“These days, if you don’t tell your story, someone else will… What is your story?”
The quotation above from Harlem is not merely a personal provocation, it is – for me from a brand Africa perspective – a continental mandate.
For centuries, Africa’s story has largely been authored by outsiders: colonial administrators, missionaries, explorers, development agencies, and global media conglomerates. These narratives, often framed through deficit lenses, have emphasised poverty, conflict, disease, and dependency, while marginalising Africa’s intellectual traditions, entrepreneurial ingenuity, cultural sophistication, and civilisational depth. In branding terms, Africa has suffered from a prolonged identity hijacking – a situation where perception has been shaped more by external storytellers than by Africans themselves.
Brand Africa, at its core, is about narrative sovereignty. It is the conscious and strategic reclaiming of voice, image, and meaning. The quotation reminds us that storytelling is not a cosmetic exercise; it is an act of power. Those who control narrative ultimately influence investment flows, tourism choices, diplomatic relations, cultural consumption, and even how Africans see themselves. When Africa does not deliberately articulate its own story, it leaves a vacuum that is quickly filled by stereotypes, half-truths, and outdated frames.
Telling Africa’s story does not mean romanticising reality or ignoring challenges. It means contextualising complexity. It means presenting Africa as a continent of contradictions and possibilities: rich and poor, traditional and futuristic, wounded by history yet relentlessly creative. It means elevating stories of innovators in Lagos and Kigali, filmmakers in Johannesburg, fashion designers in Dakar, agripreneurs in Limpopo, fintech disruptors in Nairobi, and cultural archivists in Timbuktu. These are not fringe stories – they are the mainstream of modern Africa.
The quotation also challenges Africans to ask a difficult internal question: What is our story to ourselves? Brand Africa is as much an inward project as it is an outward one. A continent cannot convincingly sell confidence to the world if its own people have internalised narratives of inferiority. Reclaiming story is therefore also about rebuilding continental self-belief, pride, and psychological ownership of destiny.
In practical terms, brand Africa storytelling must be intentional, multi-platform, and future-facing. It must live in books, films, podcasts, exhibitions, festivals, digital platforms, classrooms, boardrooms and policy documents. It must be driven by Africans who understand both the soul of the continent and the mechanics of global perception management. Most importantly, it must move beyond episodic campaigns into a sustained, long-term narrative architecture.
Ultimately, the quote distils a simple truth: Africa cannot outsource its identity. If we do not define who we are, others will continue to define us in ways that serve their interests, not ours. The real question, then, is not only “What is your story?” — but “Who is brave enough to tell Africa’s story, fully, honestly, and unapologetically, in Africa’s own voice?”
At a deeper level, the injunction to tell your own story speaks to Africa’s urgent need to shift from being a reactive brand to becoming a proactive brand. For too long, the continent has been locked into cycles of responding to how it is portrayed – issuing rebuttals to negative headlines, countering stereotypes after they have already taken root, and attempting reputation repair instead of reputation design. A mature Brand Africa strategy demands a decisive pivot: Africa must move upstream in the narrative value chain and become a primary producer of meaning, not merely a commentator on meaning produced elsewhere.
This requires an understanding that storytelling is not only cultural – it is economic infrastructure. Nations and regions that consistently tell coherent, aspirational stories attract capital, talent, tourism, and partnerships because story creates emotional familiarity before financial engagement. When Africa tells fragmented or inconsistent stories, or allows others to define the dominant frame, it pays an invisible tax in the form of higher risk premiums, reduced investor confidence, and diminished cultural capital. Narrative clarity, therefore, becomes a competitiveness tool.
There is also a generational dimension embedded in the quote. Africa’s youthful population – the largest in the world – is already telling stories through music, fashion, gaming, film, social media, podcasts, and digital entrepreneurship. However, these stories often operate in silos, disconnected from national branding strategies and continental policy frameworks. Brand Africa must become an enabling ecosystem that amplifies, curates, and scales these youth-driven narratives, ensuring they feed into a coherent continental story rather than existing as isolated flashes of brilliance.
Moreover, telling Africa’s story is inseparable from controlling Africa’s intellectual property. Stories without ownership become raw material for other people’s industries. When African narratives are packaged, distributed, and monetised primarily by external platforms, the continent loses both economic value and narrative authority. A Brand Africa approach must therefore prioritise African-owned media platforms, publishing houses, streaming services, archives, museums, and data repositories as strategic assets, not peripheral cultural luxuries.
The quote also challenges leadership – political, corporate, and cultural – to become chief storytellers. Every policy speech, investment pitch, trade mission, cultural exchange, and international engagement is an opportunity to reinforce a consistent story about who Africa is and where it is going. Leaders who speak only in technical language without narrative framing surrender emotional ground to others who are more adept at storytelling, even if their facts are weaker. In the global arena, perception often moves faster than policy.
Crucially, Brand Africa storytelling must resist the temptation of a single, monolithic narrative. Africa’s power lies in its plurality. The task is not to flatten difference but to weave diversity into a unifying meta-story: a continent of many voices, bound by shared histories, shared futures, and shared aspirations for dignity, prosperity, and self-determination. Unity of purpose does not require uniformity of expression.
Ultimately, “What is your story?” becomes a strategic mirror held up to the continent. It asks whether Africa sees itself as a perpetual subject of history or as an active author of history. It asks whether Africans are content to be characters in other people’s scripts or ready to write, direct, and distribute their own epic.
From a Brand Africa perspective, the answer must be unequivocal: Africa’s story is not a footnote to global history. It is a central chapter still being written – by Africans, for Africans, and for a world that is increasingly discovering that the future will be, in no small part, shaped on African terms.
Tujenge Afrika Pamoja! Let’s Build Africa Together!
Enjoy your weekend.
Saul Molobi (FCIM)
PUBLISHER: JAMBO AFRICA ONLINE
and
Group Chief Executive Officer and Chairman
Brandhill Africa™
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