Ousmane Sembène: The Father of African Cinema
Ousmane Sembène was a Senegalese director, screenwriter, and author who is regarded as the father of African cinema for centring African experiences and language to emancipate them from the colonial grip.
“I have a job I love, and no one asked me to do it. No one. I do it because I want to talk to my people,” he once said.
Though he is the first African film director to get international recognition, his fixed gaze on the African audience produced works that boldly speak against colonialism, post-colonial corruption and greed, poverty, and conflicts between traditional and modern life.
His films Mandabi (1968), Xala (1975), Cedo (1977), Camp de Thiaroye (1987), and Guelwaar (1992) are all spoken in Senegalese dialects.
In an interview with filmmaker Férid Boughedir for Caméra d’Afrique: 20 Years of African Cinema (1983), Sembène stated that cinema plays a vital role in independence.
In another old interview, he was asked if his films are understood in Europe.
He responded, "Let me be very clear, Europe is not my centre. Europe is on the outskirts of Africa. They were in my country for over 100 years and never spoke my language; I speak their language.
My future does not hinge on being understood by Europe. I would like for them to understand, but it makes no difference to me... Why do you want me to be like a sunflower turning towards the sun? I am the sun!"
Before venturing into a creative life, Sembène was once working as a mechanic and bricklayer and then joined the Free French Forces in 1942 during World War II as a truck driver and chauffeur. His witness to seeing white colonisers vulnerable during the war and the lack of pay to the Africans who fought for the French made him create the film Camp de Thiaroye (1988).
In the 1940s, he moved between Senegal and France for work, then spent a decade in France. From the 1950s to the 1980s, he published consequential literary works, including Le Docker Noir (1956), as his debut novel. His love for film made him see that he will reach a bigger African audience through cinema.
His IMDb profile reports that he travelled to Moscow in 1961 to study film.
Upon his return to Senegal, he wrote and directed his debut feature film Black Girl (1966), which follows the story of Diouana, a young Senegalese woman who is a maid for a French family. While her people have attained independence, she is a colonial who feels isolated in another country far from home. This film went on to win awards and was showcased in international festivals.
He later produced films The Money Order (1968), shot in the Senegalese dialects Wolof and French; Emitai (1971), shot in the Diola dialect and French, which details European colonial oppression against Senegalese women during World War II; Xala (1975); and Outsiders (1977).
Wole Soyinka: The Father of African Theatre
Nigerian playwright and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has written 25 published plays.
From his theatrical debut with The Invention in 1957 to his last work, a satirical play, Alápatà Àpáta (The Butcher of the Rock) in 2011, Soyinka has explored themes of societal hypocrisy, governance, abuse of religious power, neocolonialism, pervasive corruption, wealth disparity, and political oppression in post-colonial Africa that were stark satirical critiques that angered the political systems and authoritarian rule.
His political activism shaped many of his works. During his six decades of theatre writing while in Nigeria and political exile in Britain, he penned The Beatification of the Area Boy (1995), The Road (1965), The Bacchae of Euripides (1969), Jero's Metamorphosis (1973), The Trials of Brother Jero (1960), A Play of Giants (1984), Madmen and Specialists (1970), and King Baabu (2002).
The Lion and the Jewel (1959), The Swamp Dwellers (1958), The Strong Breed (1963), Death and the King's Horseman (1975), A Dance of the Forests (1960), and Kongi's Harvest (1965) are considered his theatrical monuments.
Beyond his play scripts, Soyinka is the first African to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986.
Fela Kútì: The Father of Afrobeat
Fela Kútì is celebrated for pioneering the Afrobeat music style and for lending his voice to human rights.
Together with Tony Allen, his drummer, he created the music style that has been adopted by music giants Tiwa Savage, Wizkid, Burna Boy, Davido, Simi, Tems, Kizz Daniel, Ayra Starr, Rema, Asake, Omah Lay, Fireboy DML, Yemi Alade, Timaya, and many more.
Kuti was a musician and political activist whose music explored state-sponsored violence, systemic corruption, neocolonialism and political activism.
Some of his most impactful songs are: Water No Get Enemy (1975), Zombie (1976), I.T.T. – International Thief Thief (1980), Sorrow, Tears, and Blood (1977), Gentleman (1973), Beasts of No Nation (1989).
Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Chinua Achebe: Fathers of African Literature
Literary heavyweights Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Chinua Achebe are crowned the fathers of African literature, albeit they had dissimilar views on the language of the African pen.
Ngugi is celebrated for championing the African indigenous languages in schools, communities and books to decolonise the mind.
Therefore, he mostly wrote in Kikuyu.
He also protested against post-colonial corruption and systemic injustices with his pen and produced plays that were staged by and for the community in Kamirithu, Limuru.
Achebe, who is hailed as the father of modern African literature, wrote in English to reach and counter Eurocentric and colonial views against the African people.
In his 1964 essay, The African Writer and the English Language, he wrote, "I feel that the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience.
But it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit new African surroundings."