What do Beats, Jordan, Yeezy, Tidal all have this in common?

African Americans have found a hack for creating billion dollar fortunes by monetizing culture.

Michael Jackson was probably first to do this by acquiring the Beatle’s catalogue.

The hack works.

But it would appear that it only works when the entrepreneur in question has enough cultural/social equity to actually build a personal brand that enables them to build products in spaces that relate well to the culture they belong to or are helping frame. Eg Dre and sound.

I wonder what that looks like in Africa; with Afrobeats on the up, and African fashion slowly making inroads.

Eventually Africa will become 40% of the world’s population. I wonder what that means in terms of cultural balance of power.

Does Lagos become one of the creative capitals of the world?

Does Nigerian food go mainstream the way Chinese food did?

Will South African house music properly go global?