As the world grows older, a staggering change is happening in Africa.
The United Nations has projected that by the year 2050, Africa’s population will reach close to 2.5 billion. Such a number would mean that one in four humans on earth will be African, a powerful shift that has already started to officially record. Not only are analysts indicating how this seismic change is revamping numerous African countries, but it is also transforming their connection with the rest of the world.
As birth rates remain on a sharp decline in wealthier countries, leading to older, smaller communities by default, a colossal baby boom is underway in Africa. The median age on the continent is 19, maintaining its mark as the youngest population in the world. Although it was 17 just some 20 years ago, it has never registered on a scale quite like this. In less than 30 years, when Africans will make up at least 25% of all mankind, one-third of them will be between the ages of 15 and 24. In addition, The New York Times has reported that within the next ten years, Africa will hold the world’s largest workforce, exceeding both India and China and by the 2040s, it will account for two out of every five children born on the planet.
Analysts have confirmed that these demographic forecasts are absolute and reliable. It is due to the fact that most of the African women who will give birth in the coming decades have already been born. Unless there’s some sort of chancy disturbance preordained to seal Africa’s fate, the momentum can’t be stopped.
The signs of what some are calling a “youthquake” hold proverbial tremors taking shape in Africa’s 54 nations and richly unnumbered cultures. It can already be felt around the world in all areas of civilization including the arts, religion, technology and politics. While some African countries are bracing themselves to sustain how the massive shift might add to current challenges (threats of floods, droughts and storms brought on by climate change, for instance), experts are noting how the stirring energy of the continent as a whole, sits in sharp contrast to the increasingly troubling unease and anguish currently growing in Asia, Europe and the United States.
Nowhere is this remarkable surge felt more right now than in the diaspora’s creative space. And an emerging legion of young African artists, those that include chart-topping musicians, best-selling authors and critically acclaimed filmmakers, are uniquely driving a dynamic, cultural shift on the continent and around the world.
Mr Eazi
Through his Afrobeats music, Nigeria’s own Mr Eazi is boldly redefining global narratives about Africa. The 32-year-old (he was born Oluwatosin Oluwole Ajibade) stormed the music scene in the mid-to-late 2010s with popular tunes such as “Leg Over” and “Skin Tight,” but his early success happened when Nigerian artists such as WizKid took quantum leaps over to Western markets by way of social media, where Africans in Britain played a significant part in propelling his fame.
While he has released many singles, mixtapes and collaborations with over a billion streams online, it wasn’t until a couple of months ago when Mr Eazi released what he calls his debut studio album, “The Evil Genius”, a musical compilation of stories about love, community and solitude. He also commissioned works from thirteen African visual artists to optically represent each track, displayed at shows in Ghana and Britain.
Omar Victor Diop
Senegalese photographer Omar Victor Diop is one of the most successful artists in all of Africa. The strong historical references he displays in his work beautifully amplify the contributions of Black individuals throughout world history. With powerful portrayals such as the protests in Alabama, the Soweto uprising in South Africa and the impact of climate change on Africa and those countries in the Global South, the 44-year-old Dakar native explores and celebrates the diaspora’s past and present.
Nnedi Okorafor
Twenty years ago, American publishers called Nigerian-American sci-fi novelist Nnedi Okorafor’s work “unrelatable.” But when she signed a seven-figure deal earlier this year for her latest novel, The Africanfuturist, it will become yet another of her publications proven irresistible to readers. Clearly, the visionary was ahead of her time.
Scheduled to be released in 2025, the book is one that 49-year-old Okorafor believes she never would have been able to promote when she was a budding author in the early 2000s. Many of her stories are a combination of science fiction, fantasy and African mythology, initially dismissed by American publishers as confusing and hard to connect with. But they are the same books that have also earned her top honors, including four Hugo Awards and a World Fantasy Award. By staying true to her craft, Okorafor has also inspired a generation of American tale tellers who aren’t afraid to distinctly channel their African backgrounds and history in their work.
Adamma and Adanne Ebo
Filmmakers (and twin sisters) Adamma and Adanne Ebo modeled their Nigerian and American Southern heritage as inspiration for their first feature film, Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul, a laugh-out-loud satire about a dishonored pastor (played by Sterling K. Brown) of an Atlanta megachurch and his devout, high-powered wife (portrayed by the incomparable Regina Hall), two Southern Baptist scammers desperate to reopen their church after a public scandal.
The children of an American mother and Nigerian father, 31-year-old Spelman College alumni Adamma and Adanne fell head over heels with cinema through films like the anime classic Kiki’s Delivery Service, along with movies they affectionately call “hood classics” such Baby Boy and Juice. Last year, they signed a multi-year development deal with Disney Television Studios, are currently working on an animated superhero series and have founded their own production company named Ejime, which means “twin” in Igbo.
Toheeb Jimoh
For British actor Toheeb Jimoh, his journey toward two of his most noteworthy roles, Sam Obisanya on Ted Lasso and Tunde on Amazon Prime’s The Power was a bit thorny and complicated. Born in London, he spent most of his childhood in Nigeria, where he was frequently teased about his heritage. Classmates called him “London boy” although he had no awareness of the city at the time. But conversely, when he moved back to Britain, his Nigerian background isolated him. “My Nigerianess was the thing that set me apart from other people,” he reveals to The New York Times. “It felt like if I wanted to fit in, that was the thing that I needed to get rid of.” As a consequence, “my accent changed, and I kind of had to reject my culture a little bit just to acclimatize.”
At 26, the Emmy-nominated actor has since embraced his West African roots, along with authorship on how its compelling stories are told.
