{Art Terms}
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{Media Terms}
-film
-music [songs, instruments, & musicians]
-games
-videos
-literature [excerpts from books and poetry]
-manuscripts [images of historic writing, illustrated pages, and tools used in inscription/bookbinding]
{History Terms}
-history [+country] [you can search by decade back to the 19th C.]
-21st century [2000s]
-20th century [1900s]
-19th century [1800s]
-18th century [1700s]
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-antiquity [500bc-400ad] [6th C. BC - 5th C. AD]
-ancient [5000bc-600bc]
Ah yes, the world, Planet Earth,
Third from the sun of a gun,
360 Degrees and as new worlds emerge,
Stay alert, stay aware,
Watch the eagle, watch the bear.
Earthquaking, foundation-shaking,
Bias-breaking, new day-making,
Change.
I was wondering about our yesterdays,
And digging through the rubble,
And to say the least,
Somebody went to a hell of a lot of trouble,
To make sure that when we looked things up,
We wouldn't fare too well,
And we would come up with totally unreliable pictures of ourselves.
But I've compiled what few facts I could,
I mean such as they are,
To see if we could get a little bit of light,
This is what I got so far.
First, white folks discovered Africa and claimed it fair and square.
Cecil Rhodes couldn't have been robbing nobody,
'Cause hell, there wadn't nobody there.
White folks brought all the civilization, wadn't none around.
How could these folks be civilized,
When wadn't nobody writing nothing down?
And to prove all their suspicions, well, didn't have to wait too long.
They discovered there were whole tribes of people,
In plain sight! With no clothes on! That's right!
The women, the men, the young, and the old,
Righteous folks covered their eyes.
And no time was spent considering their environment,
Hell no, this just wadn't civilized.
Another way they knew the folks were backwards,
Or atleast this is how we were taught,
Is that, unlike the civilized people of Europe,
These tribal groups actually fought!
And yes, there were some rather crude implements,
And yes, there was primitive art.
And yes they were masters of hunting and fishing,
Courtesy came from the heart.
And yes there were medicines, love, and religion,
Intertribal communication by drum.
But no paper and pencils, and other utensils,
And these folks never even heard of a gun!
So this is why the colonies came to stabilize the land.
The dark continent had copper and gold,
And the discoverers had a plan.
They would discover all the places with promise,
And didn't need no leases or deeds.
Then they'd appoint people to make everything legal,
To sanction their trickery and greed.
And when the natives got restless deep in the jungle,
They would call it "Guerilla attack",
And never described that folks finally got wise
And decided that they would fight back.
Still we are victims of word games,
Semantics is always a bitch,
Places once called underdeveloped
Are now called "Mineral-rich".
And still we are constantly hounded with unity just beyond reach,
Egypt and Libya used to be in Africa,
They have been moved to the Middle East.
There are examples galore I assure you,
But if interpreting was left up to me,
I would swear every time, this version ain't mine,
That's why it's called "His story".
The World (Poem - Continued)
Earth shaking, foundation-quaking,
Bias breaking, new day-making,
Change
The World.
Sure 'nuff got to be some changes,
Got to make a stand, got to understand,
Every woman every man, are ya ready,
Got to make some changes.
(The world)
They say gets just a little bit smaller everyday,
(I wonder)
Brothers around the world can't you come out and play,
(The music)
Come blow your horn, come clap your hand, come play your drum,
(The people)
Need the music like the flower needs the sun.
There ain't no convenient time,
To be put squarely on the line,
But the people need us more,
Than the symbols we adore,
And we, we can change,
The world.
We can sure 'nuff change the world.
(The world)
Has changed it's rhythm to the throbbing of unrest,
(Division)
Divide and conquer undermines all our success,
(Music)
Reaches everyone, rejuvenates a soul,
(Together)
We feel the essence of the rhythm taking hold.
Music can completely expand,
How will we all understand,
We have so much more to gain,
Than the Tokehega train,
And we, we can change,
Sure 'nuff change the world.
Got to believe, change the world.
…
(The world)
They say gets just a little bit smaller everyday.
(I wonder)
Brothers around the world can't you come out and play,
(The music)
Come blow your horn, come clap your hand, come play your drum,
(The people)
Need the rhythm like the flower needs the sun.
There ain't no convenient time,
To be put squarely on the line,
And the people need us more,
Than the symbols we adore,
And we, got to believe,
That we can change the world,
We can sure 'nuff change the world.
We need peace, let that be the first change.
A little bit of peace, let that be the first change.
