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MUSIC CUSTODIAN SESSIONS RETURNS WITH RIC HASSANI FOR EPISODE 8, EXPLORING LOVE, WORLD MUSIC AND LIFE AS THE LAGOS LOVER BOY

AdminNovember 10, 2026November 10, 202607 mins

The Nigerian singer-songwriter joins Music Custodian Sessions for an intimate conversation about his creative journey, artistic identity, international experiences and the personal perspectives shaping his music. Music Custodian has premiered the eighth episode of its original audiovisual interview series, Music Custodian Sessions, featuring Nigerian singer-songwriter Ric Hassani. Titled “Ric Hassani on Love, World Music &…

Baddo Never Misses a Moment: Olamide Opens a New Chapter on Afrobeats Heat Different

AdminOctober 23, 2026October 23, 2026019 mins

Olamide returns with “Burukutu” as this week’s Afrobeats Heat Different selection brings together Nigerian street-pop, Ghanaian melodies, alternative voices and a new generation of African music makers. A familiar voice, a changing musical landscape Few Nigerian artists have maintained a relationship with popular culture quite like Olamide. Across successive generations of listeners, his music has…

Afrobeats Heat Different: Damola Is Still on Fire as Fireboy DML Opens a New Chapter with ZUKO!

AdminOctober 16, 2026October 17, 2026024 mins

From Fireboy DML and Lojay to Blaqbonez, Cruel Santino, Victony, Gyakie, Sarkodie and KiDi, this week’s 15-track Afrobeats Heat Different follows African popular music through reinvention, collaboration, street expression and the expanding relationships between musical scenes. Fireboy DML returns to the centre of the African music conversation with ZUKO!, his fifth studio album and first…

Afrobeats Heat Different: FOLA Takes the Number 9 Shirt as African Music Finds New Ways to Deliver

AdminOctober 10, 2026October 13, 2026027 mins

From FOLA and Davido’s late-night collaboration to Phyno’s romantic expression, Bien’s reflections on heartbreak, Vector’s meditation on fatherhood and new connections across African music, this week’s 13-track Afrobeats Heat Different explores what it means for an artist to deliver. In football, the number nine carries a particular responsibility. It belongs to the player expected to…

Afrobeats Heat Different: Mr Eazi’s “Comfort” Leads a Week of Old Languages Finding New Forms

AdminOctober 5, 2026October 5, 2026018 mins

From Mr Eazi and MOLIY’s Ghana-Nigeria conversation to Terry Apala’s reworking of Apala, DopeNation’s Ghanaian rhythmic vocabulary and a new generation of street-pop and rap voices, this week’s Afrobeats Heat Different finds African music moving forward without becoming distant from where it came from. African pop does not have to abandon its old musical languages…

Custodian Gems: BLNDE Leads a New Edition About the Work of Becoming

AdminOctober 5, 2026October 5, 2026010 mins

Discovery culture has developed a strange obsession with being first. With Custodian Gems, we find the artist before everyone else. Catch the song before it moves. Name the next star before consensus arrives. But discovery becomes far more useful when it stops behaving like prophecy. The more interesting question begins after an artist has our…

In Malawi, Tiwa Savage Saw Survivors Building What Comes Next

AdminSeptember 23, 2026September 27, 2026016 mins

Tiwa Savage arrived in Malawi expecting to cry. She had prepared herself for it. As she later recalled, she had even packed extra tissues because she expected the stories of women and girls who had experienced violence to overwhelm her. Instead, after spending four days meeting survivors, activists, students, creatives, government officials and representatives of…

Beyond the Anglophone Lens: MAMA AFRICA 26 Builds a Meeting Point for Lusophone African Culture in Lisbon

AdminSeptember 22, 2026September 27, 2026015 mins

Across cinema, music, literature, fashion, food and art, the second edition of MAMA AFRICA offered something more consequential than another European celebration of “African culture”: a meeting point shaped around Africa’s Portuguese-speaking cultural worlds and the diasporic city they have helped build. African culture has never spoken in one language. Yet as African music and…

When Ayra Starr Met Zohran Mamdani, Two African Journeys Converged in New York

AdminSeptember 19, 2026September 19, 2026016 mins

Nigerian pop star Ayra Starr linked up with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, bringing together two young public figures whose careers occupy entirely different worlds but whose trajectories contain an intriguing point of convergence. One became a global Nigerian pop star. The other became New York City’s first African-born, Muslim and South Asian mayor….

“No AI Needed”: Chaka Khan Reminds the Internet She Was Already There

AdminSeptember 18, 2026September 19, 202609 mins

As social media users turn to artificial intelligence to imagine themselves in the 1980s, Chaka Khan has responded with something better: the archive. The internet is busy imagining itself in the 1980s. Chaka Khan has receipts. Across social media, a new AI-driven nostalgia trend has users transforming present-day photographs into imagined portraits from the decade…

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