Entertainment Lifestyle 

Here are the best Nigerian articles of the week

Each week here at YNaija, we round up the best Nigerian writing on the internet, highlighting the stories, profiles, interviews and in-depth reporting that rise above the daily churn. Here are the ones that caught our attention:

Period pains: How monthly cycle keeps young girls out of school and kills their dreams – Kolapo Olapoju

She couldn’t wrap her head around the question being asked of her. She couldn’t fathom the interest in her private business. Try as she may – even with constant nudging – she failed to come to terms with a man’s query about her period. Since she was a little girl, she has been taught to conceal that part of her life from the world, to cower in shame at the mention of it and never speak of it to anybody, particularly men.

A brilliant investigative work published on TheCable and around menstrual hygiene as a debilitating issue for young girls in rural communities, Kolapo Olapoju covers a number of grounds from the inability of these teenage girls to buy sanitary products and the myths and taboos on menstruation. It’s a mammoth read that renders a painfully, stark reality, but eye-opening as well.

The imported potato chips and Nigeria’s local production complex – David Hundeyin

It has been discovered for example, that it costs less to transport a shipping container from China to Lagos than to move the same container from Tin Can Island to the Trade Fair Complex in Ojo – a journey of barely 19km wishing the same city. Nigeria’s well-documented power issues, sloth-paced bureaucracy, regulatory hostility and multiple taxation are much bigger amendments to production than the import-greedy, Nigerian industry-destroying, market-flooding, neocolonialist/unpatriotic national bogeyman that even can has started to promote of late.

In this Business Day column David Hundeyin yet again flexes muscular, insightful writing, taking on the buzzy discourse about the CBN restricting the sale of forex for milk importation. In his view, economic growth can be achieved in Nigeria when there’s a boost in exports rather than the focus on locally produced goods for consumption.

With ‘African Giant,’ Burna Boy’s crossover is complete – Joey Akan

There are moments on Burna Boy’s African Giant that feels like you are a part of something special by listening — something bigger than you. Something that has more value beyond music and the delight of the arts. You feel like you are a part of a movement, a worthy cause.

Continuing a streak of reviews published on American media outlets, music critic Joey Akan leaves a footprint on The Fader with a robust review on Burna Boy’s fifth studio album African Giant, and the massive conversations it’s currently generating.

Meet Lagos’ movers and shakers – Ayodeji Rotinwa

Wana Ubobang is at the vanguard of a new wave of performance sweeping Lagos’ literary scene: one that’s unapologetically personal, no subject off limits, with words spare lofty language or affectation

For Atlas Etihad, culture writer Ayodeji Rotinwa documents a handful of (young) Nigerians leading the new frontier in the blistering creative space. From fashion to film and music, it highlights the portfolio of some our faves.

The Three – August Edition – Saratu Abiola

Burna Boy and Mr. Eazi are my favorite artists to watch because neither of them are throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks. This is clear in the way they present themselves. I’m a bit of a branding and design nerd, and over the past year or two I’ve been geeking out at how Burna Boy and Mr. Eazi have been handling their design.

In her latest monthly Medium roundup – a trinity of cultural happening she finds personally absorbing – Saratu Abiola obsesses over parallels between Burna Boy and Mr. Eazi in the context of their artistic aesthetic, a brief but lush review of African Giant, and Saidiya Hartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval.

What It’s Like To Have Your Penis Stolen – Astor George

Not seeing a bulge sent shivers down my spine so severe that I had to freeze for a bit to let the feeling pass. With shaky hands, I slowly pulled down my boxers and saw…nothing. My penis was gone. The entire area was so smooth it could’ve passed for a Ken doll’s crotch. Legend has it that Mariah Carey is still threatened by the high-pitched scream I let out that day.

Astor George updates Zikoko’s Nigerian Horror Stories with a play on the popular penis theft myth, tweaking it with satirical humour and accessible writing, with a slightly glowing nuance on sexual harassment. Comedy horror writing is still quite on the fringes, but writers like George might just be one of the mascots in making it go mainstream.

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