Iyanu Adebiyi is a spoken word poet, writer, and lawyer. She has reached thousands of people with the power of words, by creating powerful video, audio, photo, and written content, which continues to change the lives of her audience in significant ways. 

Aderemi Adegbite is an artist-curator and an interdisciplinary artist whose current focus questions individual realities and truth(s) that stretch across the societal fabric as constants for an elastic socio-system.  

'Jàre Adébáyọ̀, the Lead Artist of Amọ́roro Music Dynasty is an emerging Jùjú Music Star. He has a B.A in Theatre Arts and an M.A in African Music respectively from the foremost Nigerian University, University of Ìbàdàn. With his band, he has performed at several concerts and social events across Nigeria.

Efe Paul Azino is a poet and writer, author of the collection For Broken Men Who Cross Often, and director of the Lagos International Poetry Festival. 

Ismail Bala writes both in English and Hausa. His collection of poems, Line of Sight has just been published. He is a fellow of the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa. His poems have been published in many international and national journals and anthologies. 

BLESZ is a songwriter, poet, DJ and MC. He writes and composes songs for himself and others. He started out as a DJ in the 90s and the name BLESZ stuck to him. BLESZ is also a member of the urban live band B.U.C. and it is here where he got more familiar with arranging music and songwriting. B.U.C. won the Dutch final of Emergenza (2017) and went on to compete in the Emergenza world final in Germany.

Maryam Gatawa is a brilliant poetess as well as a passionate lover of the Arts. Some of her works have been published in reputable journals and local papers.

Omoniyi Gabriel Gilbert, is a Nigerian Artist (painter) and a product of the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

Each of his artworks, with bold strokes of vivid colors, entails deep conceptual statement, which helps to draw in viewers’ attention, often in a range of different media, grouped around specific themes and meanings. 

Kola Igbasan is a seasoned linguist and a lover of African music, arts and cultures who enjoys writing poems and songs. Kola lives in Bayreuth, Germany where he advocates for foreign students' participation in the society and he is himself involved in the voluntary fire service.

Morrison Jusu, born in 1995 in Bo district, Sierra Leone is a Graduate Engineer with BSC in Civil Engineering .He discovered his talent in the arts at an early age and is now a self-thought artist. His works have been displayed at the Sierra Leone National Museum, The Balmaya Art Gallery, Toma Resort Aberdeen etc. He was recognized in 2017 and honored with the Y.E.S 2017 National Award for Excellence in Youth Arts and Culture.

Siphumeze Kundayi is an art - maker, photographer and facilitator interested in creative ways of bringing together dialogue and artistic practice in relation to African Queer identity. Her solo and collaborative work has been featured in a number of festivals and theatre spaces.

Achille Mbembe is one of the most prolific and renowned postcolonial thinkers. Trained in history and  political sciences, he has authored 9 monographs and numerous articles and edited many further books, his becoming an intellectual trendsetter in postcolonial thinking and in criticising violence, social inequality and discrimination, Since 2001, he has been professor at the Wits Institute For Social & Economic Research, Johannesburg. He has won numerous awards, lately the Gerda-Henkel-Preis (2018) and the Albertus-Magnus-professorship (2019).

Tiffany Kagure Mugo is co-founder and curator of HOLAA! a Pan Africanist hub that advocates for and tackles issues surrounding African female sexuality. She is a Ted speaker and Board Member of FRIDA Fund, an international feminist fund with grantees all over the world. She is also the author of Quirky Quick Guide to Having Great Sex, published by KWELA Publishers. 

Nicksha T. Mwanandimayi is a recipient of the Junior Budding Writers Association Award in Zimbabwe, he has been published in the Silver Pinion a Literary Magazine and his poetry anthology, Epitah: Memoirs of a cymbal, was released on 3 January 2020 on Amazon. On 6 January 2020, Epitaph was ranked 16th in the Poetry genre and 13th in the 45 Minute Read category. He is a poet and a creative non-fiction and fiction writer.

Zanta Nkumane is a writer, journalist, and ex-scientist. His fiction and non-fiction focus on archiving black queer lives and experiences.

MR. REED brings the Recession Free Music Tour to Bayreuth, Germany on June 27, for the close out of BIGSAS African and African-Diasporic Literatures Festival 2018. Mr. Reed has been a featured performer at multiple African-diasporic themed events, at such venues as New York City's famed Metropolitan Museum of Art, La Mama Experimental Theatre, CultureHub NYC, The Asia Society and Gettysburg, Virginia's, Gettysburg College, as well as at BIGSAS 2016 festival with Dj Spooky. Mr. Reed is currently on tour from May 2018 - December 2018 for a festival season that will cross from North America to Africa and Europe.

