Reading Adinkra: the symbols we wear without knowing their names
Adinkra symbols sit on coffins, cloth, jewellery and tattoos. Far fewer people can name the values they encode — or the Akan proverb behind each one.
Read the pieceCalgary, Canada · Worldwide
African Pride Magazine reports on the culture, style, business and ideas of people of African descent — at home on the continent and across the diaspora. Read the magazine, listen to Africanpride Radio, and list your business in our marketplace.
Our mission
We focus on promoting African interests and traditions, and highlighting the achievements of people of African descent in all spheres of human endeavor, all over the world.
African Pride Magazine
That sentence has guided the magazine since the beginning, and it shapes everything on this site: which stories we chase, whose work we put on the cover, and which businesses we hand a free listing to.
We are not a wire service. We are a small, independent publication that would rather run one carefully reported piece than twenty aggregated ones.
What we cover
Every desk carries an Adinkra symbol from the Akan tradition of Ghana — a visual shorthand for the value that desk is meant to hold to.
Language, food, faith, music and the rituals that travel with families across oceans. Adinkrahene — leadership and greatness.
Read Culture Desk 02Print, tailoring, hair, jewellery and the designers turning heritage cloth into contemporary wardrobes. Dwennimmen — strength with humility.
Read Style Desk 03Argument, not outrage. Columns on identity, migration and the questions diaspora families argue about at dinner. Nkyinkyim — adaptability.
Read Opinion Desk 04Founders, traders and tradespeople — how African-owned businesses are built, financed and handed on. Nkonsonkonson — unity.
Read Business Desk 05Settlement, study permits, remittances, community associations — the practical side of living far from home. Aya — endurance.
Read Diaspora Desk 06Africanpride Radio — music, talk and community noticeboards, seven days a week. Gye Nyame — the supremacy of God.
Go to RadioFrom the current issue
Adinkra symbols sit on coffins, cloth, jewellery and tattoos. Far fewer people can name the values they encode — or the Akan proverb behind each one.
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Every strip is woven narrow on purpose. The pattern names record proverbs, births, victories and grief — which is why the cloth outlives the wearer.
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Credit history that does not transfer, suppliers who only answer at 3am your time, and a customer base split across two continents. A practical guide.
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A language that survives only in greetings and in church is already half gone. What it actually takes to keep one alive in a Canadian household.
Read the pieceThe marketplace
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Africanpride Radio
Africanpride Radio runs a full weekly schedule — music through the morning, talk and current affairs in the afternoon, and community noticeboards in the evening, where anyone can send in an announcement about a birth, a funeral, a fundraiser or a job.
Why read us
Independent publishing is mostly a series of small refusals. These are ours.
We name the designers, weavers, founders and organisers we write about, and we credit the people who taught them.
Sankofa: go back and fetch it. We explain where a tradition came from before we argue about where it should go.
When we get something wrong we fix it and say so at the foot of the piece, rather than quietly editing it away.
Eban is a fence — a boundary. Pride means being willing to report on the community honestly, including when it is hard.
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Where we are
The magazine is edited in Calgary and reports wherever the community is. If you have a story, a correction or a listing, get in touch — we read everything, even when we cannot reply to everything.