Marissa Moorman (Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, African Cultural Studies) on Angolan social history and media studies. We discuss the evolving trajectory of her scholarship, research in southern Africa and Portugal, and her latest book, Powerful Frequencies: Radio, State Power, and the Cold War in Angola, 1931–2002. The interview features a musical interlude (courtesy of Paulo Flores). It closes with insights on Moorman’s public-facing work with Africa Is A Country and provides a sneak peak into her current book project.

Historian Jessica Marie Johnson (Johns Hopkins Univ.) digs into her award-winning new book, Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World. The conversation brings out how Black women in Senegambia, the Caribbean, and Louisiana devised ways to gain control over parts of their lives and defined freedom for themselves in the age of slavery and the slave trade. The interview closes with Dr. Johnson’s thoughts on LifexCode: Digital Humanities Against Enclosure, which she directs, and on the critical role of ethical collaborative scholarship in academic endeavors.

Dr. Gerard Akindes discusses his experience playing and coaching basketball in West Africa and Europe, and the new Basketball Africa League. He considers the role of “electronic colonialism” in the sport media landscape and then reflects on his work advancing African scholarship through research publications and through Sports Africa, a coordinate organization of the U.S. African Studies Association that he co-founded in 2004.

Dr. Chambi Chachage (Princeton) discusses his intellectual journey from Dar es Salaam to Cape Town, Edinburgh, and Cambridge, Mass., his book manuscript on the history of Black entrepreneurs in Dar, and the changing role of digital humanities in the field of African studies. The interview concludes with Chachage’s insights on the controversial recent elections in Tanzania.

Cherif Keita (French and Francophone Studies, Carleton College) reflects on his life as a scholar from Mali and on his documentary films about John Langalibalele Dube and Nokutela Dube, founding figures of the African National Congress of South Africa. The interview closes with a discussion of musician Salif Keita’s journey from social outcast (as an albino) in Mande society to icon of world music.

Kim Yi Dionne (Political Science, UC Riverside) on her recent book, Doomed Interventions: The Failure of Global Responses to AIDS in Africa; the controversial May 2019 elections in Malawi, where she served as an observer; and hosting the Ufahamu Africa podcast and co-editing the Monkey Cage politics blog at the Washington Post.

Follow her on Twitter at @dadakim.

Didier Gondola (IUPUI, History and Africana Studies) on his book, Tropical Cowboys: Westerns, Violence, and Masculinity in Kinshasa. He reflects on how Hollywood Westerns shaped a performative young urban masculinity expressed through nicknames and slang, cannabis consumption, gender violence, fashion, and sport. Gondola also offers insights on Jean Depara's photography, the recent Democratic Republic of the Congo elections, and his forthcoming biography of André Matswa Grenard, an iconoclastic Congolese activist who died in prison in 1942.

Alex Thurston (Miami University) discusses his recent book, Boko Haram: The History of an African Jihadist Movement. Taking local religious ideas and experiences seriously, Thurston sheds light on northeastern Nigeria and the main leaders of Boko Haram; relationships with the Islamic State; the conflict's spread to Niger, Chad, and Cameroon; and US foreign policy in the region. The interview ends by considering the effect of President Buhari's recent reelection on Boko Haram's future.

Msia Kibona Clark (African Studies, Howard University) on her new book, Hip-Hop in Africa: Prophets of the City and Dustyfoot Philosophers. Clark describes how her personal passion became academic expertise. She highlights African women emcees and the role of local languages and Pan-African elements in the music. In the final part of the interview, Clark reflects on her Hip-Hop African podcast and blog and how these digital projects fit into her scholarly work.