👋🏽 EDITOR’S NOTE

Hello from sunny Accra 🇬🇭! I spent the past week in the city that’s become something of a second home to me after Nairobi getting some much needed rest while reconnecting with old friends, making new friends, and putting out fires at work. In case you haven’t been, Accra is one of those unique African cities steeped in traditional customs in a packaged way that is still very cool and modern.

Through culturally-inspired art, fashion, and architecture, Accra has been able to delicately weave the country’s history into the city’s present, attracting hundreds of thousands of tourists (like lil ol me 😜) each year. One of the highlights of my time in Accra was the WABASO fashion exhibition that celebrated top emerging Ghanaian fashion brands including the Gen Z-founded cult brand Koffi Maako. Peep the photos from the exhibition via the link at the bottom of this newsletter.

In this volume of Z-Rated, we’re excited to introduce our new Instagram filter that allows you to create your own magazine cover to express how you’re ‘funding adulting’ in line with the theme of our upcoming Issue VI of Kenga Magazine. Read on to try the filter and start sharing with friends!

P.S. Let me know what you think of the new look of Z-Rated. We played around with the colours, fonts, and content architecture to bring you an improved reading experience.

• Arinze Obiezue, Publisher at Kenga

🥳 Z BRAND OF THE WEEK

Maison Midekor is a women clothing brand established in Ghana in 2019, famously dubbed ‘The Year of Return’, it is a contemporary brand that sheds light on the African heritage through its artistic designs. The brand defines itself as the perfect bridge between minimalist and avant-garde fashion. Its simple silhouttes appear to be sophisticated by the illusion that its intricate design details portray. The literal meaning of ‘Midekor’ means freedom, which is one of the fashion brand’s cornerstone values.

In 2022, Maison Midekor won the Vlisco Fashion Fund that provided a €5,000 investment into business as well as couture training in the Netherlands for the brand’s founder and creative director, Deladem Midekor.

✍️ NEW ON KENGA

Kenga Issue VI Instagram Filter

Created in partnership with our friends at The NODE Experience, our new Instagram filter allows you to create your own Kenga cover with cute selfies or more posey shots.

🔥 HOT TOPICS

• The $31B Gen Z mental health market is estimated to hit $75B by 2032

• Being overly impatient with romantic partners is now a ‘Gen Z thing’—according to millennials

• Gen Alpha and Gen Zs are shaping travel in Africa as safaris are investing in attracting kids and teens to encourage more family trips

• Bitget reveals that Gen Zs show the highest interest in copy trading, representing 44% of copy traders on the crypto trading platform

• The recent passing of Angus Cloud, the Euphoria actor, has made younger Gen Zs start coming to terms with the mortality of their idols

• Gen Zs are defining their own work outfits, rocking up to the office in everything from Crocs to designer blouses and whole lotta Doc Martens and Zara

• Gen Z’s new dating rules are saying ‘boy, bye’ to these three Boomer trends according to Quack Quack, a desi dating app

💡 Z-Lang

Girl dinner - what you end up with after filling up your plate with a bunch of small snacks to replace a meal (eg: a smattering of a chicken leg, goat cheese, and a bunch of grapes for dinner)

😮‍💨 WEEKENDA

Captain Fall (Netflix)

Follow along with Black twenty-something year old Edie as she navigates being the other woman in one couple’s open-marriage.

 Dreaming Whilst Black S1

Follow British Jamaican protagonist, Kwabena, on his misadventures in navigating aspirations and his reality as a Black independent creative in London.

‘Eniyan Escape Room’, Yusuf Aina, Art Twenty One Gallery, Lagos

Immerse yourself in the artist's mental palace of curiosities, studies and personal evolution through his pioneering medium “Ainaism”.

‘Ethereastrata’, Nene Mahlangu, Kalashnikov Gallery, Johannesburg

Nene Mahlangu, one of South Africa’s leading emerging contemporary artists, illustrates a reclamation of space and self-worth through opulent portraits of Black women.

In-house Live Mix, Zeluvio @ Telande, Accra

This live DJ set promises an electrifying introduction to the weekend.

zeluvio

View more on Instagram

Promise Boys by Nick Brooks

This fast-paced dark academia thriller novel will keep you hooked with its zero fluff whodunnit trope, plot twists and socioeconomic commentary.

💅🏾 Extra

Photo gallery of the WABASO Fashion Exhibition organised in Accra by Debonair Afrik and Style Lounge Platform

Z-Rated is a weekly newsletter that curates the latest on Gen Z culture in Africa and around the world. Subscribe to get it in your inbox every Friday.