What African Time Could Mean Today
As South Africa prepares to mark Heritage Month, Castle Milk Stout is inviting South Africans to reconsider how heritage lives in everyday moments: in the time we make for one another, the knowledge shared between generations, and the ways we stay connected to where we come from.
It is within this context that Castle Milk Stout’s Reclaiming African Time campaign asks South Africans to look again at a phrase often reduced to lateness. Importantly, the campaign is not about excusing lateness or dismissing punctuality and responsibility. It is about exploring broader African understandings of time: time as presence, connection, community and the meaning attached to a moment.
For Castle Milk Stout, a brand with a long-standing role in celebrating African heritage, the campaign continues its commitment to championing African culture, creativity and storytelling. By bringing together cultural voices from different disciplines, Reclaiming African Time reflects the brand’s belief that culture is not only inherited; it is interpreted, shared and kept alive through how people live, create and connect today.
For actor and content creator Nhlanhla Kunene, African Time is most meaningful in the everyday moments spent with family, particularly with older family members whose memories provide a connection to where we come from.
“African Time isn’t really about being late. It’s about the moments you make for the people you love,” says Kunene. “We have become so used to chasing time that sometimes we forget those values. Going back to who you are and where you come from helps you understand the moments you need to share with your family.”
He recalls sitting with his grandparents and listening as they open what he describes as their “library”, sharing stories about their lives and the world they knew before him.
“Those are moments you can never experience anywhere else. They paint a picture of how life used to be without the pressure of time.”
This distinction sits at the heart of Reclaiming African Time. Castle Milk Stout is broadening the conversation beyond the clock as the only measure through which time is understood and valued, while making clear that punctuality and responsibility still matter.
Siswana describes this as a shift away from the stereotype of lateness towards “presence, meaningfulness and connectedness”.
Gogo Dineo Ndlanzi, a longstanding partner of Castle Milk Stout and respected traditional healer and cultural voice, brings years of knowledge of African history, culture and indigenous ways of understanding life to the conversation. Her contribution considers what our relationship with time can reveal when viewed through African experience, rather than through the stereotype that has come to define the phrase.
“For me, African Time is about understanding that time has never existed only in the clock. As Africans, we have always had ways of understanding when it is time to gather, when it is time to listen, when it is time to work and when it is time to simply be present. Reclaiming African Time is about remembering that there is meaning in those moments and allowing ourselves to savour them,” says Ndlanzi.
Contemporary visual artist Simhle Plaaitjies contributes an original artwork for Castle Milk Stout, interpreting heritage, identity and intentional living through her creative language.
“As young Africans, we have the power to create a visual language that tells our own stories, in our own way and on our own terms, while still honouring the wisdom and lived experiences of the people who came before us,” says Plaaitjies.
Together, these perspectives show that African Time can hold many meanings: from conversations across generations to creative expression, indigenous knowledge and the way people choose to be present with one another.
Through Reclaiming African Time, Castle Milk Stout is placing its heritage at the centre of a contemporary cultural conversation. The brand is using its platform to help shift a phrase long defined by stereotype into one that honours African identity, creativity and the shared moments that give culture its meaning.
Heritage Month gives South Africans an opportunity to celebrate what has been passed down, while considering what remains meaningful in the way we live now. Reclaiming African Time encourages audiences to carry that inherited knowledge forward with greater intention.
The message is clear: being on time still matters, but time can mean more than the clock. It can also be the time we make to listen, gather, remember, create and be present. Castle Milk Stout wants audiences to reclaim African Time as a celebration of presence, connection and cultural pride, and to savour the moments that keep African culture moving forward.
