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Ancestry

2026 is the year we stop being spectators in our own heritage.
Five cultural experiments. Each reclaiming what they tried to erase.
Language. Food. Film. Art. Literature.
Follow the journey.

📸 Image credit: Roasted Kweku, Ghanaian conceptual photographer

I Became Colonialism’s Perfect Product — Now I’m Reclaiming Yorùbá in 30 Days

At 38, I realised I had become colonialism’s perfect product — an African who can’t speak her own language. So for the next 30 days, I’m learning Yorùbá through WhatsApp lessons and Afrobeats. I’ll document every cringe, every win, and what happens when a millennial finally stops being a spectator in her own heritage.
See how my Aunty was the trigger to learn Yorùbá, Thanks Aunty!

Socials

@blackhadithi

@wariarawaireriadigun

@the54zine

Conceptual photography by Roasted Kweku

I’ve spent $57,000 in Black Tax this year. Thats more than I have in savings.

Convert that to your local currency.
Yup. It stings. Everywhere I turn, someone is one illness away from financial collapse. Because universal health coverage?
Still a dream.
Read how international aid perpetuates Black Tax.

📸 Image credit: Roasted Kweku, Ghanaian conceptual photographer

A man in his mid 30s leaning across a 1980's classic red telephone box in Nairobi, reading a newspaper that has the headline 'Africa's GDP is rising'.

Why isn’t your life?

Africa’s GDP is rising.

GDP made sense in 1934 America. It makes no sense in 2025 Lagos, Nairobi or Johannesburg.
See why - 2 min read.

New to the 54? Start Here.

Two people lying close together, dressed in matching patterned clothing, with their eyes closed on a vibrant, patterned background.

If AI can’t see you, do you exist?

Entire communities are absent from the data that trains the world’s most powerful language models.
Read more

A mother and daughter cheekily sticking their tongues out at the camera and smiling

So my kids will probably be multi-lingual. You’re thinking: so what — mine do French at school too.
No, that’s not what I mean.

But what if AI doesn’t speak their language -
How do they navigate a global world if universality threatens to erase their cultural nuance?
Read more

A group of 4 dark skinned African boys with golden hair sitting on vivid turquoise chairs placed on a bold orange floating deck They are dressed in crisp neon pink tailored suits, barefoot, posed in

Language is canvas

Gen AI collides with African visual artists turning the continent’s linguistic diversity into a visual gallery. An ode to the visual artists I love.
Nah. I am obsessed.
View the gallery.

Africa is not a Dataset.
It’s the Architect.

For most African languages, invisibility isn’t a glitch - it’s a design flaw. David Ifeoluwa Adelani is rewriting that script. Through participatory research and community-built datasets, he reframes Africa not as the dataset, but as the architect of multilingual AI. This five-part Rubic traces paradigm-shifting ideas that challenge the bias baked into today’s models, and reveals where the future of AI will be built.

Africa is the Architect. See how.