception. An executive producer (EP) oversees producers, development decisions, financing and major creative direction(s). Through his company, Outlier Society, his influence extends further across production, post-production and marketing. More than this, it gives Jordan and his company input as to who's cast in Fourth Wing, how the adaptation is to be shaped, as well as what story receives company endorsement. As a Black man involved in the series production, Jordan's role augments an argument that has long been canvassed by Black actors, creatives and audience as far as fantasy movies are concerned: representation matters, but infrastructure even more.

Case in point is the time before Black Panther. Black participation in fantasy and speculative storytelling was often treated by Hollywood as a niche experiment rather than a central commercial force. Big-budget fantasy worlds were still imagined through mainly white creative infrastructures, and fantasy genre projects by Black people were frequently framed as financially risky, culturally limited, or dependent on “diversity” goodwill rather than the demands of a broad audience.

‍Black Panther disrupted that logic entirely. The film became a global cultural event. It proved that Black audiences were not just laid-back consumers of fantasy movies, but one of its most powerful and emotionally invested markets. More importantly, it demonstrated that worldbuilding that focused on Black people could generate the same scale of obsession, fandom, merchandising, and mythmaking traditionally associated with franchises like Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings.‍

That success changed the economics of genre storytelling in Hollywood. After Black Panther, Black involvement in fantasy and science fiction no longer looked like a gamble but a profitable venture. The shift was both about visibility onscreen and legitimacy behind the scenes. Black creatives began to move from mere participation within genre worlds to positions of authorship and institutional influence. Producers, directors, and production companies gained greater leverage to shape which speculative stories received investment, adaptation deals, and franchise support.

This is the context in which Michael B. Jordan's production of Fourth Wing is culturally significant. Jordan’s involvement reflects a post-Black Panther Hollywood in which Black creatives are no longer being invited into fantasy worlds simply as actors or supporting figures. They are the ones now charged with determining how those worlds are built, marketed, and imagined in the first place. In this regard, Fourth Wing is part of a broader transformation in genre culture: the gradual redistribution of imaginative power within fantasy itself.

Fourth Wing is not just another fantasy adaptation. It represents the kind of franchise Hollywood believes can define the next era of streaming culture. Its emergence from BookTok's ecosystem, where romantasy has become one of publishing’s most commercially powerful genres, marks its significance in sales numbers and the intensity of its fandom. Readers build online identities around it through fancasts, edits, discourse, theories, and emotional investment in its characters and world. That kind of participatory fandom is precisely what streaming platforms now want. In an entertainment industry still searching for its next long-running fantasy obsession after Game of Thrones, romantasy offers something especially valuable: audiences that are already organized, emotionally engaged, and digitally active long before adaptation begins.

This is why Fourth Wing matters as a case study. Jordan's entrance into this space as executive producer is therefore culturally meaningful because romance itself is becoming a new site of mainstream fantasy power. For decades, fantasy’s dominant visual language was largely shaped around male-centered epics and overwhelmingly white creative frameworks. But the success of books like Fourth Wing suggests that the future of fantasy may be increasingly shaped by audiences that are younger, more female, more online, and more racially diverse than the genre’s traditional gatekeepers. That shift, from a broader perspective, then raises the bigger question of who gets to visually define the next generation of fantasy worlds. Fantasy determines whose faces become mythic, whose desires become central, and whose imagination gets treated as universal. In that sense, the adaptation of Fourth Wing derives its meaning mainly from the fact that it asks who now has the authority to shape fantasy culture itself.

IG:@muyiwavstheopp

Not speaking French might actually be the most honest position from which to review this album.
For years, Tayc has built an audience that extends far beyond francophone listeners, largely because his music has never depended entirely on language but feeling which comes before the translation does.
JOŸA leans fully into that reality and turns it into the project’s greatest strength.

The album arrives after one of the most emotionally charged periods of Tayc’s career. Over the past year, the French-Cameroonian artist hinted repeatedly at stepping away from music, posting cryptic visuals that left fans unsure whether they were watching a rollout or a goodbye. Then came silence. When JOŸA finally emerged, It felt like someone who had been through something returning to the only thing that made sense.  JOŸA dropped the same day as Drake's Iceman, an album that came with two additional projects, making three albums. Tayc did not move his date, a decision that makes sense if you are completely sure of your audience, sound and numbers. He is playing the long game because his music is one that eases into people over time. 

“Y- Prologue: 2 Mai 1826” opens like the beginning of a film rather than a streaming-era intro track. Sounds of metal cutting through soil sit underneath soft piano passages while orchestral textures slowly rise around Tayc’s voice. He has described the album as a project shaped by reconnecting with his roots, and the opener establishes that atmosphere before the listener fully understands where the album is heading.

“Girlfriend” is an example of that balance. Built around an interpolation of You Rock My World by Michael Jackson, the track could have easily collapsed into cheap nostalgia. Instead, Tayc reshapes the warmth of the original into something softer and intimate.
"Need" pulls from the same instinct. The music video portrayed Tayc as James Brown, singing, drumming, on the trumpet, on the guitar, performing on a family's television screen. Reminding us of the greats and putting himself in that conversation.

‍(Tayc via Instagram)Across JOŸA, Tayc moves between romance, chaos and vulnerability without letting the album settle in one place for too long. “Dive In” reveals its most reckless side, turning a messy situationship into something almost triumphant as Tayc bluntly tells his girlfriend that another woman simply does it better. The man is basically confessing to disaster over perfect production, and somehow it works. Then there is “Koki & Plantain,” one of the album’s most culturally rooted moments, where Tayc compares love to the iconic Cameroonian pairing in a way that feels personal rather than performative.

The features on JOŸA complement Tayc's voice. RnBoi on "Maman Prie," Aya Nakamura on "Va Loin" and Masego on "Masterpiece" each slot in so well you stop noticing where Tayc ends and they begin. Before any of this, Tayc screened a short film at a cinema in Paris before a single track was available to stream.
What makes JOŸA particularly interesting for Anglophone listeners is that it works less through literal meaning and more through feeling. Even without understanding every lyric, you can still follow where the songs are going emotionally through the pauses in Tayc’s delivery, the crack in his voice at the end of certain lines and the way the choirs rise behind him.

IG: @zoannafr