VNigerian Content Creator Records Tayo Ainaabout anything from Nigeria Japanese (emigration) wave and voodoo festivals in Benin, to the beat of the Afrobeats star David or the last hunter-gatherer tribes In Tanzania, you can get millions of views on YouTube.
Aina, 31, who started her channel in 2017 while working as an Uber driver, says it helped her see parts of Nigeria she had never had the opportunity to visit before. Using his iPhone, he began creating mini-adventures on his work trips, taking breaks to document the places he visited and telling stories not covered by mainstream media.
Aina learned how to film and edit through YouTube tutorials, saved up to buy better equipment, and soon began traveling beyond Nigeria to countries like Kenya, Ethiopia, and Namibia, creating travel videos that showcased the culture and social life in the country. continent through the lens of an African traveler.
“Most online media was negative and I saw that it was changing the narrative about Africa by showing it in a more (representative) light,” says Aina, who now travels the world.
A 2024 report on Africa’s creative industry prepared by publisher Communiqué and media and technology company TM Global, valued the sector at £2.4bn and predicted it would grow five-fold by 2030, reflecting trends in the global creative economy. Its growth is being driven by a wave of creators aged between 18 and 34, and stimulated by the increase in Internet connectivity and the use of social networks across the continent, as well as the explosion of African culture in the world stage.
The growing interest in African culture – by Afrobeats and Amapiano music and dance to international fashion collections made with African textiles such as Ankara or Kikoy, and african movie – is part of an international clamor for authentic cultural storytelling outside the global north, reflected in global cultural movements like the Korean wave, says David Adeleke, founder of Comunicado.
This year, TikTok recognized more than a dozen African creatorsincluding Nigerian lifestyle creator @__iremidewho makes videos satirizing everyday life, and the South African princess sachiko22 years old, known for cosplaying anime, video game and pop culture characters. Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, recently meetings held with creators from the region to discuss expanded avenues for monetization on the platform, while other social media platforms, including YouTube and TikTok, are increasing their presence, and investment funds such as East Africa heva They are getting involved.
While the industry is gaining ground, it is still young, according to the report. Most content creators are in their first three years, have fewer than 10,000 followers, and face challenges translating their social capital into income. Conversations about monetization and standardization of the creator business ecosystem are still taking place primarily in the West, the report adds.
But that is slowly changing.
As Aina’s channel grew and attracted a more global audience, she discovered that she could make a lot more money when their content was seen by audiences in the West rather than Africa. YouTube’s advertising model is based on advertising investment, which is lower in many African markets than in North America or Europe.
“Part of it is economic: generally speaking, Western creators and audiences have more resources, but that is not enough to justify the disparity in opportunities,” says Adeleke.
For Aina, who began diversifying her content and viewer base in order to earn more, there were other issues to worry about. He has blogged about the barriers and prejudices he has faced while traveling, such as his arrest in Ethiopia on suspicion of carrying drugs, his arrest in South Africa on suspicion of being a “swindler,” and his denial of entry to Dubai. The Dubai incident in 2022 was the “last straw” for Aina, who finally obtained a Saint Kitts and Nevis passport by investing his savings in investments there, which made him a citizen of the Caribbean country.
He now runs a creator academy on YouTube that has trained almost 2,000 creators, mainly African. “I want to inspire the next generation of Africans to have no limits and grow their brands globally,” he says.
Chiamaka “Amaka” AmakuA 30-year-old Nigerian travel and lifestyle innovator who works as a social media manager and creates content as a personal project, says digital infrastructure issues, including challenges in making and receiving international payments, may limit the growth of Nigerian creators. Some global payment platforms impose restrictions on certain countries, including Nigeria, due to concerns about fraud and money laundering.
“Payment is one of our biggest problems in the creator economy in Nigeria,” says Amaku, adding that barriers to payment discourage global brands from working with Nigerian creators.
In recent years, Fintech companies such as flutter wave and pay stackthat support international payments, have reduced the barriers creators face when receiving digital payments, but a number of restrictions remain, including in local banking policy. For a ride creator like Amaku, that means trouble booking flights or taking Ubers abroad.
Amaku, who charges between £250 and £500 for posts on his Instagram page, which has around 20,000 followers, says it is difficult to make a living creating content and the “culture of silence” around posts Industry fees in Nigeria leaves many creators defrauded.
Sharon MachiraA 31-year-old Kenyan luxury travel creator who describes her audience as “Afropolitan champagne nomads,” agrees. Many companies still rely on traditional advertising, he says, so competition for brand sponsorships is fierce, which can make fee negotiations a race to the bottom.
With around 20,000 followers on Instagram and almost 7,000 on YouTube, he gets around five brand deals a year, between £600 and £1,000 for each campaign. When she became a full-time content creator last year after nearly a decade in media and PR, she realized she couldn’t count on a handful of unpredictable brand deals to make a living and opened a studio. public relations that helps companies adapt their content to their needs. audience, working with companies such as travel agency Nomadic and the luxury hostel in Rwanda Singita Kwitonda.
According to her, building a business around her brand on social media brings her several times more income per project than brand deals. “I think that’s where the promise really is for (African) creators: leveraging their social capital, their networks, their credibility and their personal brand to launch their business,” he says.