The Next Wave Of Black Creators Using AI To Tell African Stories

Image: Malik Afegbua, African Pride Magazine

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has come to play a crucial role in how the world operates, confronts issues, finds solutions to problems, and drives technological advancement within society. Simply put, AI is fast becoming a veritable tool of innovation across various fields of human endeavour.

Among the many success stories of AI is in its impact in the creative industry, where sectors like advertising and marketing, film, TV, video, and photography, IT, software, and computer services, arts, crafts, and design, literature as well as social media are beginning to experience a growing surge in the use of AI to meet its deliverables.

AI has also become instrumental in the art of storytelling, as several creative writers leverage its application to promote artistic talent, scale, and imagination, and achieve a global reach they were not used to in the past. For Black creators, AI is a welcoming development as it is useful as a tool to drive the amplification of African stories.

AI – The New Frontier of African Storytelling

Perhaps one of the greatest challenges of the past for Black creators was the platform to successfully get their stories out there onto a global platform. Limited by resources beyond their reach, the challenges faced by Black creators further reinforced the famous quote by Africa’s father of literature, Chinua Achebe, that “Until the lion tells the story, the hunter will always be the hero.”

With AI, the outlook is beginning to shift as more Black artists, writers, digital storytellers, filmmakers are leveraging tools like Sudowrite, CoWriter AI, Synthesia, LitVideo, Pictory, NovelAI to create stories that provide a musical, linguistic, and visual outlook for Africa, helping them not only control the narratives but also put a mark on their creativity to ensure the proper recognition and value for their works.

Why is this Important?

Since the time of colonialism, African stories have always struggled with a form of misrepresentation, as several of the stories were told from a non-African perspective in several cases, portraying the African societies as backward without understanding the peculiarities. 

Even with the coming of literature and movies, several of these stories either required a high-level budget to ensure their production or required publishing houses to be willing to commit to their publication.

With AI, high-level budget productions requiring massive casts and crews can now be explored by a single individual with a laptop and a creative mind. Characters can be visualized, landscapes constructed, and African story concepts can be visualized without needing to spend more than is necessary. Also, with AI, Black creators can control the narratives and influence the story’s direction to achieve the right messaging for the interested audience.

Black Creatives Leading the Charge

Malik Afegbua:

Filmmaker, creative technologist, and artist, Malik Afegbua is a Nigerian who gained global attention with the “Elder Series”. A collection of AI-inspired images that depicted senior citizens in colorful and stylish attire. His work not only brought him acclaim for its positive portrayal of elderly individuals in society, especially challenging the idea of aging in the societal context, but it also brought to the fore the conversations of AI and its impact in the creative art sector.

Source: Instagram | slickcityceo

Source: Malik Afegbua

Leveraging his African heritage, Malik effectively adapted his skill to bring to life the experiences of his work of art. As described by the Global Africa Business Initiative, “as a multifaceted storyteller, he seamlessly blends African heritage with futurism, adapting his medium to each narrative. His projects intentionally fuse artistic vision, lived experiences, and cutting-edge technology to push boundaries and highlight overlooked perspectives.” 

Vlady Dupuy:

The Franco-Togolese visual artist combines daily life experiences with cinematic art to craft stunning visual representations that stem from symbolism, anthropology, and modern realities. Working with the name Wuhey, Dupuy leverages AI to confront the limits placed on traditional art by applying the use of patterns, colours, and masks to inspire stories.

Source: Instagram | afriquenoirmagazine

Source: Threads: The Art Exchange

Winning first place in events like the WMF Bologna and Photopia Hamburg, Dupuy believes that AI holds the potential to open creative doors for traditional artists, non-averse to exploring AI as a tool to improve their craft.

Prince Jacon Osinachi Igwe:

One of Africa’s foremost crypto-artist, Osinachi is a digital artist who utilizes Microsoft Word processing software to create narrative illustrations that have been registered in the blockchain to be sold as non-fungible tokens (NFT) becoming the first Nigerian whose works artworks were showcased at the Ethereal Summit, New York, which was a conference that sought leverage blockchain to merge the gap between art and technology.

Source: Instagram | _osinachi

Source: Wikipedia

Leveraging his imagination and creativity while inspired by the color textures found in Nigeria, Osinachi’s works have received recognition, as they were among the selection of artists’ work that was auctioned at Christie’s Auction in London, 2021, and is also on display in the Chicago Booth, University of Chicago in London.

As AI continues to expand in its reach and capacity to visualize scenes, create characters, merge and design compelling African stories, the result is not only a transformation of the economics of the creative industry of Africa, but also provides Black creators with the space to re-imagine and reshape the future of Africa to preserve its progress for the next creative generation.

Okechukwu Nzeribe works with the Onitsha Chamber of Commerce, in Anambra State, Nigeria, and loves unveiling the richness of African cultures. okechukwu.onicima@gmail.com