What a year, we’ve had!
And it’s all thanks to you; our staff, our writers, our cheer leaders and funders.
2024 zoomed past so fast it felt like the seconds and minutes and hours and days were on steroids.
But it was also a beautiful, productive, fun-filled, and exciting year in which we published over 200 essays, books, music, movie and sundry other reviews.
We launched new series like the Sneak Peak and Migration and the Writer series, we discovered new writers like Precious Nzeakor (who won the Ken Saro Wiwa book review prize at LABAF 2024) and Joseph Jonathan and we ticked pretty much all the boxes we laid out in January.
We are particularly proud with the growth in readership and traffic from as far afield as Indonesia and Canada. It is always pleasing to receive emails or event invitations and press releases from countries across Africa, Europe, Asia and north America. We are expanding and growing organically into a global culture hub thanks to you.
As we wind down and begin our count down to the New Year, we present our Top 5 lists for music, books, movies, essays and our sneak peeks at forthcoming books.
Measuring and evaluating progress is critical not just to keep going but staying productive and adjusting your sails the better to catch the wind.
And so here we go:
Top 5 Book reviews: Thousands of our readers flocked to read Precious Nzeakor’s penetrating and incisive review of Pemi Aguda’s Ghostsroots. Aside from style and language, Ms. Nzeakor seemed particularly fascinated by Ms. Aguda’s characters whom she describes as cutting “across all works and ages, yet a unifying theme is how they all seem to be trapped—in generational curses, in guilt, in the past. In this entrapment, we see these characters weigh the pain of the past and the possibilities of the future.”
Others in the Top 5 include Olukorede Yishau’s review of Chigozie Obioma’s novel, The Road To the Country; Bolaji Olatunde’s review of Wole Soyinka’s Intervention XII; Toni Kan’s review of My Niteshift Coliseum Odyssey and Sale Tamani’s review of Chukwuebuka Ibeh’s Blessings.
Top 5 Music reviews: Musical taste can be so subjective and our Top 5 music reviews bear that assertion out. Again, Precious Nzeakor’s review is in prime position with her take on Tem’s Born in the Wild which caught the attention of thousands of our readers maybe for her honesty in describing the work as an “interesting aural experience” even though “some of the songs didn’t catch my attention until a few steady repeats.”
Ms. Nzeakor goes on to note that “On the surface, all the songs seem to sound alike, with the same tempo and style. It could count as a reason to question the usually skilled and versatile Tems. However, with deeper consideration, one discovers all the exciting elements within. There are reggae bits, references to beloved classics that evoke nostalgia, exciting features and much more.”
The other reviews include Agunbiade’s reflections on “Afrobeats and the poetics of a sonic muddle”; Michael Kolawole’s review of Olamide’s Ikigai; Carl Tever’s dissection of Shallipopi’s Shakepopi and Yinka Adetu’s dismissal of the same Shakepopi.
Top 5 Movie reviews: Nollywood had a busy and interesting year and our Top 5 reflects that output. Our top movie review is by Seyi Lasisi whose excoriating review of the Meji Alabi film starring Tiwa Savage must have tickled the fancy of thousands of our readers. Opening with a question “Is Meji Alabi’s disorganised film a reflection of filmmaking in Nollywood?” Mr. Lasisi goes ahead to provide evidence to support his thesis that fillmaking in Nollywood is a hot mess.
Hear him: “It’s becoming increasingly the case to watch films and TV series from seasoned Nigerian actors, screenwriters, producers, and directors and end up being frustrated at how trite they are. When the acting isn’t bland, the script is adrift and marooned on an island of aimlessness.”
Ouch!
Read the full review here.
The others in the top 5 include Michael Kolawole’s review of Bolanle Austen-Peter’s Funmilayo Ransome Kuti biopic. Another review of a BAP production is in 3rd place, with Precious Nzeakor’s review of House of Gaa followed by Toni Kan’s review of Kola Tubosun’s Wole Soyinka documentary focusing on the Nobel laureate’s Ebrohimie Road residence and Seyi Lasisi rounds it up with his scathing review of Oloture: The Journey
Top 5 Essays: Essays have interested readers since 1580, when French philosopher Michel de Montaigne introduced the essay form to the writing and reading world. When done well, essays can move men to action, define epochs, and even become Oscar winning films as in the case of The Hurt Locker which began life as an article in Playboy magazine.
This year in recognition of the power of the essay, we launched our Migration and the Writer series and from the enthusiastic response of thousands of our readers, it looks like we are on to a good thing.
Our top essays for the year 2024 came from the series and we are happy to announce that David Hymar’s essay – Dreams, Mistakes and Memories of my father – resonated with thousands of our readers putting it in first place.
A story of a writer’s memories of his late father at the intersection of personal choices and small tragedies, it is a painfully personal reflection of constant journeys both physical, psychical, geographical and imaginative.
“My father left me everything: his library, his Christian Women Mirror magazines, his face and the memory of his disappointment the first time I told him I wanted to be a writer. I remember the evening well. I was bent over the table in our sitting-room, scribbling stories in sixty leaves exercise books which I had bound together. Occasionally, one of my siblings, or my mother, would enter and take the lamp to go do something in the other rooms. I was sixteen or seventeen and was waiting to get admission into the university. I didn’t notice my father had entered and was standing beside me, peering into what I was writing.”
Other notable mentions include Temitayo Olofinlua’s tongue-in-cheek – Winter is the best time to japa! – It was incidentally the first in the series.
Next up is Uzor Maxim Uzoatu’s essay contextualising the issues around the planned movie adapataion of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.. Then there is Nkiacha Atemnkeng’s essay on his trip to Sylt Island in Germany which was also a part of the Mirgration and the Writer series. Finally, we have Toni Kan’s tribute to Uncle Tam and other recently departed ancestors in Four Deaths and no funeral .
Top 5 Sneak Peeks: A quick look at the books we teased before they were published will tell you that, maybe, just maybe, non-fiction is gaining more and more muscle as our favourite read.
But then you don’t expect less when you open up a new series with the delightfully amazing heavy hitter, Petinah Gappah whose In the Days of Miracle and Wonder proved, all pun intended, a wonderful hit with thousands of our readers.
Here is a sneak peak from our sneak peek: “I had read a story that month in school, in which a girl had said on approaching a house – ‘What a beautiful house!’ Those, I decided, were the words that I would say when I first saw our new house. In the end, I did not say them. By the time my parents finished unpacking and came to fetch us, it was late at night. It was also raining, so we were woken from sleeping in the car, dashed from the carport to the house in the rain, and straight to bed. Exploring had to wait until the next morning. We woke up in paradise.”
There you have it.
Lets do it all over again next year.
