NollyCulture Launched

Welcome to the NollyCulture blog, the discourse arena for everything Nollywood, everything Africa. NollyCulture explores the critical socio-cultural questions at the intersection of media, religion, and culture, with particular emphasis on contemporary Africa (continental and Diaspora) as framed and portrayed by Nollywood--the Nigerian film industry.

In little over its twenty-years existence, Nollywood has become Africa's most dominant and transnationally accessible expression of popular culture, telling African stories, with African voices, to African (and growing global) audiences.

Africans are said to be notoriously religious; and religion plays complex roles within cultures. NollyCulture therefore concerns itself primarily with how Nollywood articulates, frames and portrays Africa and the Diaspora through the creative tension within and between religion and culture.

Sometimes it's subtle and at other times brazen in its representations, raising for itself admirers and critics in equal measures. But Nollywood never shies away from its message: religious and socio-cultural normative forms underpin the framing of the discourse, the language, and the representation of gender, class, and power in Africa.

Let's talk Nollywood then--its movies, narratives, and stakeholders (actors, producers, marketers, audiences, etc.). Let's discuss Africa--its peoples, cultures, and societies. Bring your passion for Nollywood and for Africa. Have your say. Express your opinions. Show some love. Agree. Disagree. But don't hate on anybody.