Lulu Sala is a Mozambique born dancer, choreographer, dance teacher and cultural activist, now based back in Maputo, after living abroad. Lulu Sala is former dancer of the Mozambique's National Dance Company, where he stayed for a decade, in which he performed most of the principal roles in all major pieces of the vast repertoire. Lulu has toured with the company all over the globe. And with his own projects, the routine continues, with collaborations with different companies Universities and solo works. Lulu Sala’s other main interest, in which he has been working on is arts in education, in which he uses schools and universities to promote the importance of arts in general in education, in order to have a better society, with high level of sensitivity, also working in the schools with a specific program, that includes arts in its curriculum 

Sepidar Theater Group

Das 2016 von den iranischen Theaterwissenschafts-Studierenden Bahareh Sadafi und Mamadoo Mehrnejad gegründete Sepidar Theater ist ein Kollektiv aus Kulturschaffenden verschiedener kultureller Hintergründe. Die in Dortmund und Bochum ansässigen jungen Künstler*innen arbeiten mit Formen des Puppen-, Objekttheaters und Physical Theatre. Thematischer Schwerpunkt ihrer Arbeiten ist ein philosophischer Blick auf zeitgenössische Fragen wie die nach Identität. Ihre erste Produktion "Der kleine schwarze Fisch", ein Schattentheater nach einem iranischen Märchen, kam 2016 in Bochum zur Premiere. Weitere Spieltermine fanden in verschiedenen Städten NRW´s statt. Die Arbeit wurde zum 45 Fritz-Wortelmann-Preis-Wettbewerb eingeladen.

Young Social Anthropologist, Gifted Student of Healing and Black Active Activist. Manape Shogole is a spoken word female poet, with more than seven years in the art world. She was born and bred in Orlando East, Soweto, and has travelled Europe, particular Bayreuth in Germany and some parts of Sweden embracing her gift of rhythmic storytelling. Her diverse and intellectual audience; describe her poetry as crazy-wild, as it encompasses the Johannesburg city’s most dramatic atmospheres captured in stanzas. Her performance is executed through thick-spirited words filled with emotions and, expressed intentionally. Manape, describes her art as ‘theatrical performative poetry’.

Nuno Silas is a visual artist, works with performance and installation, lives and works between Germany, Portugal, and Mozambique. He completed Visual Arts at Visual Arts school in Mozambique and Fine Arts from the Higher School of Arts and Design (ESAD.cr) in Portugal. His practice includes performance, painting, drawing, photography, Video. In his complex installations explores the manipulation and reconstitution of everyday objects as well as historical artefacts. In his work, he chooses to use cardboard, fabrics, and other materials found that are spoils of contemporary society. 

Véronique Tadjo is an author, university professor and artist. Born in Paris, she was raised in Abidjan. She has received several awards for her novels, collections of poems and stories for young people. Her work has been translated in many languages. Her last book, “En compagnie des hommes” is about the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa. A translation into English is forthcoming.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o is one of the most prolific and ground-breaking contemporary writers. Ngũgĩ was designing decoloniality and intervening into neocolonial and dictatorial policies of British colonialism and Kenyan governance. He has taught at numerous African, US-American and german universities, holding a honorary professorship at Bayreuth University.

The Mozambican bassist Childo Tomas has done a lot of research into traditional and popular music from different corners of Africa and particularly from Mozambique. This knowledge and experience, along with his virtuosity on the bass has brought Childo critical acclaim. Besides the electric bass as lead instrument, Childo also plays M'bira, Xivocovoco, Xigovia.

Abeiku Arhin Tsiwah is a Ghanaian Technology/Smartphone Habitué, an Award-Winning Poet and a Creative. Abeiku reads and edits Poetry for Lunaris Review (a Journal of Arts and the Literary, Nigeria). His works have appeared in respected creative journals/magazines across the globe.

Simon Vincent is a UK-based composer, performer, and lecturer whose work explores the sonic and spiritual realms of timbre and socio-politics through the use of a highly unique music language. An active member of the jazz, improvised, and experimental music scenes since the late 1980's, Simon has performed in a wide variety of solo and collaborative settings, and their work have received international critical praise from The Wire, International Piano, Jazz Journal, Avant Music News, Vital Weekly, BBC Radio 3, and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival among many others.

Since the age of six, Cândido Salomão „Matchume“ Zango has dedicated  himself to Mozambican traditional music. Matchume studied music and plays traditional instruments such as timbila, mbira, xitende and djembe drums.