There are layers upon layers and countless dimensions to the African experience, whether you’re living on the continent or in the diaspora. At OkayAfrica, we aim to take a magnifying glass to these layers and dimensions, tease out the nuances, and present a portrait of where things are, in the hope that the stories we share stand as a diligent testament to the complexity of living in and being from Africa.
2025 was a busy editorial year for us, a reflection of the times we’re living in, where sociopolitical challenges rubbed up against culturally significant events. It was a year where we had to keep our eyes fixed on wars, and the alleged atrocities that accompanied them, where many African governments repressed the voices of their citizens through familiar, cruel tactics, and the returning U.S. president alternately made Africans and African countries targets for his often misguided vitriol while also anointing himself as the mediator of peace without adequate results.
This year also continued the trend of Africans blazing new trails in different frontiers of culture, from the first Nigerian film to be officially selected to a major international film festival to the ever-continuing deluge of great music and new sounds that flood the continent and beyond. OkayAfrica also celebrated 15 years with a remarkable series of articles and video essays looking back at some of the most iconic moments and movements in the time since its inception.
Looking back on a year packed with an endless count of necessary stories, OkayAfrica’s regional correspondents and writers have selected their top picks among what we worked on in 2025. Below, they share personal reasons why these picks stand out.
Amuna Wagner, North Africa Correspondent:
As I spend more time in the U.S., I am intrigued by the African diaspora’s relationship with ancient Egypt. There’s a fascination and emotional connection with the history of a place, but hardly any knowledge about the same place’s present. As the daughter of a Nubian family, a resident of Egypt, and a member of the Black diaspora, I find myself at an interesting vantage point.
Reviewing the Flight Into Egypt exhibition, based on interviews with its curator, Akili Tommasino, Egyptian artist Sara Elmessiry, and Coptic Egyptian diasporan Ruth Rizkallah, I offered both critique and empathy to communities that are struggling to be in conversation over a past they both, rightly or wrongly, lay claim to. The piece prompted a strong and passionate online reaction. However, it also opened many interesting conversations and showed that there’s much to discuss and explain if we are to build genuine pan-African relationships that can help us inspire, instead of antagonize, each other. I wrote a follow-up article that was equally a hot topic of discussion; there’s still more nuance to be explored here.
For this article, I have to credit OkayAfrica’s Director of Content, Nishan Kassahun, who connected me with a veteran Algerian ambassador and pan-Africanist. North Africa is often portrayed as a separate part of the continent that wants nothing to do with the rest of Africa. While it is true that colorism exists, many North Africans are proud Africans, and no country’s history is a better testament to the conviction that our liberation is tied together than the history of revolutionary Algeria.
“It was part of the essence of the Algerian revolution to support national liberation movements from other countries,” filmmaker Hassane Mezine told me. “The Algerian national project of liberation was not just an Algerian project. It was an African project.” It’s important to keep this history alive as we celebrate the centennial of Frantz Fanon’s birth at a time of profound political and moral disorder. Now is the right moment to recover the spirit and ideals of our predecessors, so that we may continue working towards decolonization for as long as it takes. There’s so much to learn from Algeria. Our dreams are not that different from the dreams of our ancestors.
Sudan Coverage
It’s been over 900 days since the outbreak of war in Sudan. Nearly three years of people being slaughtered, starved to death, raped, displaced, and dehumanized. Everyone is tired of it, but we cannot stop talking about Sudan, because people are still living through these horrors every day of their lives.
I do my best to write about Sudan in every possible way – from news about El Fasher and Port Sudan to interviews with the makers of films like Khartoum and Cotton Queen, and books like The Sudanese Kitchen Cookbook or Love Letters to Sudan. I speak to first responders, people who run community kitchens, photographers, musicians, storytellers, and those who are calculating the future costs of this war. I highlight positive news, like the study that found a potential decline in FGM amongst displaced communities. I try to find out what it is that makes people care about Sudan less than other conflicts, and find creative ways to overcome this empathy block.
While none of this has stopped the war, at least it helps paint a picture of Sudan that is more vibrant, diverse, and accurate than the narrative of a dry, forgotten, war-torn desert land. Anyone who has followed my reporting knows that Sudan exists outside the sparse moments when international news outlets share the same horrifying video once every few months, before pushing the Sudanese people back into obscurity. I am proud of that.
Paula Adhis, East African Correspondent:
“This Place Called Home” Series
This year, OkayAfrica launched a special series — This Place Called Home — to examine what happens when African cities begin pricing out their own. The idea emerged from conversations following powerful reporting by our West Africa correspondent, Nelson C.J., on how young people in Lagos, Accra, and Dakar face rising rents.
As the OkayAfrica team talked about it more, we confronted a sobering reality: across the continent, many young Africans can no longer afford the cities that shaped them.
I was proud to contribute two stories to the series. One explored how Addis Ababa’s push to become a global city has led to displacement, rising housing costs, and a fading sense of home. The other focused on Ngara, a colonial-era neighborhood in Nairobi that had fallen into neglect but is now undergoing a revival that brings to mind Johannesburg’s Maboneng.
