Off Duty
Between
meetings.
Outside the boardroom, there is a whole other life. This is it.
Books that stopped me mid-page and refused to let me sleep. Music that has followed me across countries and knows my moods better than I do. African designers who understand that getting dressed is never just about clothes — it is about showing up as yourself, fully, without apology. Places that shifted something in me quietly and permanently. Art that I still think about years later, in the middle of unrelated conversations.
I believe — deeply, stubbornly — that the things that fill your cup matter as much as the work. What feeds your curiosity, your joy, your sense of wonder. What reminds you who you are when the agenda is cleared and the title means nothing. These are my answers to that question. Personal, specific, genuinely mine.
Take what resonates. Leave what does not. And if something here leads you somewhere wonderful, that is exactly the point. None of this is in any particular order — just the things I return to, the places that stay with me, and the beauty I refuse to stop chasing.
Books
Words that shaped my world
So Long a Letter
Mariama Bâ — Senegalese. Feminist. Foundational. I do not loan this one out.
Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe — You do not forget the last page. Ever.
Americanah
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie — The diaspora novel that named things I had not found words for yet.
We Should All Be Feminists
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - I have gifted this more times than I can count. I will gift it again.
Amkoullel, l’enfant peul
Amadou Hampâté Bâ — This is my people. My history. My restlessness, explained.
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou - that surviving with grace is its own kind of power.
The Wretched of the Earth
Frantz Fanon — Required reading. No exceptions.
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel García Márquez — For the days when reality is not enough.
Beloved
Toni Morrison — There are books you read and books that read you. This is the second kind.
Une Vie sans fards
Maryse Condé - A woman telling the whole truth about her own life. Radical then. Radical now.
Music
The soundtrack of a life in motion.
Sade
For the silk robe mornings when the world can wait.
Burna Boy
Afrobeats at full volume. The energy of Lagos and a confidence that owes nobody an apology.
Nina Simone
That voice. She did not sing. She testified.
Beyoncé
Not a music taste. A religion. Proud member of the Beyhive.
Mia Guissé
The modern Senegalese voice. With the dance moves to match.
Baba Maal
He sings in Fulani and something in me stirs every single time. Some things are older than memory.
Jill Scott
Poetry that decided it wanted a melody. Also the funniest woman in the room.
Lauryn Hill
That 1998 album. Rapping. Singing. Doing both better than anyone before or since. Still unmatched.
Césaria Évora
She evokes longing. There is no other way to say it.
Adele
You almost want your heart broken just so you have a reason to listen. The closest thing to therapy that does not require an appointment.
Films
Stories to be remembered.
Black Panther
Wakanda did not just give us a film. It gave us a mirror.
Hotel Rwanda
I could not look away. I still cannot.
The Pursuit of Happyness
Ugly cried. Zero apologies.
Atlantics
Dakar on screen, finally, in all its haunting beauty.
La Noire de…
Ousmane Sembène — 1966. Still cutting. Still necessary.
All About My Mother
Almodóvar at his most devastating. I was not ready.
The Devil Wears Prada
Fashion, ambition, and Miranda Priestly as a life coach. Unironically.
Parasite
The film that reminded me that great cinema has no passport.
The Woman King
African women on a horse with a sword. About time.
Love Jones
Because Black love, poetry, jazz, and Chicago in the nineties deserved a film this good.
African Designers
Beauty is also resistance.
Banke Kuku
Bold, impossibly kaftan. My uniform.
Tongoro
Made in Africa, worn by Beyoncé. Need I say more.
Diarrablu
A mathematician who became a designer. The prints are literally equations. I am obsessed.
Wanni Fuga
Clean lines, West African soul, and headpieces that stop a room.
Algueye Dakar
Senegal in every stitch. Flowing, regal, and entirely mine.
Thebe Magugu
The first African to win the LVMH Prize. The work speaks for itself.
Doreen Mashika
Zanzibar in a dress. Kanga prints, ocean air, pure magic.
Christie Brown
Ghanaian corsets that redefine West African femininity. Precise, powerful, stunning.
Matopeda
Couture that makes you feel like the main character. Because you are.
Dye Lab
Natural dyes, local artisans, colors so bright they have a pulse.
Travel
Eighty countries and still counting.
Dakar, Senegal
Home. And contrary to popular belief, we have the best sunsets in the world.
Naoshima, Japan
Where Tadao Ando buried museums into the earth. Art, architecture, silence. Nothing prepares you for it.
Sainte-Marie, Madagascar
A tiny island where humpback whales pass and time genuinely stops.
Zanzibar, Tanzania
Where ancient trade routes left their soul in the stone, the spice, and the sea. A fusion so deep it has its own heartbeat.
Bali, Indonesia
For the temples, the rice fields, and food that makes you want to cancel your return flight.
Marrakech, Morocco
The orange blossom in the air, the culture in every corner, mint tea at Mamounia. Some cities dress you from the inside out.
Grand Suza, Cameroon
Where art meets earth. Where my family built something permanent.
Paris, France
The museums. The architecture. The culture. And the best patisseries in the world, which is reason enough.
Ocho Rios, Jamaica
Jerk chicken, reggae, and water so clear it feels like a conspiracy. Some places just refuse to let you be sad.
Salvador de Bahia, Brazil
Africa on the other side of the ocean. The Yoruba gods arrived here in chains and never left. You feel the continent in every drumbeat, every doorway, every face.
Art
Places and events on the continent that leave a mark.
Zeitz MOCAA
Cape Town — The largest museum of contemporary African art in the world, inside a converted grain silo. The building alone will stop you in your tracks.
Galerie MAM
Douala — Where my love of art was born. Long before I had the words for it.
Museum of Black Civilizations
Dakar — Africa telling its own story, in its own voice, on its own terms. About time.
MACAAL
Marrakech — African contemporary art in the heart of Morocco. The continent in conversation with itself.
RAW Material Company
Dakar — Part gallery, part think tank, entirely necessary. Art as a form of thinking out loud.
Alara
Lagos — West Africa's first luxury concept store, designed by David Adjaye. The name means everything is possible in Yoruba. It shows.
Dak'Art Biennale
Dakar — Every two years, Dakar becomes the center of the African art world. And the world notices.
ART X Lagos
Lagos — Nigeria's leading art fair, and proof that the continent does not need to go anywhere to be seen.
NCAI
Nairobi — East Africa's most serious space for contemporary art. Quiet, rigorous, essential.
1-54
Marrakech / London / New York — The fair that took African contemporary art and placed it on every continent.
Black Artists
The ones I return to.
Yinka Shonibare
He dresses history in African wax print and asks who gets to tell the story. Nobody does it quite like him.
El Anatsui
Bottle caps turned into monumental tapestries. He takes what was discarded and makes it transcendent.
Aïda Muluneh
Color so bold it becomes a language. Ethiopian, global, and unlike anything else you have ever seen.
Chéri Samba
Congolese, irreverent, political, joyful. He paints the world as it is and dares you to laugh and rage at the same time.
Malick Sidbé
Bamako in the 1960s, through his lens. Joy, youth, music, freedom. He documented a generation finding itself.
Hassan Hajjaj
The Andy Warhol of Marrakech, except louder, more African, and more himself.
Mickalene Thomas
Rhinestones, Black women, radical love. The first African-American artist to have a solo show at the Grand Palais. About time.
Jean-Michel Basquiat
He walked into every room they tried to keep him out of and left his name on the walls. Forever.
Kehinde Wiley
He put Black people in the frame where they were always supposed to be. Gold backgrounds, classical poses, full presence.
Faith Ringgold
She stitched stories into quilts when the galleries would not let her in. Then the world caught up.