Black Economic Empowerment in your dreams

I saw this ad on TV a few times during my recent trip down to South Africa. The commercial, for South African beer Hansa Pilsener, riffs on the South African government’s Black Economic Empowerment policy, which far from creating opportunities for small businesspeople, have increasingly resulted in a few rich, politically connected billionaires, white owned companies fronted by blacks or what locals refer to as “tenderpreneurs.”

Vuyo stands a better chance of getting a free beer.

Further Reading

Sinners and ancestors

Ryan Coogler’s latest film is more than a vampire fable—it’s a bridge between Black American history and African audiences hungry for connection, investment, and storytelling rooted in shared struggle.

How to unmake the world

In this wide-ranging conversation, para-disciplinary artist Nolan Oswald Dennis reflects on space, time, Blackness, and the limits of Western knowledge—offering a strategy for imagining grounded in African and anti-colonial traditions.

A migrant’s tale

On his latest EP, Kwame Brenya turns a failed migration into musical testimony—offering a biting critique of ECOWAS, broken borders, and the everyday collapse of pan-African ideals.