The Creative
Economy

The creative economy is Africa’s most undervalued export. When Burna Boy fills Madison Square Garden, when Tems wins a Grammy, when Wizkid collaborates with Drake and the song becomes the most-streamed track on Spotify that year — these are not cultural curiosities. They are the leading edge of a $4.2 billion industry that is growing faster than any other creative sector on Earth. Afrobeats is now the most-streamed non-English genre on Spotify. The audience is global. The production is almost entirely African.

Nollywood tells the parallel story in film. With 2,500 films produced annually, it is the second-largest film industry in the world by volume — behind India, ahead of the United States. Revenue is $660 million and growing. Netflix invested $175 million in African content. Amazon, Showmax, and local platforms are following. The content pipeline is deep because the stories are universal — family, ambition, spirituality, survival — told through a lens the world has never seen at this scale.

Fashion and visual art represent the next wave. Thebe Magugu winning the LVMH Prize was not just an individual achievement — it was a signal that African design has moved from "inspired by" to "leading." Lagos Fashion Week, Dakar Fashion Week, FIFME in Marrakech are producing designers that European houses are watching. El Anatsui’s work commands museum retrospectives and auction prices above $1 million. The 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair has become a fixture of the London art calendar.

The creative economy connects to the demographic dividend in a direct way — the youngest continent on Earth produces the culture the rest of the world consumes. But the value capture is still unbalanced. African artists generate billions in streams but the infrastructure — labels, distribution, management, intellectual property protection — is still largely controlled from outside the continent. The creative economy is the soft power engine. The question is whether the economic engine follows.