We need peace, yeah it ain't no secret.
We need peace in the world, don't you know,
I guess you do, it ain't no secret.
We need peace, everybody knows war had it's chances.
A little bit of peace, could you please,
Lord knows, might be the answer.
We need peace, from a hot autumn rain or winter ice.
We need peace, no matter what the price.
We need peace, don't you feel, in your heart, war had it's chances.
We need peace, don't we know that killing ain't the answer.
We change the world, got it in our hands, (x2)
Got to believe, we change the world, (x2)
We can change the world (x2)
Got to believe, we change the world, (x2)
While researching the history of countries in West Africa for my sideblog @scarlet-autumn, I found it helpful to seek out knowledge from far more informative sources and people that have put their efforts into research rather than to just organize everything on my blog with only the context that the website Tumblr itself gave me (which is to say no context). Here are the names and the links to some podcasts related to West African history that I found to be of a high quality:
{History of Africa} An amateur podcaster who puts a huge amount of in-depth research & proper citations to create entertaining & accurate retellings of African history (though he has no personal ties to the continent which factors into the perspective he provides). I recommend Season 3 of his podcast which covers the history of the Ashanti Empire in Ghana & West Africa. (I also recommend his miniseries on the Sokoto Caliphate in northern Nigeria.)
{Africa's Untold Stories} Two Ghanaian podcasters who hold casual discussions over topics of history & culture across the continent of Africa. They have countless episodes on West African history which I absolutely recommend.
{Black History Unveiled} A Swedish-Gambian podcaster & researcher who covers topics of Black history within the continent of Africa aswell as in the Diaspora, both modern & ancient.
{AfriWetu} A Kenyan podcaster who describes African continental history through immersive storytelling. She has many West-African centered episodes on states such as Oyo, Dahomey, Mali, Songhai, Ashanti, Ife, Benin, & Kanem-Bornu.
In my research for my sideblog @scarlet-autumn I have come across many particularities and unique aspects to the media on West Africa that has been reproduced or posted to Tumblr.
One of the main subjects of concern is that of old colonial photography, which has many controversial contexts and associations that are often forgotten or obscured in the sharing of them online, with these photos most often not being taken for the benefit of the subjects being photographed but rather for propaganda purposes for the imperial aggressor the photographer would often be associated with. I have, thankfully, found a documentary which discusses this topic in-full.
With so much meaning and context plucked out of these old media & pictures on West Africa, the modern media of West Africa should not be scrutinized any less, as one can learn through research that the forces still at play in exploiting much of the continent have never stopped holding the brushes with which they use to paint the region and it's people. (I thought it interesting when I began this endeavour that the streamer IShowSpeed was also just beginning his livestreamed tour of West Africa aswell, and the fact that the reality on the ground of those countries so surprised his international viewers speaks alot on just how much the region's image is manufactured and controlled in ways that often do it a disservice.)
One such glaring issue that often pops up when it comes to West Africa is the apparent fixation that Western media has on highlighting issues of poverty and war as opposed to ever highlighting any positive images or developments that the region has to show for. The people that live in those areas are thought of by ignorant Westerners as "embodying" that poor lifestyle (being forever-exploited) rather than it being a condition forced upon them that is subject to change. It's said to be a means for charities to generate more funds, but more often than not, from Americans I hear them instead express a kind of perverse selfish glee over the fact that atleast they aren't the ones living in those countries that are portrayed. It was the exact same condescension which has roots in the advent of photography at the turn of the 20th century, when industry was just starting up in Europe and all the citizens of the Imperial core would look at photos of Africans in the colonies without the industrial and technological comforts they themselves had and so they would feel a sense of assurance that all their development (fed by resources and labor from those exact same African colonies) made them better in some way. This is of course all a means to cope on their part with the decline in living standards and health that those in the Imperial Core would face as a result of those same technologies and exploitative company practices that they themselves had taken so much pride in, a state of affairs which has unfortunately through the course of neo-colonialism been forced on so many of these European countries' former-colonies (this neo-colonialism also being the root cause for so many of the depictions of these countries' "innate" poverty).
All my ranting aside (of which I'm sure smarter analyses could be found elsewhere), I have found it encouraging the amount of domestic professional & amateur photography aswell as history posts that have been produced within the wider region of West Africa (and not outside it) of which I am grateful for on a website that sorely needs to have those voices amplified, as the Tumblr website as it stands is often (in the spaces I've seen) so America-focused as to leave out so many other valued perspectives that DO exist and DO deserve recognition…
Back in December of 2025 on my sideblog @scarlet-autumn, after having meticulously combed through posts on Tumblr that were related to countries within the region of the Middle East and North Africa (A process which took over 5 months), I decided that the next region I would "visit" would be that of West Africa, owing to it's strong connections to the previous region I had covered aswell as it's strong connections to another topic I would like to cover after which is that of African-American history in the United States.
