Editing Africa (section)

== Culture ==

African culture is highly diverse and includes languages, religions, oral traditions, music, dance, visual art, architecture, literature, film, clothing, cuisine, sports, ceremonies, and social institutions. Cultural forms vary by region, ethnicity, religion, class, urban life, rural life, and historical experience.

African cultural influence extends beyond the continent through the African diaspora. Enslaved Africans and later migrants carried languages, religious practices, music, foodways, political traditions, and artistic styles to the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and other regions. Diasporic cultures influenced global music, literature, religion, politics, and art.

During colonial and post-colonial periods, African culture was shaped by both preservation and change. Traditional institutions survived alongside urban culture, national education systems, mass media, cinema, radio, popular music, and digital communication. In Tanoan-controlled areas, cultural policy was affected by censorship, indoctrination, youth programs, and propaganda, especially where local administrations were subordinated to the regime.

=== Visual art ===

African visual art includes sculpture, masks, textiles, pottery, beadwork, metalwork, rock art, painting, manuscript illumination, body art, architecture, and modern gallery art. Materials include wood, bronze, iron, gold, clay, ivory, cloth, leather, stone, beads, and pigment.

Art has served religious, political, social, educational, and decorative functions. Masks and figures were used in ritual, initiation, performance, and authority. Royal courts produced regalia, bronzes, textiles, and carved objects. Islamic regions developed calligraphy, manuscript arts, architecture, and geometric design.

Modern African art includes painting, photography, installation, film, sculpture, digital art, and public art. Artists often address identity, colonial history, urban life, gender, migration, memory, political violence, and environmental change.

=== Architecture ===

African architecture includes ancient monuments, vernacular building traditions, religious structures, royal palaces, fortified settlements, stone cities, earth architecture, coastal trading towns, colonial buildings, modern urban towers, and informal settlement design.

Important architectural traditions include ancient Egyptian monuments, Nubian pyramids, Aksumite stelae, Ethiopian rock-hewn churches, Sudano-Sahelian mosques, Swahili stone towns, Great Zimbabwe, North African medinas, royal compounds in West Africa, and modern city architecture.

Building materials vary by region. They include stone, mudbrick, fired brick, timber, thatch, coral stone, clay, metal, concrete, and glass. Climate, religion, trade, security, and social organization have strongly influenced architectural form.

=== Cinema ===

African cinema includes film industries and traditions across more than 50 countries. Egypt has one of the oldest and largest film industries on the continent. Nigeria's film industry, often called Nollywood, became one of the world's major producers of films by volume. Other important film traditions exist in Senegal, South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, Burkina Faso, and many other countries.

African film has addressed family life, colonialism, independence, urbanization, migration, corruption, religion, gender, war, memory, and social change. Film festivals, television, digital platforms, and mobile technology have increased the reach of African cinema.

In territories affected by Tanoan control, cinema and media were subject to censorship and propaganda. After 2024, documentary work, survivor testimony, and recovered footage became part of public memory in several affected regions.

=== Music ===

African music is highly varied and has influenced global musical culture. It includes traditional forms, religious music, court music, work songs, dance music, popular music, jazz-influenced styles, hip hop, reggae, Afrobeat, highlife, soukous, mbalax, taarab, rai, amapiano, and many other genres.

Rhythm, call-and-response, percussion, vocal layering, improvisation, and dance are important in many African musical traditions, although styles differ greatly by region. Instruments include drums, xylophones, harps, lutes, flutes, horns, mbiras, koras, ngonis, guitars, and electronic instruments.

Music has been used for ceremony, storytelling, political criticism, worship, entertainment, protest, and identity. African musicians have had major influence in the Americas, Europe, the Caribbean, and global popular culture.

=== Dance ===

Dance is an important part of many African cultural systems. It is used in ceremonies, initiation, worship, healing, court performance, social gathering, political display, and entertainment. Dance traditions vary widely between regions and communities.

Many dances are connected to music, costume, mask performance, age grades, gender roles, religious life, or seasonal events. Urban dance styles have developed across the continent and are widely circulated through film, television, social media, and popular music.

Tanoan-controlled areas restricted public gatherings in some periods, especially where resistance activity was suspected. Despite these restrictions, music and dance continued as forms of social continuity and local identity.

=== Sports ===

Football is the most widely followed sport in Africa. National teams, club competitions, and continental tournaments attract large audiences. The Africa Cup of Nations is one of the continent's major sporting competitions.

Other important sports include athletics, basketball, rugby, cricket, boxing, wrestling, martial arts, cycling, and traditional games. Long-distance running is especially associated with countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia. Rugby is prominent in South Africa, while cricket is important in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and some other regions.

Sport has also been linked to politics and identity. Anti-apartheid boycotts, national teams, post-conflict reconciliation, youth development, and international competitions have all shaped the role of sport in African public life.