Chimurenga Magazine is a pan African publication of culture, art and politics based in Cape Town. Founded and edited by Ntone Edjabe since 2002, it provides an innovative platform for free ideas and political reflection by Africans about Africa. Previous issues of Chimurenga include:
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Chimurenga 1 (Published – April 2002)
“Music Is The Weapon”
“…The struggle of black people inevitably appear in an intensely cultural form because the social formation in which their distinct political traditions are now manifest has constructed the arena of politics on ground overshadowed by centuries of metropolitan capitalist development, thereby denying them recognition as legitimate politics. Blacks conduct a class struggle in and through race. The BC of race and class cannot be empirically separated, the class character of black struggles is not a result of the fact that blacks are predominantly proletarian, thought this is true…”- (Frank Talk Staff Writers in ‘Azania Salutes Tosh’ – circa 1981)
Njabulo Ndebele on Brenda Fassie, Ntone Edjabe on Fela Kuti, Julian Jonker on Sun Ra, DJ Spooky on Coltrane, Henri Kala Lobe on MC Solaar, Gael Reagon on Moses Molelekwa, and many others.
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Chimurenga 2 (Published – June 2002)
“Dis-Covering Home (run nigga run)”
Home, lost and found. Takes by Mahmood Mamdani, Julian Jonker, Henk Rossouw, Binyavanga Wainaina, Gaston Zossou, Haile Gerima, Ashraf Jamal, Noa Jasmine, George Hallet, Jorge Matine, Goddy Leye, Nadia Davids, Zwelethu Mthetwa, Dominique Malaquais, Louis Moholo and many others.
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Chimurenga 3:
“Biko in Parliament” (Published – November 2002)
“Mandela was not the only head of state taken in by Koagne. Le king kept snapshots of himself with many a man of power, among them Mobutu Sese Seko and Denis Sassou Nguesso […] He took Mobutu for 15 million dollars. Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso lost 40 million to him. Sassou, Etienne Eyadéma of Togo, several high officials of Gabon, Tanzania and Kenya, a member of the Spanish government and an ex-operative of the Israeli Mossad were bamboozled as well.” – Dominique Malaquais (Blood Money: A Douala Chronicle).
Takes by Keoraptsi Kgotsisile, Gail Smith, Santu Mofokeng, Lebogang Mashile, Lesego Rampolokeng, Neo Muyanga, Tope Omoniyi, Boris Boubacar Diop, Don Mattera, Binyavanga Wainaina, Mark Anthony Neal and many others.
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Chimurenga 4:
“Black Gays & Mugabes” (Published – May 2003)
On desire and its discontents. Featuring a new adaptation of Yambo Ouologuem erotica, and new works by Kopano Ratele, Kalamu ya Salaam, Gael Reagon, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Zackie Achmat, Toure, Muthoni Garland, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Kgafela oa Magogodi, Mukoma wa Ngugi and others.
Chimurenga 5:
“Head/Body(&Tools)/Corpses” (Published – April 2004)
An issue inspired by the life and work of Bessie Head. Including previously unpublished works by Head, and featuring new writing and art by Jean Claude Fignole, Charles Mudede, Greg Tate, Olu Oguibe, Chimamanda Adichie, Sandile Dikeni, Khulile Nxumalo, Tanure Ojaide, Pumla Dineo Gqola, Muthoni Garland, Pravasan Pillay and others.
Chimurenga 6:
“Orphans of Fanon” (Published – October 2004)
A series of conversations, real and imagined, on the “pitfalls of national consciousness” by Mustapha Benfodil, Achille Mbembe, Charles Mudede, Fong Kong Bantu Soundsystem, Robert Fraser, Branwen Okpako, Leila Sebbar, Binyavanga Wainaina, Laurie Gunst, Olu Oguibe and many others
Chimurenga 7:
“Kaapstad! (and Jozi, the night Moses died)” (Published – July 2005)
A collection of musings – in words, images and sounds – from beneath the processed skin of Cape Town, by Gabeba Baderoon, Sandile Dikeni, Julian Jonker, Jeremy Cronin, Suren Pillay, Rustum Kozain, Judy Kibinge, Abdulkadir Said, Zoe Wicomb, Desiree Lewis and many others.
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Chimurenga 8 (Published – December 2005)
“We’re All Nigerian!”
An exploration of a love-hate, admiration-envy, awe-disappointment relationship with “Nigerianess”; Features the “last interview” with Fela Anikulapo Kuti, and new writing and art by Olu Oguibe, Chimamanda Adichie, Akin Adesokan, Achal Prabhala, Sefi Atta, Odia Ofeimun, Ishtiyaq Shukri, Ike Okonta, and many others.
Chimurenga 9 (Published – June 2006)
“Conversations in Luanda, and Other Graphic Stories…”
For this one we trawled the globe for ink artists/wordists to give us their perspectives on love, life and the multiverse. An issue of Chimurenga comics with a thematic coherence in its insistence on art as interrogator and creator. Including a rephrasing of Jean-Michel Basquiat, and new works by Yvan Alagbe, Jose Eduardo Agualusa, Nikhil Singh, Karen Boswall , Ho Che Anderson, Danijel Zezelj, Nicolene Louw, Orijit Sen , Lance Tooks, Sandra Brewster and many others.
