https://africanimaginary.substack.com/ The African Imaginary is a platform of contemporary culture spotlighting creativity born and raised on the continent. This is the home of our podcast. The African Imaginary Podcast seeks to discover, through conversations with Africa’s top creators, how being born and raised on African soil affects our imagination and creativity. Show host Khangi Khoza engages deeply with writers, musicians, artists, business builders and others, and in so doing helps listeners connect with their own imaginations. The African Imaginary Podcast reminds us that we are part of a common humanity which began and thrives on this continent. Arts en Mon, 26 Jan 2026 07:44:13 +0200 Wed, 25 Feb 2026 11:00:00 +0200 30 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss iono.fm 2.5.2.0 The African Imaginary no Monthly feeds@iono.fm (Feed Manager) https://cdn.iono.fm/files/p4298/logo_4298_20260129_130529_1400.jpeg https://africanimaginary.substack.com/ The African Imaginary is a platform of contemporary culture spotlighting creativity born and raised on the continent. The African Imaginary episodic The African Imaginary info@africanimaginary.com false ZA https://iono.qa/e/1649532 https://iono.qa/e/1649532 Msaki is an award-winning South African singer-songwriter. Her voice is one of the most distinctive in the business, delighting club kids in Kenya, folk festival-goers across the USA, and her huge fan-base in Mzansi.
Msaki trained in fine art, graphic design, film photography and curation at Rhodes University, Leeds University, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and East London Technikon.
She is a South African Music Award (SAMA) winning musician, who contributed to Black Coffee’s Grammy Award winning album as writer, composer and artist. She has also collaborated with Sun-EL Musician, Carlo Mombelli, Nduduzo Makhathini, Simmy and Ami Faku, Kabza De Small, Diplo, Ry X others. As a writer and facilitator, she is sought after for writing camps around the world.
At the core of her practice is a commitment to catching and preserving ‘the soul of the song’ as it travels through the music value chain. In this way she shines a light for other independent artists across the continent, including those whose careers she supports through her collective ALTBLK.
Msaki’s practice now merges installation and performance. Her visionary archetype extends to how she parents her 3 kids. She’s a ‘free range mom’ who co-creates their education and play . “Kids are incredible…I don’t know how to explain the things that I’ve seen,” she tells The African Imaginary.
We are thrilled to have her take her rightful place in the African imaginary, which she sees as ‘a circular, communal intelligence’.

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:54 Msaki plays 'Keep or Toss'
5:13 The meaning of Msaki's name
9:36 Msaki on her stage name
10:58 On family and childhood
14:30 Lessons from her childhood
16:36 Upbringing shaping her personal African imaginary
18:06 First enemy
23:16 Adversaries in the music world
24:22 Your enemies become your prophets
25:32 Discovering her musical talent
29:35 Jack of all trades, master of...
30:38 African and diasporic icons
36:11 Creative process
41:03 Hollywood songwriting camps
43:26 What does the African imaginary mean?
45:55 ALTBLK and Msaki's role in the collective
50:49 On collaboration and ownership
55:14 Msaki's many collaborations
1:01:28 Talent vs. hard work
1:02:10 Africa is being mined for talent
1:03:03 Building ethical and sustainable structures for artists
1:08:02 Reflections on gender and relationships in her work
1:12:04 On self-love
1:13:11 Spiritual practice
1:17:06 What legacy would Msaki like to leave behind?
1:22:13 What conversations should African creators be having?
1:24:39 On parenting
1:26:59 Outro

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Produced by Georgia Black
Hosted by Khangi Khoza

Filmed and Edited by Rooibos Films
Online Editor / Title Design: Chadlee Skrikker

Sound & Music Editor: Michael Wilson-Trollip
Final Mix Engineer: Michael Wilson-Trollip

Theme Music: Jam Now, Simmer Down by Blinky Bill feat. Ossie The African Imaginary on Substack]]> Arts Wed, 25 Feb 2026 11:00:00 +0200 0 0 Episode 2: Msaki | The African Imaginary Podcast 0 0 The African Imaginary full 1:27:35 The African Imaginary Podcast https://iono.qa/e/1639328?v=2 https://iono.qa/e/1639328?v=2
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Tsitsi Dangarembga is one of Africa’s key literary voices. She has been writing for four decades and is best known for her trilogy of novels set in her home country, Zimbabwe. Nervous Conditions was the first novel by a black Zimbabwean woman to be published in English, and was praised by the late Chinua Achebe for being ‘as natural as the grass grows’.

In 2020, Dangarembga’s novel This Mournable Body was shortlisted for the Booker Prize – something she has described as ‘absolutely immense’ and life-changing. Two years later she was named by The Financial Times as one of the 20 most influential women in the world after she was arrested in Harare for inciting public violence. Her crime was walking with a placard that read ‘We Want Better. Reform Our Institutions’.

Among Dangarembga’s other awards are the English PEN Pinter Prize, the German Peace Prize, Yale University’s Windham Campbell Prize and the PEN Catalan Free Voice Award. She is a former fellow of the Rockefeller Bellagio Centre, the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study and the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, and she was the International Chair in Creative Writing (Africa) at the University of East Anglia, and is an honorary fellow of her alma mater, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.

She says that the subject of the African imaginary has ‘been on [her] mind, waking and sleeping, for the last 30 years’, because she believes that ‘no significant human advancement has ever taken place without tapping human creative potential’. ]]> Arts Sat, 31 Jan 2026 22:00:00 +0200 0 0 Episode 1: Tsitsi Dangarembga | The African Imaginary Podcast 0 0 The African Imaginary full 55:53 The African Imaginary Podcast