Africa Is a Country

The magazine as Tumblr

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

The magazine as Tumblr

By
Steffan Horowitz

Globetrotter's organizing logic may be a bit elusive, but the content itself is often quite captivating.

The cover of GLOBETROTTER Magazine's inaugural issue. The photographs are by Delphine Diallo.

Globetrotter is one of those vaguely defined, international, cosmopolitan culture and fashion magazines. With connections to Chicago, Lagos, and Jakarta, the magazine consists of an eclectic pastiche of commentary on various international trends organized into four sections: Art/Design, Movements, Style, and Music. The publication is the brainchild of Kennedy Ashinze and published through his company, Fuse Creative Agency. The articles contained in Globetrotter’s first issue cover a seemingly incongruous mix of topics.

These range from interviews with Franco-Senegalese artist, Delphine Diallo, and Gold Coast Trading Company’s founder, Emeka Alams, to an interview with the founder and CEO of Go-Jek, Indonesia’s first organized moto-taxi (ojek) service. Also included in the premier issue are interviews with Nigerian-German singer-songwriter Nneka and Chicago-based graffiti artist Slang. And hey, just in case you’re planning a vacation to Bali, Globetrotter has even provided its readers with its own insider’s guide to the island.

An image, by Nneka, that illustrates an interview with her.

That said, while the magazine’s organizing logic may be a bit elusive, the content itself is often quite captivating. The art, interviews, fashion accessories, music coverage, and even advertisements that line the pages create a unique aesthetic that certainly does manage to maintain the reader’s attention. It is also important to note that the magazine is providing an outlet for many of these subcultural figures to get some coverage in print media form, since much of the publicity for many of them has been through online sources. Moreover, Globetrotter does, in its own way, present a fascinating study in global artistic and subcultural networks. It offers a medium through which conversations within and between different diasporas can take place and new creative endeavors can be shared and examined.

Overall, Globetrotter has plenty of potential and is certainly worth a read. I look forward to seeing future issues of the publication and watching the project come into its own.

  • Steffan Horowitz joins the AIAC “collective” with this post.

Further Reading

Repoliticizing a generation

Thirty-eight years after Thomas Sankara’s assassination, the struggle for justice and self-determination endures—from stalled archives and unfulfilled verdicts to new calls for pan-African renewal and a 21st-century anti-imperialist front.

Drip is temporary

The apparel brand Drip was meant to prove that South Africa’s townships could inspire global style. Instead, it revealed how easily black success stories are consumed and undone by the contradictions of neoliberal aspiration.

Energy for whom?

Behind the fanfare of the Africa Climate Summit, the East African Crude Oil Pipeline shows how neocolonial extraction still drives Africa’s energy future.

The sound of revolt

On his third album, Afro-Portuguese artist Scúru Fitchádu fuses ancestral wisdom with urban revolt, turning memory and militancy into a soundtrack for resistance.

O som da revolta

No seu terceiro álbum, o artista afro-português Scúru Fitchádu funde a sabedoria ancestral com a revolta urbana, transformando memória e militância em uma trilha sonora para a resistência.

Biya forever

As Cameroon nears its presidential elections, a disintegrated opposition paves the way for the world’s oldest leader to claim a fresh mandate.

From Cornell to conscience

Hounded out of the United States for his pro-Palestine activism, Momodou Taal insists that the struggle is global, drawing strength from Malcolm X, faith, and solidarity across borders.