Chimurenga 10 (Published – December 2006)
“Futbol, Politricks and Ostentatious Cripples”
We scope the stadia, markets, ngandas and banlieues to spotlight narratives of love, hate and the wide and deep spectrum of emotions and affiliations that the game of football generates. Featuring words by Graciela Daleo, Adriano Sousa, Molara Wood, Binyavanga Wainana, Knox Robinson, Simon Kuper, Peter James Hudson, Patrice Nganang, Peter Alegi, Lindiwe Nkutha, Julia Napier, Grant Farred, Lilian Thuram, Achille Mbembe, Dominique Malaquais, Philippe Parreno, Cyril Neyrat, Gustavo Esteva, Olu Oguibe, and art and photographs by Buyaphi Mdledle, Gerd Rohling, Andrew Dosunmu, Philippe Niorthe, Kwesi Owusu-Ankomah, Kate Simon, Nicola Schwartz, Joel-Peter Witkin, Joseph Francis Sumegne, Cuban Ministry of Information
Chimurenga 11 (Published – July 2007)
“Conversations with Poets Who Refuse to Speak”
Features a heady mix of words and images that give voice to silence. So much has been said about speech: speaking up, speaking for oneself, not being allowed to speak, speaking for the other who’d rather speak for self, but very little is said about the virtue of silence. So much said about making oneself visible, but little said about mining the rich depths of absence. This issue is about silence, disappearing oneself as act. Though it’s often one of abdication, could it be defiance, resistance even? – a challenging idea, in a culture where struggle about seeking exposure, giving voice, making visible and all that stuff…
Webvert – by Stacy Hardy and François Naudé.
Chimurenga 12/13 (Published – March 2008)
“Dr Satan’s Echo Chamber”
#12 : An all-faxion issue on black technologies no longer secret.
Featuring words and images by Allan “Botsotso” Kolsky, Koffi Kwahule, Joao Barreiros, Olufemi Terry, Doreen Baigaina, Stacy Hardy, Akin Adesokan, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, JG Ballard, Emmanuel Dongala, Blank du Blanc, Jean Malaquais, Liesl Jobson, Peter Kalu, Dominique Malaquais, Basim Magdy, Jean Lamore, Femi ‘Rage’ Dawkins, James Sey, Minette Vari, Teju Cole and Rana Dasgupta.
#13 : Documenting the (un)making of: Dr. Satan’s Echo Chamber
(Louis Chude-Sokei; Victor Gama); Mannenberg (John Edwin Mason; Abdullah Ibrahim); The Last Angel of History (John Akomfrah and Edward George and BAFC); Les Saignates (Jean-Pierre Bekolo Obama); Les Saignantes 2 (Lionel Manga), SAPE (Baudouin Mouanda); a painting (Pume Bylex); Julumbu (Abu Bakarr Mansaray); Palestinian Walls (Eyal Weizman); Beaubourg (Luca Frei) and Slackers like Nkrumah and Sartre (Shirana Shahbazi, Tirdad Zolghadr and Faouzi Rouissi).
OUT OF PRINT
Chimurenga 14 (Published – April 2009)
“Everyone Has Their Indian”
This issue features words and images on the Third World project and links, real and imagined, between Africa and South Asia. Contributors include Vivek Narayanan, Manu Herbstein, Achal Prabhala, Amitav Ghosh Mahmood Mamdani, M. Neelika Jayawardane, Martin Kimani, Shailja Patel, Rustum Kozain, Akin Adesokan , Girija Tropp, Neo Muyanga, Binyavanga Wainaina, Pravasan Pillay , Andile Mngxitama , Naeem Mohaiemen , Tsuba Ka 23, Aleksandra Mir, The Speculative Archive and many more.
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Chimurenga 15 (Published – May 2010)
“The Curriculum Is Everything”
Presented in the form of a textbook, Chimurenga 15 simultaneously mimics the structure while gutting it. All entries are regrouped under subjects such as body parts, language, grace, worship and news (from the other side), numbers, parents, police and many more. Through a classification system that is both linear and thematic, the textbook offers multiple entry points into a curriculum that focuses on the un-teachable and values un-learning as much as it’s opposite. Contributors include Amiri Baraka, Coco Fusco, Karen Press, Steve Coleman, Dambudzo Marechera Binyavanga Wainaina, Akin Adesokan, Isoje Chou, Sean O’Toole, Pradip Krishen, E. C. Osundu, Salim Washington, Sefi Atta, Ed Pavlic, Neo Muyanga, Henri-Michel Yere, Medu Arts Ensemble, Aryan Kaganof, Khulile Nxumalo and Walter Mosley amongst others.
Chimurenga 16 (Published – October 2011)
“The Chimurenga Chronicle”
A once-off edition of a speculative, future-forward newspaper that travels back in time to re-imagine the present. The print edition includes a 128-page multi-section broadsheet, packaged with 40 page Chronic Life Magazine and the 96 page Chronic Book Review Magazine.
An intervention into the newspaper as a vehicle of knowledge production and dissemination, it seeks to provide an alternative to mainstream representations of history, on the one hand filling the gap in the historical coverage of this event, whilst at the same time reopening it. The objective is not to revisit the past to bring about closure, but rather to provoke and challenge our perception
Featuring contributions from Mike Abrahams, Olumide Abimbola, Toyin Akinosho, Paula Akugizibwe, Sello Alcock, Max Annas, Gabriela Carrilho Aragao, Ayi Kwei Armah, Sophia Azeb, Robert Berold, Marlon Bishop, Louis Chude-Sokei, Jean Comaroff, John L. Comaroff, Imraan Coovadia, Goran Dahlberg, Kwame Dawes, Jacob Dlamini, Manu Herbstein, Sean Jacobs, Neelika Jayawardene, Billy Kahora, Parsalelo Kantai, Bill Kouèlany, Jackie Lebo, Miles Marshall Lewis, Percy Mabandu, Munyaradzi Makoni, Dominique Malaquais, Lionel Manga, and many more