Reporting these stories has been one of the most rewarding challenges of my year. They required time, research, and many conversations to truly understand how urban transformation is reshaping people’s lives. But the final work stands among my favorite pieces of 2024.
You can also read other stories in the series from my smart and intrepid colleagues here.
Together, our pieces build a cross‑continental portrait of African urban life in flux. It’s a reminder that housing isn’t just about buildings. It’s about dignity, community, and the right to remain rooted in the places that helped make us...even as they change before our very eyes.
Tšeliso Monaheng, South African Correspondent:
We Got The Jazz
South African jazz is always on the radar, what with it booming and influencing a myriad of scenes, traditions, and approaches at home and abroad, while also taking bits and pieces from elsewhere to form a punchy, decisive whole. Between May and June, the country’s jazz and improvised music scene lost luminaries in photographer and founder of the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, Rashid Lombard; trumpeter and composer, Feya Faku; and Louis Moholo-Moholo, who flew the South African jazz flag high in exile with his band, Brotherhood of Breath (formerly known as The Blue Notes). We were able to run timely pieces on all three, and were floored by the generosity of spirit from all the musicians, family, and friends who spared their time to share a memory. What this revealed and made apparent to me was that the new generation of musicians has taken the torch and is running with it, and that an even newer crop of cats is standing, not on the sidelines, but side-by-side with giants, holding their weight.
We approached this conversation by way of reporting on the two fairly recent interventions in the South African live music space: Kids Love Jazz, whose third iteration in November was a masterclass in DIY tactics, an ear on the ground, and a consistent focus on giving your core base the best experience possible; and the recently-concluded Umanyano Lwe Jazz which, nearly five years later, is stamping itself as South Africa’s premier boutique jazz festival.
Ear To The Ground
We really went in with cutting-edge coverage of some of the most exciting acts in Southern Africa – and the rest of the continent – at the moment. Our monthly amapiano lists allowed us to track what is still one of the world’s fastest-growing genres in real time, with ears to the ground and playlists getting frequently updated. For my part, I made sure to check what happens on social media platforms, what conversations artists are having, and what general direction the industry is headed in. Amapiano is in a great state and shall keep elevating with each passing year. We honed in and focused on upcoming artists in the amapiano scene, and also paid homage to the women who keep feet on dancefloors, hands in the air, and the beat rocking steady. We expanded the sonic palette across the region; I looked into what else is bubbling in Southern Africa, and compiled a list of artists who are ruling the underground at the moment, and another one consisting of alt and indie acts you need to check out. This tied in well with our monthly list of top Southern African songs you need to check out.
Heavy hitters
We mourned when Amadou Bagayoko of Amadou & Mariam passed away. Then, a few months later, we celebrated with Mariam on the eve of the duo’s latest album, L’amour à la folie, recorded before Amadou left this plane. Mereba spoke to me about the loss that defined her earlier years, and the loss suffered by residents of the Los Angeles fires, which became an unexpected metaphor for her album, The Breeze Grew A Fire. She also spoke about the gains: how the birth of her son brought sunshine – and perspective – into her life, and how the friendships that sustained her became the basis for her third body of work.
Nelson C.J., West African Correspondent:
Across the West African region, young people are increasingly facing housing challenges that can be linked to infrastructural problems as well as individual ones. From landlords hiking up rent prices to governments keeping a loose grip on rental and housing policies, I have always been curious about this interconnected problem and how it manifests in different countries within West Africa. My reporting on this issue collected stories from more than 20 young people living in major West African cities like Lagos, Accra, and Dakar. It revealed similar patterns: highly concentrated commercial cities that trigger population growth, minimal rent control policies, and low enforcement when landlords break rental laws, etc. It also opened my eyes to the unique problems these cities face. In Ghana, for example, it is more convenient for renters to pay per month, not merely because it’s been that way until recently, when landlords started charging one to two years' rent in advance, but it also helps young people who are entering the rental market find places to live without having to cough up thousands of cedis. On the other hand, renters in Dakar and Lagos say that a monthly rental system doesn’t work for them, considering that an annual rental system is more convenient. This story went on to form the topic of The Youth Bloom Podcast hosted by CSIS.
On African Literature
African Literature is an ecosystem I feel strongly about. As someone who started out writing fiction, it’s an ecosystem that has nurtured my voice and has earned my respect and admiration over the years. This year, it only felt natural to double down on my coverage of the African literary space. I began with a thorough examination of what happened to the once vibrant and explosive literary community on the continent.
In my reporting, I spoke with experts, industry insiders, publishers, reviewers, writers, editors, and anyone who remembered and lived through the glory days of African literature, and what they think could have caused this decline. And around African Literature, I also enjoyed speaking with and writing about Eloghosa Osunde’s incredible sophomore novel, Necessary Fiction. In our interview, we discussed the place of experimentation and being led by your story. It was also a delight to have profiled Ifesinachi Okonkwo on her brilliant debut novel, The Tiny Things Are Heavier. In my piece, we discussed mining her personal difficulties to write a lingering and powerful story.
