Concerts, weddings, beach parties and homecomings. Every December, Lagos and Accra fill with visitors from the diaspora for a festive season known as "Detty December". Tonight, it reaches its peak.
Almost every Rwandan speaks Kinyarwanda, making Rwanda one of the few African countries where a single indigenous language is shared by nearly everyone. Here is its history, its poetry and a few words to begin.
From today until 1 January, millions of people of African descent light the candles of the kinara and reflect on the Nguzo Saba, seven principles drawn from African values. Here is the story of Kwanzaa.
Beach braais in South Africa, homecomings in Igboland, all-night church services in Accra, and Genna on 7 January in Ethiopia. Christmas in Africa takes many forms.
Epics, genealogies, praise poems and folk tales have carried African history and wisdom for centuries without being written down. How does oral tradition work, and can it be trusted as history?
Peeled, wrapped in banana leaves, steamed for hours and mashed into a golden mound. Matooke is the heart of Ugandan cooking, and its story reaches back more than a thousand years.
Born in the crowded dormitories of Abidjan's university in the early 1990s, zouglou mixed humour, social criticism and street slang. Its biggest hit, "Premier Gaou", went around the world.
A rectangle of printed cotton with a bold border, a central design and a Swahili proverb. The kanga is worn, gifted and used to send messages along the East African coast.
"Khotso, Pula, Nala" — peace, rain, prosperity. Sesotho is the language of Lesotho and of millions of South Africans, with a literature that includes one of Africa's earliest novels.
In 1969, Kenyan theologian John Mbiti argued that traditional African thought saw time as moving backwards into a deep past rather than forward into a distant future. His idea was hugely influential, and fiercely debated.
Finely minced beef warmed in spiced butter and seasoned with fiery mitmita. Kitfo, a dish of the Gurage people, is a favourite for celebrations across Ethiopia.
Thundering talking drums, praise singing and Islamic vocal styles, born from Ramadan wake-up music. Fuji is one of Nigeria's great popular musics, and it is named after a Japanese mountain.
