Black Orpheus

By Tádé Ìpàdéọlá Poets who are also scholars of poetry occupy a peculiar niche in the ineffable enterprise of memorable music and words. They are not rare birds in the West (or the Orient), but here in Africa, the sighting of one such personage is something to cherish. If granted the further pleasure of not […]

On re-visiting history 68-sh, 50-sh years later I Last month, when I said you would hear from me soon, I didn’t know it would be this difficult to keep to the commitment. I knew I would be doing lots of travels, but I didn’t know ‘lots of travels’ would mean stops in about 10 cities […]

We were thrilled by the response to our Black Orpheus Fellowship announcement late last year.  We got 59 applications, all of them fascinating and some quite ambitious. It took a while to read and assess all of them, but thanks to our five judges (editors, curators, academics) who read through the entries, rated them, and […]

On Re-Presenting History 68-sh, 50-sh years later I. Last year, November, I was in Lagos for the onboarding process for my research fellowship at Archivi.ng. This was coming after all the ‘Hello, we’d love to hear more about your project,’ ‘Tell us about yourself/your history of knowledge work production,’ and ‘You will hear from us’ […]

OlongoAfrica is offering long-term and short-term opportunities to support quality research and writing on the history, politics, and influence of the Black Orpheus journal and the Mbari Club generation. We are offering both in-person fellowships on the ground in Lagos Nigeria, as well as remote fellowships in Nigeria and elsewhere around the world involving independent […]

Between October 31 and November 4, 2024, we unveiled an exhibition at the Art X Lagos showcasing the original covers and content of Black Orpheus journals. The exhibition, managed by JCAA Lagos, introduced attendees to a one-year project at OlongoAfrica which aims to unearth the history and legacy of Black Orpheus as a pan-African journal […]