Memory and Magic: A year of reading Black books

I spent this year reading and analyzing books and texts created by Black creators. When talking and thinking about books, I find it most useful to try and escape line by line analysis, and book by book review. I categorize books into classes. I define a class of book by style and time period.

As I am reviewing these authors from diverse genres, background and world views, two themes reoccur—Memory and Magic. Authors are beginning to more intentionally connect the dots between the African continent and its Diasporas. They are inviting each other to meet each other, to share, and rebuild. 

Achebe vs. Adichie and Choosing to Live 

If there was ever a seamless passing of the proverbial baton, it is between Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie and Chinua Achebe. Both Igbo writers, clear thinkers, and honest brokers of truth. Achebe and his class were concerned with what life would be like for newly independent Nigerians and emancipated Black people; Adichie and her class choose simply to live. 

Adichie’s class is less interested in explaining or translating African Culture and belief systems to international audiences. They choose simply to exist. Existing comes with its skirmishes, both with one’s neighbours and foreigners alike. Stories in Americanah, and Coates’ Between the World and Me, read more like an affirmation, and less like an explanation of self. Americanah will be for my generation what Things Fall Apart was for hers.

Adichie, Akeke, Coates, Evaristo, and their class are telling stories where they are unbent, unbroken, and their characters live at the end.

Both Ifemeleu and Okonwo are shamed, forced to leave their communities; both return, but Okonkwo kills himself, and Ifemeleu chooses to live, despite living in contradiction to her native land. Adichie, Akeke, Coates, Evaristo, and their class are telling stories where they are unbent, unbroken, and their characters live at the end. 

Adeyemi, Coates, James, Jemisin, Okorafor—African Stories or Stories about Africa 

I don’t know if these writers will ever consider themselves in a similar breath aside from the fact they are Black and writers. Their books raise important questions about style, mastery, and genre. 

Most notably, Black Leopard, Red Wolf written by Marlon James reads like an oral translation of a story from a dishonest broker. You don’t know what part of the story is real, and which is a lie. There’s also something "uniquely African" about this Jamaican writer’s novel. It is not just in the deeply expansive world he builds, but also his mastery of this oral form. 

In comparison, the works of Adeyemi in Children of Blood and Bone feel fun and adventurous. Although her work borrows from Yoruba and West African Mythology, it feels African in world-building but does not feel African in technique or point of view.  

Both books are profoundly brilliant and have won their fair share of accolades, critical review, and acclaim. 

The takeaway for me here is that both books are equally important if not equally African. There are no central criteria for what constitutes Africanness. If anything, they offer us a more expansive view of what it means to be African. Writers from the Caribbean are fully embracing these identities and further building them. 

Please No More Prefixes and Suffixes. 

Writers are free to write what they like. But the names we give ourselves and our genres are a reflection of how we imagine ourselves in the world. 

I will call you whatever name you ask me to. But I will also advocate we revisit African genres and return the prefixes and suffixes to where they came from. Everything we do does not have to be prefixed with Afro and suffixed with ism and ist. If you are a juju writer, or a sci-fi writer, or a juju-sci-fi writer, be that. Especially when you are writing in a popular contemporary genre. 

Everything we do does not have to be prefixed with Afro and suffixed with ism and ist.

The issue is not with ontology, but with power. The genre African Fantasy for example suggests that somehow fantasy is not African. If the only thing African about it is an African-inspired world, why not just call it fantasy?

The same logic goes with afrojususim and africanfuturism. I have never met, or heard of a juju writer that is not African. It should be more appropriate to write about Euro/Anglo jujusim than it is to speak of Afro jujuism. Juju is an African literary genre. 

These words are important because they tell us who is at the centre, and who is in charge of their stories in the authors’ mind, if not in the real world. When we borrow or reference our indigenous African traditions, let us do it with respect and consistency. And when we participate in contemporary genres, we should endeavour to not just be a Black face in a white universe. But also create universes that feel most true to our lives.

