Narrative Matters #1 Newsletter

What does an Ethiopian businesswoman who founded a software company have in common with a Nigerian singer/songwriter?

The answer is: Global Status.

Last month, Sara Menker and Burna Boy were featured on the front covers of two of the most influential global media brands; Time’s 100 Most Influential Companies and the UK edition of GQ. This was one of several signals that the way the world sees Africa and Africans is changing.

And we intend to document these tectonic shifts more intentionally.

Celebrating Africans

British-Ghanaian architect, David Adjaye, became the first black architect to be awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects Royal Gold Medal. 

Thuso Mbedu made history as the first South African to lead a US television drama, Underground Railroad, which is based on a Pulitzer-winning novel. 

After years of complaints about representation at the Oscars, two African films made the cut for the Best International Feature film nomination; the Ivorian film, Night of the Kings, and the Tunisian film, The Man Who Sold His Skin. But, it was an intriguing South African Netflix documentary, My Octopus Teacher, that won an Oscar for the Best Documentary category. 

British-Ugandan actor, Daniel Kaluuya, won best supporting actor for his role in Judas and the Black Messiah. His win divided Ugandans, who were hotly debating whether Kaluuya’s success can be claimed as a win for the country or not. It highlights the complex nature of diaspora identity and who is African and who is not. 

Brand Africa

We were proud to see international brands and campaigns collaborating not just with African artists but with African artists who put Africa and their heritage at the centre of their work. 

A billboard featuring a collaboration between Laolu Senbanjo, a Nigerian bred, Brooklyn-based visual artist, and the international NGO Malaria No More was featured in Times Square in New York City last month. 

Facebook was behind a book about African women that dispels the narrative about African women. LeadHers: Life Lessons featured 19 dynamic African women from across the continent sharing their stories of success. 

History Matters

Two European powers have proved that the narrative about Africa is genuinely shifting where it matters. Both Germany and France have recognised Africa’s growing positioning as a continent that deserves to be respected.

Germany has acknowledged their actions in Namibia during the colonial era and offered some compensation.

While France asked for forgiveness and has apologised for standing by while the Rwanda Genocide took place.

Connecting Africa

We are also seeing more connections being made within Africa – showing that the gap between what we know and believe about each other is closing and that trust is growing. 

Kenya’s Safaricom (backed by South Africa’s Vodacom and Britain’s Vodafone) is officially Ethiopia’s first private network provider, ending the Ethiopian government’s monopoly over its telecoms sector, one of the last in the world to be shut down. 

Basketball Africa League (BAL) which represents the NBA’s first investment outside of North America has launched in Rwanda this month. 12 African countries have signed up and will compete for the continental title. 

To illustrate the power of sports and how it can connect Africans to each other. Our regular look at How Africa Googles threw up an interesting insight. Botswana was the most searched term in Algeria during the month of March, a little digging showed that the timing coincided with the African Cup of Nations Qualifiers between Botswana and Algeria. Few people in the country knew much about the country they were playing but football triggered an interest. 

Artists for Africa

But it’s the attempts to shift the most persistent narratives that got us excited. “Somalia” and “artists” are not words that sit easily in the same sentence. Enter Saga Ali, the female executive director of the Somali Arts Foundation who launched the country’s first institution for contemporary arts to create a space for artistic ideas to flourish.

In Burkina Faso, where poverty is the reigning narrative the idea of a comedy festival seems incongruous. But not to Augusta Palenfo, the female organiser of the Ouagadougou Annual Festival of Laughter and Comedy who used the platform to train female comedians as a way to increase their participation in the local male-dominated comedy scene.

Africans fighting back

British-Nigerian Gbemisola Isimi sparked a much-needed conversation about cultural appropriation and ownership when she discovered that a British company called Timbuktu Global had trademarked Yoruba, the name of one of Nigeria’s ethnic groups and one of its major languages. She started an online campaign, #Yorubanotforsale, which led to an online petition and announcement by Timbuktu Global that it’s letting go of the trademark. 

We used our voice and platforms to highlight a problematic story about covid variants that appeared on the 6th of May in South Africa’s News24 - picked up from Bloomberg News with the headline: “Rapidly spreading variants compound Africa’s coronavirus woes”. The biased headline, the negative framing, the inaccurate prioritising of sources and overall sensationalising of the variant story got our attention and we highlighted the reasons why here.

It takes a village

Ballet is not what comes to mind when you think of Nairobi’s art scene. Zambia’s next innovator is an 11-year-old protégé. An illustrator in South Africa is creating a coffee table book that challenges misconceptions that keep African artists out of art curriculums. 

These are some of the stories being produced by 18 content creators, wordsmiths, performance artists, visual artists and journalists who have been awarded grants by the Africa No Filter Kekere Storytellers Fund. The fund supports the next generation of Africa’s emerging artists to tell alternative stories about their communities. It’s part of our work to identify and amplify artists and creatives who are helping to shift narratives and show an alternative Africa through their creative talent. We are pleased with ourselves…

If you got this far, like us you should be excited about the progress Africa is making because in the words of Burna Boy ‘Africa is in the house’. 

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