Welcome to Vol 202 of the Spread!

Hello and welcome back to the Spread, your weekly edit of all the best stories and global news about Africans shaping mainstream culture.

Not much happened this weekend. I finished the book I recommended last week, Stay With Me (what a book, that's all I'll say), did some chores, and went back through some recent artist features. One thing has stayed with me since: something from our conversation with Nola Ayoola that I haven't quite been able to shake:

"I think art reaches places that language may not. Conversations tend to ask you to explain yourself; sometimes, books ask you to follow an argument. Art just allows you to experience something before you've fully understood it. …when it comes to confrontation, I'm not trying to create shock; I'm thinking from a place of honesty. Art has a way of bringing things to the forefront and letting us face what we've probably been avoiding: grief, joy, memory."

I keep returning to it. It feels true in a way that's hard to articulate, which is perhaps exactly the point.

Omotola x

Now on to the real peel 👇

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