Africa Is a Country

‘The Post-Imperial’

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

‘The Post-Imperial’

By
Oluwatone Akindele

I recently shot the short interview, below, with Niyi Okuboyejo, creative director of New York City men’s accessories brand, Post-Imperial (for a short documentary graduate class at The New School). Okuboyejo, the son of Nigerian immigrants, describes what he does as a “coup against the regime of Fashion.” Post-Imperial is a men’s accessories brand focused on ties and pocket-squares. Constantly creating for now, what sets Post-Imperial apart from other menswear brands is the vision of tomorrow. “I hardly use nostalgia to bait people,” says Okuboyejo. “I feel like a lot of menswear brands in this day in age, especially the heritage brands, try to use nostalgia to bait people into living a certain, false life or standard.” Collection IV features products treated in ‘adire’–an old and rare dying technique developed by the Yorubas in the Southwest region of Nigeria. Due to the nature of the process, each piece varies in uniqueness and individuality. Here’s the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZmioSXjyLA

Further Reading

After Paul Biya

Cameroon’s president has ruled for over four decades by silence and survival. Now, with dynastic succession looming and no clear exit strategy, the country teeters between inertia and implosion.

Leapfrogging literacy?

In outsourcing the act of writing to machines trained on Western language and thought, we risk reinforcing the very hierarchies that decolonization sought to undo.

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.