RAPTBizTrendsTV | 54 Magazine's Phindile Khoza: African culture on the global stage
Discussing this is the African cultural visionary and strategic business leader at 54 Magazine, Phindile Khoza.
Her mandate for the publication, which launched in January 2023 and is now one of the definitive voices for African culture on the global stage, is to curate the celebration of African culture, which she says is more than a career. It's a calling named after the 54 Nations of Africa.
Culture and identity
For her, culture is a starting point, and technology follows.
“Culture is a driving force, not science, as ultimately it decides our values, what we believe in and the way we do things.”
The foundation of our culture, she says, comes from your home, your upbringing and what you are taught.
Everyone’s experience of this is different, making us different individuals with different identities.
It is the same for Africa.
“Are you African because you live in Africa? Are you African if you were born here but now live elsewhere in the world? Are you African is you live elsewhere but your ancestors are African?”
She says this shows how subjective this question is and that no one has the right to impose their definitions on what is African on what another person, because it's so complex. “You get to tell your own story, and nobody else gets to correct you because that's how you see it essentially.”
She gives the example of the Siddi tribe in India, who share African ancestry yet identify as Indian.
Redefining the African narrative
Today, African creatives are reclaiming and redefining the narrative around Africa, especially young people.
She says African stories must be told with respect and dignity, she says. “We need to make sure that we are telling the truth about what we are showcasing - this is our collective responsibility, no matter how small or big our platforms are.”
She acknowledges that African traditions and languages today are not the same as how our elders lived them.
“We've got access to money, resources, tools, and to places and travel where we can actually go and learn about our cultures intentionally, and we need to take advantage of these resources to do this, but also so we can preserve our culture.”
She addresses how African culture is evolving into the future through the African fashion and art scenes.
She also mentioned how Africans who have settled outside of Africa have also started their own communities where they can still celebrate pieces of themselves and home through their art and other ways.
“This is an evolution of how people view themselves individually as artists from an identity perspective and how they build communities even outside of the continent.”
So the conversation around African identity, culture and heritage is taking place not only within Africa but globally.
The tension between identity and flattened culture
This, she says, in the age of social media, means that identity is more important than ever, as there is a real danger of us losing ourselves as people.
“Identity plays a role because if you don't know how you identify and define yourself, how do you then become a part of these different communities and spaces and make your life better?”
This has a lot to do with young people trying to find their place in the world.
It also relates to Africa from a geopolitical point grappling with the balance between sovereignty and solidarity.
“To be sovereign, you need to own yourself and your identity. You need to be independent, but if you insulate yourself too much from the rest of the world, you become isolated.
“Conversely, if you lean too far into solidarity, you end up dissolving yourself and also perhaps losing your place in the world.”
She refers to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's World Economic Forum address this year.
“There's that tension at the national level, but there's also that tension at an individual level, especially when you're trying to figure out your place in identity and identity as an African in an increasingly globalised world.
To be entirely assimilated, to feel comfortable in that space, there's the risk of being absorbed by the space and losing identity, and many cultures have experienced that and much of Europe has become flattened, homogenised, even the US.”
More African voices needed
How do we balance embracing diversity without diluting it? She says this is the balance young Africans are struggling with as they go out into the world, which is to participate in the broader conversation without diluting their diversity.
One way to do this, she says, is intentional education, that is, education through resources such as travel, their magazine, social media, podcasts and listening to stories or oral traditions and the elders, to learn about yourself as you learn about others.
She does warn that we also need to be conscious or educate ourselves against losing certain things, especially with the growth of AI.
“Technology's a tool. It's here. It's supposed to make our lives easier. But I think when you generate something as an AI image and broadcast it, are you explaining the context around it, and what message are you trying to share from an African perspective?"
While technology is very democratising, it is also very flattening.
“It levels the playing field, but it is also very concentrated, so the biggest voices win and amplify, such as the US talking about Africa.
“That is why we need more African voices in those rooms where these technologies are being developed because then what's happening is we are translating in real time and using technology to improve our lives, but also making sure that the context is correct and very respectful to whatever it is that is being shared as well,” she says.
She adds that we also need to develop our own apps, like China, which has its own version of WhatsApp.
But for this to happen, she says, more people need to pour back into Africa.
“From a brand perspective, we want to be intentional about creating legacies from a storytelling perspective.
“Whatever the present looks like, it still needs to be someone's legacy tomorrow, so we have to be very intentional around how we preserve it.
“My role is just to make sure that we get to preserve the stories and the memories of how we look like now so that future generations can have a reference of the legacy that we're trying to build from a brand perspective.”
