Article by Kayode Odusanya


Ever since Black Panther made over a billion dollars earlier this year, Hollywood movie makers and Americans have had their eye on Africa. So many movies are currently in the works that center around Africa and our culture. Also, if you have noticed, a lot of American celebrities are now 'famzing' us.

A lot of people say Americans are just interested in commercializing our culture and making money for themselves. While that might be true, I prefer to look at the way these moves will benefit us. Right now, there is a Disney movie in the works titled, Sade. The writer, and also the director (Ola Shokunbi, Rick Famuyiwa) of this movie are of Nigerian descent. Tomi Adeyemi's best selling book (Children of Blood and Bone) is going to be made into a movie (with parts), and people are already saying it is going to be the next Harry Potter.

People have been saying we should be the ones writing our stories, now it is happening. The writers of these movies are second generation Nigerians. They even use Nigerian names, culture, traditional Nigerian gods in their stories. I believe this is a big step from Black Panther/Wakanda, which was purely fictional. With the sure success of these movies, more movies about Africa will be made, and we will get to a point where yours truly might even be picked up to write a Hollywood movie script for a big budget movie. So, I strongly believe this is a step in the right direction.

Thanks to Black Panther, African-American celebrities have been using African Ancestry to check their roots, and most have traced it back to Nigeria. Naomi Campbell, Questlove (of The Roots) and a host of others have started identifying themselves as Nigerians. DJ Envy was just in Nigeria a few months ago for a vacation. Puff Daddy is planing to come over in a few weeks. More will come, and this means more money from tourism. This means we won't be known just for Terrorism and Corruption. This is a positive thing and i choose to focus on this