I had hoped to accomplish my reblogging of posts covering the entire region within a matter of one month in time for Black History Month in February, though I was quickly overwhelmed by just how much actual content and attention there was given to these countries on this website enough to the point that my task also stretched out over 5 months just like it had for the previous region.
But finally, after this long period of research and reblogging, I believe I can proudly present what I've collected in-full on all of these countries (The tags of which can be explored and searched by anyone's leisure on my sideblog linked here).
Traditional Kanuri Wedding culture. The Kanuri people (Kanouri, Kanowri, also Yerwa, Bare Bari and several subgroup names) are an African ethnic group living largely in the lands of the former Kanem and Bornu Empires in Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Libya and Cameroon. Most trace their origins to ruling lineages of the medieval Kanem-Bornu Empire, and its client states or provinces. In contrast to the neighboring Toubou or Zaghawa pastoralists, Kanuri groups have traditionally been sedentary, engaging in farming, fishing the Chad Basin, and engaged in trade and salt processing.
Kerere of Shani, a potter in Shani, north-eastern Nigeria, holding one of her ceremonial earthenware hand-built pots, 1986. Kerere was the wife of a former chief of the Shani and she made all the ceremonial pots for the community.
I have often felt frustration at the ways mainstream media covered and talked about Jama’atu Ahlis-Sunnah Lidda’awati Wal Jihad, popularly known as Boko Haram. I felt that mainstream media has failed to fully take into consideration its history, factors that promoted its creations, its aims, and what exactly it is. Often Boko Haram is painted or referred to as Nigeria’s Taliban or the Al-qaeda of Nigeria/Africa etc and its own specific socio-political origins are undermined or forgotten, also the mainstream western media especially does a good job of masquerading bullshit as journalism and reducing this horrid group that grew in the cracks of our political, religious, ethnic, economic, regional and historical short comings into just religious or regional issues through its myopic view of Africa.
Who Speaks for the North? Politics and Influence in Northern Nigeria by Leena Koni Hoffmann, does a really good job of explaining how Nigeria’s economical situation particularly the North’s economy has contributed to the rise of Boko Haram. Its also important to note that climate change, imperialism, and economic exploitation is also a big issue here too, which i believe this paper briefly touches on it.
Boko Haram: Islamism, politics, security and the state in Nigeria is a book that really goes into detail about the history of the group, the contributions of colonialism, government policies and agencies especially the security agencies to the rise of the group.It also goes into detail about its founder Mohammed Yusuf, It talks about splinter groups most popular of them Jama’at Ansar Al Muslimin Fi Bilad al-Sudan popularly known as Ansaru.
NIGERIA. Maiduguri. 2018. Internally displaced people pray near the wall in NYSC IDP camp where 16 thousand IDP took shelter after the conflict with Boko Haram forced them to leave their houses.
Customs House, a refugee camp outside of Maiduguri, Nigeria, populated by civilians fleeing the violence of Boko Haram. Photo @Glenna Gordon for the NY Times, from this article.
A few weeks ago, I was looking through some pictures on my computer when my 15 year old brother (who was sitting next to me as I was doing this) started laughing uncontrollably. He was laughing at a photograph of me which was taken about 10 years ago and given that he was just 5 at the time, I understand why he had to laugh (to be fair, I have “grown” a bit during that period). For me, I really couldn’t laugh. I couldn’t laugh because even though the time that I took it was memorable, it reminds me of chaos and tragedy.
The photograph in question was taken during my year of National Service (Nigeria has a mandatory Youth Service program for all of its graduates) and basically, the agency in charge-the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) collects the names of all university level graduates in the country and randomly posts them to different parts of the country. I had the good “fortune” of being posted to the North-eastern state of Yobe.
If you didn’t know this already, Yobe’s major cities of Damaturu and Potiskum, along with Maiduguri in the neighbouring state of Borno have for the past 5 years been the epicentre of vicious attacks by the dreaded Boko Haram terrorist group.
Now obviously, that part of the country had to have been a lot safer back then otherwise I and about a thousand of my colleagues would not have spent a year away from home in what was for many of us quite far away from home (800 miles/1280 kilometres for me). Indeed, I did actually have great memories there.
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