How Lusaka Moves

There is a particular way Lusaka reveals itself. You can spend an entire afternoon convinced there is nowhere to go, only to find yourself scattered around town because the errands dragged you to new places. For years, Lusaka has been described as a city of work and little play. In administration, politics, and commerce, it […]
Six Days on the Zambezi: A Traveller’s Guide to Kuomboka

There is a version of Kuomboka that lives in photographs: a black and white Nalikwanda gliding across a flooded plain, hundreds of paddlers moving as one, red uniforms catching the light. It is genuinely a spectacular image, and it is also, in a real sense, only the final hour of a six-day event that most […]
The Cloth That Carries the Church

In Zambia’s Catholic congregations, the chitenge carries an authority the church never put in writing.
The Machine Can See You. It Still Can’t Pay You.

Somewhere in a court-approved spreadsheet, nearly half a million books have become line items. Whatever a book once was in the making of it, the years of revision and abandonment and recovery before it ever reached a reader, it now exists in that file as an eligible work with a claim status, a payout estimate, […]
The Lusaka Youth Are Building Their Own Scene

The third spaces, pop-ups, and pricing decisions behind a generation’s bid for cultural infrastructure.
The Best Places to Propose in Africa: From Cape Town to Marrakech

Proposals in Africa hit different. Maybe it’s the scale (mountains that dwarf your nerves, waterfalls louder
The Tailor, the Bassist, and the Look That Defined Zambian Rock

The cover of WITCH’s 1972 debut Introduction was photographed by John Chadwick and designed by Ro Barry. These
The Art of Being Seen: Fashion as Resistance Across Four African Subcultures

Some of the most compelling expressions of identity are found in the subcultures that transform everyday
WORN OUT — Part II: How African Governments Are Responding to the Textile Waste Crisis

Western wardrobes don’t end in Europe or North America. They spill quietly, devastatingly onto African soil, packed into shipping containers and sold in open-air markets under the guise of “donations.” But from Accra to Kigali, Dakar to Lusaka, something is shifting. The bales keep arriving. The markets keep choking. But across the continent, a patchwork […]