Black Is King vs. Black Panther—Who is in Control of Our Stories? 

What both these movies tell us is for Black film, America is still the centre of cultural production. More so, it says that Disney is still the centre of the cultural output for important Black-centred storytelling. 

The domestic and international box office success and cultural impact of Black Panther are undeniable, and we expect to see another movie eventually. Beyoncé’s visual album Black Is King made its debut on Disney+ but did not create the impact we would have expected. Yahoo News reported its users dedicated 22% of their time watching Hamilton, compared to only 2.2% for Black Is King. And more viewers favoured watching Frozen 2 and The Muppets over Black Is King, attracting less than 4% of the total Disney+ users.

Whether you liked Black Is King or not is beside the point; it is still the most culturally relevant Black-centred movie since Black Panther. It also means that Disney is betting on Black Culture to bring in big dollars for them. And like most American things, DreamWorks will likely introduce their own take on Black Panther, and expect more Sony Digital, OSCAR-winning spinoffs.

Ultimately this means that as always Black Culture is not controlled by Black people. We do not own or control our content creation or distribution platforms, and constantly depend on American conglomerates to publish, bankroll, and distribute our cultural products to global audiences.

And despite the success of Black Panther, we have to wait another two years for another one, as we are slotted into schedules of producers looking to diversify their product offerings. And with the shaky performance of Black Is King, will we see another one? High budgets and too big to fail corporate cultures do not take the necessary risks to explore wider Black and African centred themes and develop local and international audiences.  

We are not Building from Nothing. 

Global Black movie culture is still African American culture. This is also true for international cinema culture as well despite China and India controlling more and more of box office sales each year. 

This reality is felt most astutely in Black movie markets. The closest second is the Nigerian home-video culture, cinema industry—Nollywood. Despite Nigeria’s independent movie industry, and vast storytelling traditions, Nollywood remains fun, colourful, and emotionally stunted. It has failed to centre the voices of those at the margin of society, and tell deep and rich stories driven by tradition, emotion, and stirring character development. 

Being dubbed a Netflix original or nominated for an OSCAR is perceived to be the crown jewel of many African producers and distributors reaffirming America as the centre of Anglophone cultural production. 

We are seeing the rise of Black-owned production companies like HART Beat Production, BRON Production, Outlier Society Productions, Chadwick Boseman’s Xception Content, Tyler Perry Studios, distributors like the OWN Network, and Nigeria’s Ebony Live. They are disrupting the cultural hegemony of legacy production companies.

We are also seeing said legacy companies take an interest in Black and African-centred stories. Nnedi Okafor’s Who Fears Death has been optioned by HBO, Lupita Nyongo is set to produce Americanah and Born a Crime , and Nigerian production companies like Genevieve Nnaji’s The Entertainment Network are slated to produce a new class of Nigerian movies. 

... we also need rich human stories that capture the fullness and richness of our history, tradition, and spirit.

Until the source of quality African-centred movies begins to decentralize, we will be told to wait our turn in Disney’s rosters and only be able to watch African American-centred stories. I think what I am trying to say is, all our production companies from the continent and all diasporas who have interest in Black and African Culture need to have a meeting, leverage economies of scale and tell better and more diverse stories. They also need to work with emerging talent and support independent film creation and distribution. 

We don’t always need a Black Panther; we also need rich human stories that capture the fullness and richness of our history, tradition, and spirit. 

You will meet yourself back where you began, but stronger. 

In all, I am optimistic because this next phase of storytelling does not belong to history, chance, or governments. It belongs to us. It is the people who drive culture and create meaning. We are animated by an ancestral force and a historical logic that brings us to each other. 

We are connecting through school clubs, growing up together, returning home, and spending time in each other’s homes. Africans and Blacks from around the world are building together, and this is being reflected through our stories. 

This connection feels timely, necessary, and deeply urgent. Our writers and creators are curating the blueprint that will lead us back to ourselves. They are writing with juju, building with what we have, and writing stories where we live at the end.