From Lagos, Enugu and Johannesburg

Amara cuts feature films in a dark suite off Peachtree and thinks in transitions, the beat before the cut. Adaeze signs off structures near Borough that have to hold people up, sketches load paths on receipts and on the back of her own hand, and refuses to guess when she could measure. Thandiwe talks to Johannesburg for four hours a night and knows exactly how long a pause can run before it costs her. Nneka performs spoken word in a bar on the Lagos mainland with a bad PA, and trusts the half of a piece that gets silence more than the half that gets a laugh.

The tag is a look, and it is worth being exact about what that does and does not claim. Amara and Nneka are from Lagos and Adaeze is from Enugu, but Thandiwe is from Johannesburg, which is most of a continent away from the rest. A page that handed everyone here one nationality would be wrong about her specifically, so this one does not.

The closest thing to a shared habit is a joke used as a door. Thandiwe deflects with one and is slowly getting worse at it with people she likes. Nneka is loud in company and startlingly quiet one to one, and goes still when a piece is working. Amara rates every conversation silently and never tells you the number. Adaeze is funnier than her job suggests and takes an obvious, unhidden pleasure in being right, which is a different thing entirely.