Notes on “Lucid” 1. “Asa’s career trajectory seems blunted.” This was Dami Ajayi’s conclusion in his review of Lucid, Asa’s latest album. That sentence has stuck in my mind for a couple of days now, so this is my attempt at excising it. In another life, I would be writing a…

Thoughts on the appeal of writing about trauma — Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland is one of the few science-fiction films of recent years set in an Utopia. It is about a futuristic city ruled by a scorned scientist who will do anything to keep a tachyon machine running, so it can continue to project visions of an apocalyptic future, a…

Enkare Review has taken down the story; what next? — “This is always a risk in art. The solution remains as it has always been: Get out (of the gallery) or go deeper in (to the argument). Write a screed against it. Critique the hell out of it. Tear it to shreds in your review or paint another painting in…

Review of TJ Benson’s We Won’t Fade into Darkness — Sometime between the mid 2000s and mid 2010s young Nigerians wrote short short fiction in online destinations like AfroSays, Naija Stories, The Naked Convos and on platforms like Facebook. Buoyed by the ease of sharing these works in personal blogs and on social media, and the exhilaration of finding an…

Style in the spirit that binds Teni and Wande Coal — Teni the Entertainer is an artist of the social media age. She became popular through Instagram skits, which led to her first hit song ‘Fargin’. And ‘Uyo Meyo’, her most recent track, was at first a viral tweet celebrating the completion of her degree, which she performed seated in a…

Why the crutch works for Nigerian films but fails the rapper — In 2018, Brandon Stanton, the creator of Humans of New York, visited Nigeria as part of a trip to various countries in Africa. He shared stories from the country across social media and they were received positively. Stanton was showing Nigerian stories that were “touching” in their realness and many…

I find engaging online discourse in Nigeria a challenge because of the sheer number of people talking. But I’ve tried to follow conversations on Twitter in silence for most of the year, because if you’re interested in Nigerians, you can’t afford to not pay attention to what they’re saying. Online…

We are in the golden age of internet outrage, and Naijamerican writer Nnedi Okorafor was recently at its receiving end. In the early hours of 22 October, I woke up to tweets directed at the award-winning writer of sci fi, Africanfuturism, and mystical realism in response to a reply she…

Jokes often follow a set up-premise-punchline structure. This applies to one sentence jokes, two-hour comedy specials and feature films alike. When told with skill, jokes are considered the simplest form of perfect storytelling. …