The Heritage Issue (English)

What do we keep, and what are we finally strong enough to set down?

The Heritage Issue examines what it means to inherit a culture and what it takes to carry that inheritance forward without allowing it to become fixed, distant or reduced to an artefact. Across Africa, heritage has too often been treated as something collected, catalogued and interpreted from outside. This issue pushes back against that distance by exploring heritage as a living practice: something spoken, sung, embodied and continually made.

At the heart of the issue is an intimate feature with South African vocalist, trumpeter and musical director Mandisi Dyantyis. Singing in isiXhosa and drawing from jazz, gospel and indigenous musical forms, Dyantyis demonstrates how heritage can remain rooted while continuing to evolve. His work is not an object behind glass, but a living language, one that carries memory, identity and history into the present through the body and the voice.

The issue asks what happens when a culture is preserved without being lived, and whether preservation without participation can ever be enough. It considers the traditions we protect, the stories we inherit, and the choices required to keep culture meaningful for future generations. Heritage survives because someone deliberately chooses to carry it, reshape it and give it new life.

With its thoughtful writing, powerful photography and considered design, The Heritage Issue is a celebration of continuity without nostalgia, and of tradition without limitation. Bring home this essential edition and experience heritage not as a relic of the past, but as a living force still shaping Africa’s future.

English Edition. Printed in premium quality and designed to be collected, displayed and treasured for years to come.