- Africa’s iconic rhythms meet its youngest medium & culture scales globally in 4K.
- Africa’s animation industry is scaling fast, homegrown stories are going global in 3D.
- Afrobeat isn’t just music, it’s a cultural export with 14B+ streams and counting.
- Culture pays: Nigeria’s entertainment sector is a billion-dollar growth engine.
- “SOPO” proves African stories don’t need translation, just amplification
The rise of African stories in pixels
African animation isn’t a novelty; it’s a growth market. Analysts project the continent’s animation sector will expand at 7.39 % CAGR between 2025-33 IMARC Group, while the wider global animation economy heads toward US $391 billion in 2025. 3-D shorts like “SOPO” – a fable based loosely on the childhood of Fela Kuti – produced by Lagos-based Creele Animation Studios and directed by the multi-talented Nissi Ogulu (sister to Burna Boy), prove that local talent can now deliver world-class visuals without outsourcing the narrative voice. The result: intellectual property that is both export-ready and unmistakably African.
Fela Kuti’s echo across the diaspora
Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat was always bigger than Lagos nightlife – it was (and remains) a megaphone for self-determination. Streaming data backs the legacy: Afrobeats plays on Spotify grew 550 % between 2017-22 and topped 14 billion streams in 2023, with London and Paris sitting among the top-five listening cities Rest of World. Sub-Saharan Africa is now the fastest-growing recorded-music region globally, up 24.7 % year-on-year in 2023 The Guardian. Made Kuti’s score for “SOPO” threads that lineage into a new medium, turning speakers into storyboards and inviting diaspora audiences to see what they have long only heard.
Culture is good business
Across the continent, entertainment and media (E&M) is outpacing global averages. South Africa’s E&M revenues are forecast to jump from US $16.1 billion (2023) to US $19.8 billion by 2028, while Nigeria climbs from US $9 billion to US $13.6 billion according to PwC. Fan dollars follow the streams: Spotify paid Nigerian artists ₦58 billion (≈ US $38 million) in 2024, up 132 % YoY. Investors usually chase eyeballs; in African culture, the eyeballs are already chasing the product.
“SOPO”: unapologetically African, unapologetically animated
The short film premiered 28 June 2025 at EbonyLife Place, Lagos. “SOPO” is an adaptation of Benson Idonije’s memoir of Fela Kuti to a tender father-son plotline. Yet nothing here is diluted for global palates: the film keeps Nigerian Pidgin cadences, afro-modern colour palettes, and Made Kuti’s horn-rich score. Its planned festival tour and limited Nigerian theatrical run are less about scale than signal: African stories can own premium screens without translation committees.
What resonates, monetises
Culture exported on its own terms does three things:
- Builds soft power: Diaspora viewers see themselves rendered authentically.
- Extends catalogue value: Each Afrobeat stream or animated frame feeds into licensing, merchandising and tourism.
- Attracts capital: Rising Entertainment & Media growth rates and proven streaming demand de-risk investment in African studios.
“SOPO” isn’t merely a short film; it’s a business case for funding African creativity end-to-end – idea, score, pixels, and profit alike. If your 2025 strategy involves global growth markets, the continent’s next blockbuster IP might already be rendering in a Lagos or Johannesburg data farm. Invest where the beat, and the byte originate.