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What I love about “King of Boys,” Netflix’s first original Nigerian series, is that every so often the lead character Eniola Salami — a mafia boss, corrupt political sponsor and formidable middle-aged woman — will pause. The action will stop. And Salami, played by a withering Sola Sobowale, will come out with the perfect Yoruba proverb for the occasion.

Séverine Autesserre argues that peace is primarily made by local insiders, not by political deals, elections or what she calls “Peace, Inc.” — the multibillion-dollar industry where outsiders try to end conflicts, like in Congo, home to the world’s most expensive peacekeeping mission. As a perpetual outsider trying to understand and explain conflicts, I find this book useful.

On my daily walks around Dakar, Senegal’s coastal capital, I try to spot locations from this 1973 masterpiece by Djibril Diop Mambéty. Dakar has changed so much in the past 50 years, and the purple flares and open spaces are mostly gone. But the atmosphere and style that “Touki Bouki” captured is still here.

If I were in Brussels, I’d go to Abdoulaye Konaté’s exhibition at Galerie Templon. He is a Malian artist who creates huge, colorful, mesmerizing tapestries from bazin fabric and embroidery. I’ll have to be content to look at photos of his exhibition at the last biennale in Dakar — the region’s hottest art event, this year slated for November.