Ali is one of the greatest and most influential activist celebrities in the world. In an era where sports endorsements and lucrative sponsorships have silenced any measure of radicalism or integrity in the sports world, his career sets him apart.

Muhammad Ali had the courage to stand up in the face of racism, injustice, oppression and unfairness and refuse to back down come hell or high water.

Muhammad Ali lost his boxing title, and almost lost five years of his life to prison, for refusing to fight in the racist and imperialist war waged on Vietnam. If one truly admires Ali for speaking out against the war on Vietnam, then, by principle, one should vehemently oppose today’s imperialist wars of aggression.

Muhammad said he was pleased to come to Ghana - from an America where black people had to struggle for their ordinary human rights - to find back people running their whole country “beautifully”. Americans, he said, were being misinformed that Africans were eating each other and climbing up and down trees.

When Cassius Clay stood up in Miami, Florida, and said my name is Muhammad Ali, he was in fact the greatest boxer and African patriot. When he stood up in front of a federal courthouse in Houston, Texas, and said “my fight is right here with you,” that was the Ali of the people. That was the greatest. But he, too, had his contradictions.

His often weightless songs came in cascades and cemented his reputation while he avoided opening his mouth so as not to put his foot in it. The absence of substance was disguised and presented as something else but in order to get to it, you had to wade through an endless litter of frilly things and hesitant, incoherent silences and arrogant attitudes. This is indeed Prince’s most remarkable achievement.

The boxing champion won many battles in and outside the ring during the 1960s and 1970s. Ali’s life illustrates the role of African Americans in sports and its relationship to the broader struggle against national oppression.

The new book by Chido Onumah is a collection of essays published by the author in various publications, including Pambazuka News, in the last three years focusing on the crisis of nationhood in Nigeria.

Could a museum with all the precious stolen artefacts of others and the support of the French government fail? Such celebrations are the self-congratulatory affirmations of the seemingly impregnable position certain Western cultural institutions have assumed as a result of relentless colonial exploitation and oppression of African and Asian peoples. Or how could one explain that institutions holding admittedly looted artefacts are not bothered about the illegality of their acquisitions?

The playwright explores issues that plague Kenya today and he does that with a compassionate eye and a ruthless tongue.

Politically conscious Black artists have always gone beyond the pursuit of fame and fortune to align themselves with the struggles of their people for liberation from imperialism. Renowned Congolese guitarist, composer and singer, Nicolas Kasanda wa Mikalayi, popularly known as Doctor Nico, was a keen supporter of D.R. Congo’s first democratically elected leader and eminent African statesman Patrice Lumumba.

As a wealthy white westerner with power and aess to resources, Brennan philanthropic mission to help Malawian prisoner-musicians feels too close to the archetype of the great white savior who is also selling the story of ‘poor Africa’.

As a musician, Mama Africa enthralled millions from Cape Town to Nova Scotia. As a woman, her struggles to find love and selfhood speak to women worldwide. As an indigenous South African, she always used her voice as a weapon in the struggle against apartheid.

A chance meeting in a hotel and a missed opportunity… How one journalist, with nothing to talk about, had his love of music transformed by a guitar riff and a drum beat. Cameron Duodu shares his memories from four decades ago.

Beyonce and her dancers recently performed in pseudo-Panther gear, pretending that resistance to the state is a matter of fashionability. No. Real opposition to white supremacy is not cool, or sexy. Being a black revolutionary means the possibility of death. It is facing the naked power of the national security state.

This polemic longread takes a critical look at the differences in the discourse about Africa and about Europe. Comparing Africa and Europe 130 years ago and today, the book contains a passionate plea for greater respect for the different African cultures and languages and contends that a lack of such respect is one of the main factors impeding Africa's development today.

The book offers first-hand testimony to social, political, literary, educational, and internationalist aspects of the World War I-era “New Negro” movement and to Harrison’s role in its development. The need for new interest in the life and work of Harrison is even more pronounced today among the many people challenging injustice and seeking a better world.

This is the year of ‘A Man of the People. 2016 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Chinua Achebe’s fourth novel, the gripping satire.

The new book is a genuine and significant contribution to the understanding of one of the worst tragedies of this century, an indispensable resource for anyone who wants to know what the human costs of regional poverty and underdevelopment are today, and a much-needed voice for the actual victims of the tragedy.