Calgary-based producers Ejiro Onobrakpor and Nenritji Suwa
Calgary-based producers Ejiro Onobrakpor and Nenritji Suwa are bringing the acclaimed Due Parenting Podcast Live to the stage.
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Beyoncé, Blue Ivy Carter, and Olivier Rousteing at the 2026 Met Gala, wearing fashion in theme of "Costume Art". Photo: SWinxy / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
Composer and conductor Steve Hackman brings Beethoven X Beyoncé to Calgary, weaving Beyoncé’s music through Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony.
Kimberley Dooshima Jev talks with Hackman about “Halo,” Beyoncé’s musical intelligence, classical music’s boundaries and what happens when two musical worlds are allowed to meet.
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COVER STORY PREVIEW
Through 1783 and Matriarchs, Aquakultre is transforming family memory into a living archive while asking Black Nova Scotian communities to remember how deeply they belong to one another.
By Kimberley Dooshima Jev
Lance Sampson was standing in front of a video kiosk at the Africville Museum when a familiar name appeared on the screen. The woman speaking was his great-great-grandmother. Sampson had stumbled onto what he understands to be the only surviving recording of her voice.
His first instinct was reverence. His second was hip-hop.
“I immediately went into hip-hop mode,” he remembers. “Let me sample this right quick.”
That impulse sits at the centre of Sampson’s work as Aquakultre: find what remains, listen closely, then give it somewhere new to live.
Aquakultre covers the September 2026 issue of Afros in tha City. The complete story explores 1783, Matriarchs, the family histories behind the work and the moment Lance Sampson found his voice.
The full feature and photo story will be released with the September digital issue and limited print edition.
Join the Afros in tha City newsletter to be the first to know when both editions become available.
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Dance, public space, galleries and live performance become part of the same conversation when Springboard Performance asks what a cultural ecosystem can look like.
Through Fluid Fest and its wider programming, artistic director Nicole Mion is building connections between artists, audiences and ideas in Calgary while placing the city within national and international conversations about contemporary performance.
In How Springboard Is Building Calgary’s Cultural Ecosystem, Afros in tha City looks at the systems behind the art, the importance of circulation and the artists using movement, theatre, music and visual art to create new ways into performance.
The full feature and photo story will be released with the September digital issue and limited print edition.
Join the Afros in tha City newsletter to be the first to know when both editions become available.
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Writer, artist & curator francesca ekwuyasi
Sugar, indigo, family photographs and the Atlantic carry histories that are easy to overlook until someone asks us to look again.
At Dalhousie Art Gallery, curator francesca ekwuyasi brings together Stina Baudin, Adama Delphine Fawundu, Bushra Junaid and Christina Leslie for Burnt Sugar Blue, an exhibition examining colonialism, Black diasporic memory, family, spirituality and the histories embedded in everyday materials.
In What Sugar and Indigo Remember, Afros in tha City looks at how these artists turn materials and archives into something living, while Roger Mooking’s SoundBites continues the conversation from across the gallery.
The full feature and photo story will be released with the September digital issue and limited print edition.
Join the Afros in tha City newsletter to be the first to know when both editions become available.
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Roger Mooking: SoundBites is on view at Dalhousie Art Gallery in Halifax from September 11 to November 8, 2026. The exhibition brings together music, visual art, moving image and text across three movements: The Learning, The Living and The Leaving.
Roger Mooking is thinking beyond the algorithm.
With SoundBites, the Canadian multidisciplinary artist is responding to streaming culture, shrinking attention spans and the rise of AI by asking a different question: what happens when technology distributes the work, but does not define its value?
In conversation with Afros in tha City, Mooking talks about the state of the music industry, the value of slow creative practice and why the future of music may look a lot more like a campfire than a platform.
The full feature and photo story will be released with the September digital issue and limited print edition.
Join the Afros in tha City newsletter to be the first to know when both editions become available.
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Talent, ambition and strong ideas are not always enough when the people with the power to finance, develop and distribute them are somewhere else.
At the inaugural TIFF: The Market, Creatives Empowered brings Alberta creators Sandra Bueckert, Tobit Luyeye Lemba and Flordeliza Dayrit into conversations with producers, buyers, distributors and other industry decision-makers from around the world.
In Alberta Doesn’t Have a Talent Problem. It Has an Access Problem., Afros in tha City looks at what meaningful industry access can mean for creators working outside Canada’s largest production centres, and why visibility only matters if the conversation continues after the festival.
The full web exclusive is available now on Afros in tha City.
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BOW’T TRAIL Rétrospek – Prismatic Arts Featival - © Photo Credit @stoometzphoto
Prismatic Arts Festival has spent nearly two decades creating space for Indigenous, Black and racialized artists. For Executive and Artistic Director Raeesa Lalani, the conversation now goes beyond visibility to sustainability, power and what artists need to build lasting careers.
In our September 2026 issue, Afros in tha City looks at the festival’s history, its place in Canada’s arts ecosystem and the artists shaping Prismatic 2026, including Walter Borden, Tara Taylor, Bageshree Vaze, Tania El Khoury and Dee Hernandez.
The full feature and photo story will be released with the September digital issue and limited print edition.
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National Music Centre’s major exhibition celebrating the life, music and legacy of Canadian jazz icon Oscar Peterson has been extended into 2027. Photo: David Redfern
The National Music Centre’s Timeless: 100 Years of Oscar Peterson has been extended at Studio Bell through January 3, 2027. Originally opened in July 2025 to commemorate the centenary of Peterson’s birth, the exhibition brings together instruments, archival materials, awards, personal artifacts, interviews and multimedia installations to tell the story of one of Canada’s most important musicians.
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Photo Credit: William Ruben Helms for Afros in tha City | All Rights Reserved
With Leap Life and Songs My Mother Taught Me arriving eleven days apart, Saul Williams turns sound and page into one argument about art, memory and responsibility.
There is something almost unreasonable about the amount Saul Williams still expects from art. Nearly three decades into a career spanning poetry, music, theatre, film and literature, Williams has not arrived at the comfortable conclusion that art should simply entertain us. Within the span of eleven days this summer, he released two projects arguing that culture does much more than that.
His album Leap Life, released August 28 on Big Dada, moves through spoken word, hip-hop, jazz, ambient composition, African rhythmic traditions and improvisation.
On September 8, Haymarket Books published Songs My Mother Taught Me: Why the Artist Must Take Sides, a political memoir tracing the people and experiences that shaped Williams’ understanding of art as power.
The full feature and photo story will be released with the September digital issue and limited print edition.
Join the Afros in tha City newsletter to be the first to know when both editions become available.
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