🔅 Afrobeats – The Photobook
Plus, How Beijing Became the Hottest Study-Abroad Ticket
Good morning from… can you guess where? (Answer at the bottom!)
Afrobeats – The Photobook
Before Afrobeats stormed playlists and sold-out arenas, photographer Oliver “Drummer” Akinfeleye was already wedged between flight cases and sound checks, chronicling Wizkid, Davido and Burna Boy as they graduated from club stages to Madison Square Garden marquees.
His new book, Eagle Eye, stitches those moments together: Wizkid crooning to a 200-seat crowd before London’s O2 three-night run; Burna Boy, shirtless in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, backlit by a thousand camera phones; Davido pumping his fists to a sea of upturned faces in Washington DC.
Drummer’s backstage access captures the quieter pulses too… Wizkid slumped on a couch, eyes closed, phone to ear, minutes after rehearsal. Each frame charts Afrobeats’ journey from Ghanaian highlife and Fela’s Afrobeat roots, through diasporic London block parties, to a genre that’s now recognised by the Grammys.
Drummer’s goal is simple: not just to show what happened, but to make you feel the humidity, the shrill feedback, and the sudden quiet before the beat drops and the stadium erupts.
You can find the book here.
China’s Campus Coup: How Beijing Became the Hottest Study-Abroad Ticket in Africa
Why battle U.S. visa officers when you can snag a full ride, tasty noodles, and a crash course in Mandarin? Tens of thousands of African students are swapping Ivy-draped lecture halls for Chinese campuses, and Washington’s latest visa squeeze only presses the accelerator.
First of all, tuition in Nanjing: a few grand. Same pharmacy degree in the States: the cost of a small jet. Add subsidised dorms, low living costs, and visas that don’t feel like a courtroom drama, and China starts to look like the obvious choice for Africa’s upwardly mobile Gen Z.
Beijing isn’t doing this out of pure altruism. From Huawei boardrooms to government ministries in Accra, China-trained alumni are fast becoming the go-to translators (linguistic and cultural) for the next wave of Belt-and-Road deals.
Meanwhile in America… In 2024 the U.S. rejected more than half of African student-visa applications. Now Trump is talking about yanking visas from Harvard’s internationals altogether.
Some of the China-based grads will chase jobs in Shanghai; others fly home to start a business, broker contracts, or chase all kinds of other opportunities that have opened up thanks to their exposure.
Why Africa’s Call-Center Boom Might Out-Dial Asia’s
Indian and Filipino operators, brace yourselves: Nairobi, Lagos and Cape Town are sliding into your headset lane. Business-process outsourcing (BPO) still employs barely 1 million Africans (around 2 % of global headcount), yet revenue is forecast to grow 14 % a year in Africa through 2028… nearly double the world pace. Kenya alone is targeting a million new seats in five years, sweetening investors with tax holidays and “cash-per-job” grants.
What’s driving the switchboard shuffle?
Cheap, educated, English-clear labour. Kenyan agents cost 60–70 % less than their US or EU counterparts; Indian wages keep inching up. Western clients also like the “neutral” African accent.
Convenient time zones. A Johannesburg night-shift overlaps New York’s afternoon and London’s morning without zombie hours.
Data-hungry AI. Someone has to label millions of photos and train chatbots; East Africa’s youthful grads are queueing up with headsets and coffee.
But “next frontier” doesn’t equal paradise: Content-moderation gigs can mean eight-hour shifts policing gore and hate speech for Silicon Valley with minimal therapy and $230-ish monthly pay. When legal heat rises (ask Meta in Kenya), platforms can move overnight to Accra or Manila, leaving thousands jobless.
The AI elephant: Genesis Analytics reckons 40% of Africa’s entry-level BPO tasks are ripe for automation. Yet, emotional, higher-order work may keep humans in the loop (and perhaps even boost wages) if governments keep feeding the pipeline with STEM grads rather than just cheap cubicles.
The Bottom Line: Outsourcing won’t solve Africa’s 200-million-youth employment crunch, but if Nairobi, Lagos and Kigali can climb the value chain, India’s crown could wobble.
Food for Thought
“What you say is what you will be judged by.”
— Kenya Proverb
And the Answer is…
The photo is from Mbabane, Eswatini. You can also send in your own photos, alongside the location, and we’ll do our best to feature them.