Kicking off our live performance series is one of our favourite collaborators, Blinky Bill. Performing here with Lisa Oduor-Noah and Sedar Oddenyo, a rendition of Mtaona Nikipaa From his second album, We Cut Keys 2.
"When I go, when I go, I go correct
So you better come correct!"
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Episode 4 of The African Imaginary Podcast is live and available on all streaming platforms linked in the bio.
@blinkybillmusic x @africanimaginary
#africanimaginarypodcast #africanmusic #kenyanmusic
This week’s reviewer is Natacha Hanfou from Cameroon. Natacha is the founder of a global literary community called @boubousandbooks celebrating women who love to read. Boubous and Books highlights powerful female readers, shares book reviews and recommendations, and also host elegant literary meetups. The platform brings together style, storytelling, and critical curiosity, inviting readers to encounter books with care and attentiveness.
Here are her 5 Favourites:
1. Homegoing – Yaa Gyasi
2. Purple Hibiscus – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
3. So Long a Letter – Mariama Bâ
4. Nervous Conditions – Tsitsi Dangarembga
5. Behold the Dreamers – Imbolo Mbue
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5 Favourites is our much-loved regular, in which a reader or writer speed-dates us through his or her favourite African books so that you can expand your own literary horizons.
Interested in becoming a video reviewer? Our reviewers are based around the continent, and are African book lovers of different genres. Because we love compelling books content, we have a small budget for video reviewers. DM us to find out about joining the community!
#theafricanimaginary #africanliterature #africanwriting
Sometimes being an artist means falling in love with the vision and not the applause. Blinky Bill on trusting his creative instincts and baking the cake anyway.
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Episode 4 of The African Imaginary Podcast is live and available on all streaming platforms linked in the bio.
@blinkybillmusic x @africanimaginary
#africanimaginarypodcast #africanmusic #kenyanmusic
Image From: @kiguta_francis
Want to know what’s been happening in the land of African music festivals, new releases, and artist news? We bring you bi-monthly music news from Africa and her Diaspora. Here are some highlights from the past 2 months.
For the full report visit our Substack linked in bio.
Compiled by one of our music creators @iamsiwas
#theafricanimaginary #africanmusic
"How you dress is also an extension of your artistry and I'm not afraid to try."
Blinky Bill reflecting on artists who remain relevant by remaining playful, from @bigboi to @andre3000 to @yolikegeorge .
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Episode 4 of The African Imaginary Podcast is live and available on all streaming platforms linked in the bio.
@blinkybillmusic x @africanimaginary
#africanimaginarypodcast #africanmusic #kenyanmusic
"Home is where you don't have to explain yourself too much." Blinky Bill on the simple ways that home soothes the soul.
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Episode 4 of The African Imaginary Podcast is live and available on all streaming platforms linked in the bio.
@blinkybillmusic x @africanimaginary
#africanimaginarypodcast #africanmusic #kenyanmusic
Blinky Bill on how he and his bandmates inspired each other in the early stages of Just a Band.
"If it was just one of us, that light could have easily been extinguished, but because it was four of us, each one had a candle, and then it's much more harder to extinguish it.
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Episode 4 of The African Imaginary Podcast is live and available on all streaming platforms linked in the bio.
@blinkybillmusic x @africanimaginary
#africanimaginarypodcast #africanmusic #kenyanmusic
"Humans are bound to grow and not always in the way you want them to."
A quote from one of this month's must reads: Love, Marry, Kill by Zukiswa Wanner. A novel about love, loss, and the people we become in spite of each other.
Read about our May must-reads on our Substack. Link in bio.
This week’s reviewer is Dennis Mugaa from Kenya. Dennis is a writer, editor and the author of Half Portraits Under Water. His work moves through memory, intimacy, masculinity, and emotional inheritance, often attending to the quiet tensions of interior life. With a lyrical voice, Mugaa’s writing explores how tenderness and vulnerability surface within everyday experience. His work contributes to a growing contemporary East African literary landscape attentive to feeling, form, and the unspoken.
Here are his 5 Favourites:
1. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
2. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie
3. The Devil that Danced on the Water by Aminatta Forna
4. Small Country by Gäel Faye
5. The Most Secret Memory of Men by Mbougar Sarr
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5 Favourites is our much-loved regular, in which a reader or writer speed-dates us through his or her favourite African books so that you can expand your own literary horizons.
Interested in becoming a video reviewer? Our reviewers are based around the continent, and are African book lovers of different genres. Because we love compelling books content, we have a small budget for video reviewers. DM us to find out about joining the community!
#theafricanimaginary #africanliterature #africanwriting
From Björk to Jamiroquai in one Nairobi living room, Blinky Bill and Just a Band’s creative osmosis. Who is an artist that you grew into?
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Episode 4 of The African Imaginary Podcast is live and available on all streaming platforms linked in the bio.
@blinkybillmusic x @africanimaginary
#africanimaginarypodcast #africanmusic #kenyanmusic
Each month The African Imaginary Books team reviews 4 books that inspire us. We mix collectible coffee-table titles with fiction from around the continent and Africa’s wide-ranging diaspora.
Our May books list is a ‘mixtape’ of short stories, an intriguing look into the sketchbooks of two defiantly controversial South African artists and illustrators, an insightful memoir of loss and family, and a novel that asks difficult questions about love and marriage.
1. Only Stars Know the Meaning of Space: A Literary Mixtape by Rémy Ngamije, Rwanda / Namibia. Reviewed by @reimaginelit
2. Bitterkomix: Sketchbook and Journals 1991-2025 by Conrad Botes and Anton Kannemeyer, South Africa. Reviewed by @chrisroperza
3. Exit Wounds by Peter Godwin, Zimbabwe. Reviewed by @sarahbuiten
4. Love, Marry, Kill by Zukiswa Wanner, South Africa. Reviewed by @del_yonce
Interested in building your own African book collection? Our library lives here, on our website (link in bio) and also in Cape Town where we’ve been acquiring new fiction and coffee table books since 2022. Follow us for recommendations.
Our reviewers are based around the continent, and are African book lovers of different genres. Because we believe in great books content, we have a small budget for reviewers. If you’d like to find out more about joining our community of reviewers, please send us a DM.
For the love of African literature and coffee table books!
#theafricanimaginary #africanliterature #africanwriting
From childhood nickname to world-renowned artist: how Kenya's beloved musician-philosopher Blinky Bill got his name from a cartoon koala bear.
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Episode 4 of The African Imaginary Podcast is live and available on all streaming platforms linked in the bio.
@blinkybillmusic x @africanimaginary
#africanimaginarypodcast #africanmusic #kenyanmusic
