Africa

1. Breaking records
2. Bright Stars
3. Me, I like Nairobi
4. Coming back home
5. Anguka Nayo

Also, a podcast to help understand the roots of Sudan’s crisis.

Hello! Welcome to Semafor Africa. We often think about perception versus reality in covering Africa. There’s a long-running debate that suggests international media has an undue influence in how Africa is regarded or understood. It posits that a rather narrow diet of stories about the challenges in individual countries has shaped not only how the rest of the world sees Africa, but in fact how the continent sees itself — even how Africans see other African countries.

I recently met an Eritrean diplomat who talked about what so-called positive stories are written about the fairly insular country. “Asmara’s Italian architecture and cycling,” I said. They agreed but said there was a lot more to talk about, from the cuisine to business development.

Today we acknowledge an exceptional Eritrean cyclist but also an exceptional South Sudanese basketball team which came within eight seconds, last night, of defeating the USA in a friendly match. Akol Nyok Akol Dok, who writes of the Bright Stars team from Juba, says locals were extremely proud at home on how well the players did. They’ll meet the USA again this month in Paris at the Olympics, and will no doubt again play a small role in helping to reset how the world sees South Sudan.

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Go Biniam, go!

The distance between Piacenza and Turin in Italy, the third stage of this year’s Tour de France which was won by Eritrea’s Biniam Girmay earlier this month. It was the first time a Tour de France stage had been won by a Black African. Girmay, 24, who represents Belgium’s Intermarché-Wanty team, grew up in Asmara, Eritrea’s capital, watching the Tour de France on television. Cycling is Eritrea’s national sport and hosts a variety of local competitions at home. He hopes his achievements will inspire others. “It’s really good for the impact, a good vision for young talent,” he told Eurosport. This, he said, could help to spur greater investment in African cycling, which would make the sport “more global.”

Bright Stars give renewed hope

JUBA, South Sudan — When South Sudan’s national basketball team, nicknamed the Bright Stars, qualified for this year’s Paris Olympics, it instilled renewed hope and confidence in the people of Africa’s youngest country.

The top ranked basketball team in Africa and 12th in the world, the Bright Stars are making their Olympics debut for a country that has been plagued with civil strife and conflict for large parts of its 13 years as an independent country.

Even though the most popular sport in South Sudan is football, South Sudanese from the global diaspora and across Africa have long buoyed the national basketball team with players from as far afield as Australia, France and Senegal among others. Over the years there have been several standout professional players of South Sudanese origin in the top leagues including former two-time NBA all-star Luol Deng, who now runs the country’s basketball federation and is widely credited with the success of the Bright Stars.

This team includes Wenyen Gabriel, who played in the NBA and now plays in Israel, and Numi Omot who plays in the China Basketball Association.

After the Bright Stars defeated Great Britain earlier this week, Luol spoke of the emotions of leading the team against the country that gave him a home as a refugee and who he represented in the London Olympics in 2012: “I came back to my home country to teach what I’ve learned and now we’re back full circle, playing Great Britain while preparing for the Olympics,” he told Hoops Fix.

It is hoped the success of the national team has inspired a new culture of basketball in South Sudan and a new generation of basketball players. Basketball courts are being built across the country and young people aspire to play for the Bright Stars and continue its legacy.

Latitude’s $25 million bet on Nairobi

Latitude Hotel Group, which owns luxury boutique locations in Malawi, Zambia, and Uganda, is looking to raise up to $25 million for its expansion into Kenya. The plans have come to light after the group announced the founder of Nairobi-based Afrika House, Peter Holmes à Court, is joining the group as its new deputy chairman.

Holmes à Court told Semafor Africa that the year-old Afrika House (pictured) would remain a separate corporate entity but over time would work closer with Latitude. He said that, given the tough competition in Nairobi, the strategy would be to tap into a “work/stay/play” approach “that attracts the African business traveler [and] the discerning international visitor who seeks a genuine connection to the city and locals.”

Unlike the typical uniformity of traditional hotel chains, Latitude will lean into the culture of each city by emphasizing local food, art, and design, he explained.

“Nairobi is one of the toughest markets in Africa for hotels, so we aren’t taking this lightly,” said Holmes à Court, who also emphasized a push in his new role to raise African capital. The Nairobi hotel is expected to directly employ up to 300 people, and the group already has its sights on other potential locations across East and southern Africa, including Addis Ababa, Kigali, Dodoma, and Luanda.

— Yinka

US museum returns Benin kingdom artworks

The Stanley Museum of Art at the University of Iowa returned two stolen ancient Benin kingdom artworks to Oba Ewuare II, Benin’s traditional ruler (pictured), at a ceremony in his palace in southern Nigeria on July 15. The artworks were stolen by British soldiers who raided Benin City during an invasion in 1897.

Lauren Lessing, director of the museum, said the return process involved five years of study to establish the artworks’ origin and ownership, and contact the traditional ruler. “The exact timing of their return was the Oba’s decision,” Lessing told Semafor Africa in an email. “He graciously extended an invitation to the Stanley’s curators to come to the palace and return the objects.”

The museum hopes that the “profound” significance of the artworks’ return will prod other institutions to follow suit. “We are eager to help them in any way that we can,” Lessing said.

The majority of African artifacts in museums are held outside Africa, with more than half a million in European institutions alone. Over 4,000 objects were taken by those British soldiers, the most notable of which are known as Benin Bronzes. The bronzes have been at the forefront of campaigns calling for the restitution of African artifacts. There have been louder and more consistent calls from African governments, academics, and historians, among others pushing for the return of African artifacts that were taken over the past few centuries.

