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A scene from In the Heat of the Night (1967), in which Sidney Poitier (pictured here with Rod Steiger and Jester Hairston) is about to return the slap of Larry Gates, who plays plantation owner Mr Endicott. Image: United Artists/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis/Getty Images
ANDY GARCIA
Video

Sidney Poitier: Stone cold when ‘cool’ was not even a factor

Pioneer actor and activist Sidney Poitier, who died at age 94, alchemised the Black condition into a dignified on-screen presence in the 20th century. Bongani Madondo wrestles…

  • Bongani Madondo
11 min read
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom stars Viola Davis as “Ma”. (Netflix)
ADAPTATION

Ma Rainey robbed of complexity on a ‘Negro’ path leading nowhere

The life of blues pioneer Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey and her song Black Bottom have been turned into a film. Bongani Madondo laments its anticlimax

  • Bongani Madondo
14 min read
Akwasi Frimpong of Ghana practices during Men’s Skeleton training ahead of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic Games at the Olympic Sliding Centre on February 7, 2018 in Pyeongchang-gun, South Korea. (Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)
2018 WINTER OLYMPICS

How Chadwick Boseman inspired Africa’s first black skeleton racer

Inspired by Chadwick Boseman’s portrayal of King T’Challa in ‘Black Panther’, Akwasi Frimpong set out to make his look, and impact, rich, black and cross-cultural

  • Tolu Olasoji, The Continent
4 min read