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Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti was a Nigerian hero, a political insurrectionist – and had 27 wives. He was meant to be a doctor, an upstanding member of Nigeria's elite like his father, an Anglican pastor who had founded the Nigeria Union of Teachers, and his mother, an aristocrat, nationalist and fiery feminist who had won the Lenin peace prize. His two brothers were already committed to the medical profession to which he was likewise promised. At 20 he would study in England, where his first cousin, Wole Soyinka, was already making waves as a literary lion.

Fela Kuti remembered: 'He was a tornado of a man, but he loved humanity'.

On our archive page, we keep all the works we have shared on the platform as we want to keep the stories alive.

A major survey of British-Ghanaian photographer James Barnor, whose career spans six decades, two continents and numerous photographic genres.

Makeba was the first vocalist to put African music onto the international map in the 1960s.

A major survey of British-Ghanaian photographer James Barnor, whose career as a studio portraitist, photojournalist and Black lifestyle photographer spans six decades and records major social and political changes in London and Accra.Born in 1929 in Ghana, James Barnor established his famous Ever Young studio in Accra in the early 1950s, capturing a nation on the cusp of independence in an ambiance animated by conversation and highlife music. In 1959 he arrived in London, furthering his studies and continuing assignments for influential South African magazine Drum which reflected the spirit of the era and the experiences of London’s burgeoning African diaspora. He returned to Ghana in the early 1970s to establish the country’s first colour processing lab while continuing his work as a portrait photographer and embedding himself in the music scene. He returned to London in 1994.

Miriam Makeba, in full Zensi Miriam Makeba, (born March 4, 1932, Prospect Township, near Johannesburg, South Africa—died November 10, 2008, Castel Volturno, near Naples, Italy), South African-born singer who became known as Mama Afrika, one of the world’s most prominent Black African performers in the 20th century. She became a professional vocalist in 1954, performing primarily in southern Africa. By the late 1950s her singing and recording had made her well known in South Africa, and her appearance in the documentary film Come Back, Africa (1959) attracted the interest of Harry Belafonte and other American performers.