In May, two British museums returned looted artifacts to the Asante king in Ghana as part of a three-year loan agreement between Ghanaian authorities and the British.

— Alexander Onukwue in Lagos

The soundtrack (and TikTok dance) of Kenya’s protests

Anguka Nayo, the catchy song with its own dance by Kenyan group Wadagliz, is not just one of the biggest hits in the country at the moment. It has also become an unlikely soundtrack to the youth-led protests rocking the nation. It has also been co-opted as a protest slogan. ‘Anguka nayo’ is Kiswahili for ‘fall with it’ — and protesters now use it to reference their demands including the resignation of President William Ruto and the dissolution of Parliament.

And just like the youth-led revolt played out on social media apps including TikTok and X before going to the streets, the explosion of Anguka Nayo has been fueled by a corresponding dance challenge on TikTok. More than 197,000 videos using the song have been posted on TikTok, with the dance even finding its way beyond Kenya’s borders.

The artists behind the song, Wadagliz, are part of a new wave of Kenyan urban music known as Arbantone that has grown immensely popular in the country over the past year. The genre is defined by its heavy sampling of classic Dancehall and Kenyan Genge hits. Arbantone is especially popular among young Kenyans, many of whom have been out on the streets in recent weeks.

— Martin K. N. Siele in Nairobi

Weekend Reads

🇳🇬 Nigeria’s ruling party is reaping the whirlwind of previous aggressive campaigns against the removal of fuel subsidies, as its eventual removal of the subsidy sparks a cost of living crisis. Doyin Olagunju, writing in The Republic, reviews the All Progressives Congress party’s manipulation of subsidy as “campaign rhetoric” and how it must ultimately resolve Nigeria’s core energy issues by activating local refining.

🇨🇩 A Belgian museum founded in the late 19th century is reckoning with the history of brutality associated with artifacts in its possession. More than 40,000 objects displayed in AfricaMuseum in Brussels were taken from DR Congo during the oppressive reign of King Leopold II, the Guardian’s Jennier Rankin reports. The museum’s director believes “it is inevitable” that some of those objects will be returned to the Congolese government.

🇿🇼 A private operation that lands an airplane full of US dollars every month in Zimbabwe underscores the high demand for the greenback, despite the government’s push to mainstream a new gold-backed local currency. The flights by Mukuru, a remittance company, are legal and carried out in the capital city’s airport, Bloomberg reports. But historic fears of hyperinflation, after failed attempts at currency stability, sustain a strong appetite for dollars.

🇬🇭 The African Review, a magazine published by Kwame Nkrumah’s government in 1960s Ghana, showed how crossword puzzles enhanced decolonization enlightenment in Africa. The puzzle’s pan-African construction, using words and acts associated with emerging African voices, created connections “with audience members across the world,” under the direction of key architect Maya Angelou, Alex White reviews in Africa Is A Country.

🇸🇩 NPR’s Throughline podcast goes back to 19th century Sudan to help explain what created the conditions for what locals have called The Creeping Coup. It has now left the northeast African country in the middle of a 15-month long deadly war. The nation is on the brink of the world’s largest hunger crisis and is already the world’s largest displacement crisis.
The show connects the battle between two stubborn generals to the US war on terror, Russia’s self-interest, and China’s global rise.

🇿🇦 Two South Africa-based scientists won a vote to amend the botanical names of over 200 plants to remove racist nomenclature. Taxonomists Gideon Smith and Estrela Figueiredo of Nelson Mandela University in Eastern Cape Province proposed to replace derivatives of species name “caffra” — from a slur “Kaffir” for Black people in southern Africa — to “afr” in a nod to Africa. A “tense secret” vote by botanists passed 351 to 205, Nature reports.

🇳🇬 What goes on behind the scenes of the Nigeria’s Afrobeats bustling industry? That’s what Le Monde digs into in a multi-part series of stories reported from Lagos by Marion Douet and Fabien Mollon. They speak with artists, music business insiders, and fans about how a sound that took root on the streets of Nigeria’s commercial capital has become a global phenomenon. [French]

Week Ahead

July 21- Aug. 5 —The annual International Youth Media Summit will take place in Stone Town, Zanzibar, Tanzania — its first time on the continent.

July 22-23 — The Africa Investment Risk and Compliance Summit will take place in Washington, DC. Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Wonie Bio will be among the speakers.

July 22-24 — The 2nd UN Tourism Regional Conference on Brand Africa will be held in Livingstone, Zambia.

July 23 — Ghana Finance Minister Mohammed Amin Adam is expected to present the West African nation’s mid-year budget to parliament.

July 24 — South Africa’s Vodacom is set to release first quarter results.

July 25 — Zimbabwe’s Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube will present his mid-term budget review amid a drought that has dampened economic prospects.

For Your Consideration

Aug. 4 — Young leaders, social innovators and changemakers from across the continent are invited to apply for the six-month African Social Innovation Fellowship.

Sept. 10 — African women from Benin, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and Senegal are invited to apply for the 2024 Accelerating African Women’s Leadership in Climate Action Fellowship.

• Senate Democrats share polling showing Biden dragging down candidates.
• Amber Rose pushes traditional Republican limits at the RNC.
• WSJ reporter sentenced to 16 years in prison by Russian court.

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— Yinka, Alexis Akwagyiram, Alexander Onukwue, Martin Siele, and Muchira Gachenge