You Better Say Our Names: The Podcast

Yaa Addae (she/they) is a participatory curator, writer, and community researcher. Their practice is informed by the liberatory power of the imagination, play, and restorative love economics: bringing love to the systemically underloved. Yaa works to reimagine cultural infrastructure and in 2019 co-created ‘Black Diaspora Literacy: From Negritude to Drake’, a 10 week course supported by Tufts University’s Experimental College. Later, they were a researcher for Ano Institute’s Mobile Pavilion and Cultural Encyclopedia of African Art.

They are the founder of the anticolonial art history platform Decolonize The Art World and art futurist studio, KRA. They have spoken at the Southbank Centre, Nubuke Foundation, The Barbican, Somerset House and led workshops with Autograph ABP, The Church of Black Feminist Thought, The Library of Africa and The African Diaspora, Queer Britain and more. Currently based between London, Accra, and New York, Yaa is stewarding Open Heart Clinic, an embodied research programming series on the future of care.

Minna Salami is a Nigerian-Finnish and Swedish author and social critic who grew up in Lagos and has lived in Sweden, New York and London. She studied Political Science at the University of Lund in Sweden, and then Gender Studies at SOAS, University of London where she was awarded a distinction for her specialisation in African feminist theory.

In 2010 she launched her multiple award-winning blog MsAfropolitan which has drawn over a million readers. Her debut book SENSUOUS KNOWLEDGE (Bloomsbury/Zed, UK) and (Harper Collins/Amistad, US) has been translated into multiple languages. She is a frequently sought essayist and her bylines include the Guardian, CNN, Independent, Al Jazeera, World Literature Now and the Royal Society of the Arts. As a keynote speaker and lecturer, Minna has spoken at over 300 universities, cultural events, and conferences, on five continents including at some of the world’s most prominent institutions such as the Oxford Union, Yale University, and the Singularity University at NASA.

Minna has consulted governments on feminism and gender equality, and she sits on the boards of The African Feminist Initiative at Pennsylvania State University, The Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of the Sahel, and the Emerge network. She has served as a judge for the One World Media awards, a nominator for the Prince Claus Foundation and the Princess of Asturias Foundation. She holds an Honorary Fellowship in Writing from The Hong Kong Baptist University.

Duduzile Mathonsi is a performance artist, writer, voice artist and public speaker. She has extensive experience from South African television, film and radio production, as a producer, director, screenwriter, presenter and actress. Duduzile is also a certified journalist who has worked for some of South Africa's biggest media houses. Mathonsi has a three year National Diploma in Language Practise (Linguistics) from Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa and graduated as the first Black woman at the Norwegian Theatre Academy with B.A in Acting. As a linguist and performer, the core of her work is storytelling.

She explores different mediums and ways of telling stories through movement/dance, voice/sound, public speaking, writing and activism. Her work looks at intercultural, intersectionlaity and claiming the new narratives for Black works and women. Duduzile's work is interdisciplinary, she explores different mediums through fusing experiences and finding tools fr developing Black works. Her solo theatre piece titled 'Bitch where the fuck is my manifesto?!' is on the narratives of the Black female body. She has a web series on Instagram under the handle @the.blackginger and a YouTube show titled 'Black girl in Norway show'.