Getting creative: African YouTubers and TikTokers search for ways to make it pay
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The £2.4bn sector is thriving, says a new report, as online demand grows for authentic cultural content created outside the global north – but there are still challenges. Vlogs by the Nigerian content creator Tayo Aina, on anything from Nigeria’s japa (emigration) wave and voodoo festivals in Benin, to time with the Afrobeats star Davido or the last hunter-gatherer tribes in Tanzania, can garner millions of views on YouTube.
![[Caroline Kimeu]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2024/05/16/Caroline_Kimeu_NEW.png?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Aina, 31, who started his channel in 2017 while working as an Uber driver, says it helped him to see parts of Nigeria he had never had the chance to visit before. Using his iPhone, he began to make mini-adventures of his work trips, taking breaks to document the places he visited, and telling stories not covered by mainstream media.
![[Tayo Aina standing in a corridor with camera equipment round his neck]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/db523e904e76c5d1b59ec251ecfc0058813b963e/0_548_2000_2119/master/2000.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Aina learned how to film and edit through tutorials on YouTube, saved up for better equipment, and soon began travelling beyond Nigeria to countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia and Namibia, creating travel videos that showcased culture and social life on the continent through the lens of an African traveller.
![[Tayo Aina standing by the Sphinx in Egypt]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/db9b4a4ebc7e843c66eeae188b634ed6241ac67f/0_251_1440_1172/master/1440.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
“Most of the media online was negative, and I saw that I was changing the narrative about Africa by showcasing it in a more [representative] light,” says Aina, who now travels the world. A 2024 report on Africa’s creator industry by the publishing firm Communiqué and the media and technology company TM Global, valued the sector at £2.4bn and predicted that it would grow five-fold by 2030, mirroring trends in the global creator economy. Its growth is being driven by a wave of creators aged 18 to 34, and spurred on by surging internet connectivity and social media use across the continent, as well as the explosion of African culture on the world stage.
![[Chiamaka Amaku outside the Louvre in Paris]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0529a93131fa2b4d7e3ec2651e77c521f026e00e/0_457_3024_3575/master/3024.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
