Did NFT AFRIKA 2024 Summit Power Africa’s Digital Art Movement from the Shadows?
Oct 11, 2024
The trailblazers who guided us through the vibrant landscapes of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania at NFTAFRIKA24 are still with us, their passion and energy propelling this initiative to new heights. Their legacy continues, just under a different banner.
Last year, at the KENYA NFT + AI SUMMIT in Nairobi, Adrian from Design Africhibi—a NFT-minted cultural sculptures and digital art platform—argued that as a society we’re remixing things more and more and taking inspiration from others. “So, if we’re doing that; why can’t a machine (AI) be allowed to do the same?” he told the audience. “Our creativity and expressions are usually a combination of all the different experiences we have and all those things we’ve taken in… People value art differently to how they value artistic output, and not every drawing or picture is always considered a work of art, and the difference is always the human input.”
This year, the NFTAFRIKA24 Kenya Edition in August started with a powerful statement from one of the panelists, Kamau Kamau, a creative coder, who said that for so long the African creativity story has been written by the ‘wrong authors’ and for the first time we are at the forefront of it. Through NFTs, Africans can preserve culture. Think of it as modern-day hieroglyphics that will exist forever, thanks to the blockchain.
Video by @kenyanftclub on X
Mbogi ya NFT’s zeal for NFT combined with the ability to organize the NFTAFRIKA24 in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, were both part of a broader trend that briefly revived Africa’s creative stage. Following a wave of excitement around these events as a golden new opportunity for artistic visibility, a legion of international brands rushed to support them. Notable names included Gamma, Stacks Foundation, HUG, Dual Mint, and Bitget. Not forgetting the enthusiastic local partners and sponsors: OneMillion Avocadoes (OMA), Chatafisha, Kenyan Originals, Meta Meta Club, Nafasi Art Space, Arudem and Blocart Ltd. This is the momentum they needed to keep going.
While the actual creative mindsets varied, the shared goal seemed to explore the future of NFTs, Web3, and Tech! and devise new strategies with then-buzzy technologies such as NFTs and crypto. However, the fact that there isn’t much consensus around the definition of creativity only made for further inconsistency between artistic intentions and what exactly NFTs are meant to do. Regardless, the attendees all agreed that they were there to learn, experience, and mint. Though an unfamiliar space, it has attracted diverse groups, including women photographers, storytellers, UX designers, etc. – a community that seeks to create solutions to the challenges it raises.
The Spice
This all started, of course, on August 29 for the Kenyan Edition, followed by the Ugandan Edition on Aug 30, and the Tanzania edition on Aug 16 when Mbogi ya NFT brought together local artists and digital creators, signaling its new focus on Africa’s NFT.
The founder, Sherie Margaret Ngigi, painted a picture of a vast and fast-growing virtual frontier, despite starting out as a small Twitter group. She reiterated how the space was still new but untapped and how her organization is paving the way and making strides toward creating even more history. The co-founder and co-CEO of HUG, an inclusive social marketplace for creators, Debbie Son, backed up that belief, welcoming new members to its community with over 30,000 creators.
Artists leapt at the opportunity to showcase a whole new category of art at the event’s basement, and you’ll be tantalized to learn some are earning a living and building careers on platforms such as HUG.
“We started out as a small community of a few individuals playing Call of Duty (COD) during COVID and after that, we decided to professionalize our efforts,” said Ivan Kibuuka from Arudem, a gaming user-generated content expert and creative entrepreneur from Uganda. “Six years down the road, we’ve turned a small WhatsApp group of gamers into a creative company… Arudem. They saw the opportunity to do something that is actually very unusual for the creative space, which is to be part of a gaming experience. Apparently, gaming provides one of the most immersive ways to experience art, especially through its interactive features.
Musicians are also particularly keen, having been slow on the uptake with the early days of NFT. Eric Okurut, Co-Founder of GenAI, demonstrated how platforms such as Suno AI help artists make music so easily from scratch. It also felt like the perfect overlap, as the twin Web3 ethos of insularity and authenticity meshed nicely with their industry’s allure. And, at this moment, it seemed to be working.
It would be astonishing if it weren’t all so remarkably unfamiliar. For the very first time, Mbogi ya NFT brought NFTAFRIKA24 to Dar and Champala. Back in 2022, it started by hosting the NFT Summit in Kenya, creating an open world of digital art events to experience its explosive growth. With many like me having little understanding of NFT, or knowledge of how to make money within it, this year’s tri-experience was the best place to learn from industry experts, digital art exhibitors, and filmmakers.
Photos by @arudemcreators on X
A Pivot to NFT
Now, many artists, who had almost been non-existent, are reinventing themselves—or otherwise finding themselves pursuing totally different things but still in the digital creative space. Meta Meta Club’s founder, Mathew Munyao, swiftly pivoted on how social finance through decentralization allows users to sell their tweets or Instagram posts as NFTs—what he termed ‘social media 3.0.”
Around the same discussion, Simon Wariuko, who doubles up as an artist and a developer, explained how platforms such as Webcast allow people to post and engage on-chain, including being tipped using degens. Then, on Zora, people can interact with minted images and tip using the ‘enjoy’ token.
In case any further proof was needed that the shift from physical art to NFTs was complete, Statista reported that the NFT market in Africa is predicted to generate a revenue of US$37.4 million by 2024.
Sonnie Wahinya from Women in DeFi reflected on her interaction with a Layer 2 platform on Blast where people mint their Twitter profiles as avatars and swap them with major coins like ETH, a phenomenon that she thought was weirdly impossible. “… Fantasy Top where influencers would mint their social profiles and swap or sell them,” she added. It is a really interesting moment in time, but we do not want to get ahead of our skis yet.
Photos by @kenyanftclub on X
Positioning a Concept
With the NFT-focused art clearly clicking with many, it is now time to onboard many artists into the ecosystem. That’s why Mbogi ya NFT launched the Whispers of the Savannah to unveil a breathtaking collection featuring 30 talented artists from Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. Their artwork is onboarded to Stacks and minted on Gamma. So far, it’s looking promising. The initiative unveiled spectacular digital art pieces such as the Sivana (sanctuary of peace and hope), the Lonely Mushroom (majestic mushroom centerpiece), and Bittersweet (duck’s sad tune, roses offered). Today, the much-awaited final version of the collection is live on Gamma.
Meanwhile, “Whispers of the Savannah” which cropped up after the amazing NFTAFRIKA24 round of events, denotes a supposedly growing demand among artists and their consumers to transition from physical and online experiences.
According to Statista, the average revenue per user in the NFT market in Africa is estimated to be US$51.5 in 2024. NFTs offer the tech world’s pivot to digital art to form a virtual experience that is more palatable to tech-savvy consumers.
“Regulation is always opportunistic and gatekeeping from a government perspective as opposed to creating an enabling environment, whereby a regulator wants to take as much and to rob you,” S.A. Kakai Crypto Assets Legal Expert from Steakhouse Financial explained. That’s going to be uncomfortable, literally and figuratively, for NFT creators. Now you’re seeing Gamma and Stack lighten the load to sign up people into more accessible digital experiences.
Perhaps finally realizing that no one wants to live in the past, Sherrie and her team seem to have performed a kind of creative sleight-of-hand, positioning NFTs as fully digital interactive artwork that everyone can access in Africa—a concept that will make it a mainstream hit.
So, with perhaps almost inevitability, this year’s edition rubber stamped the concept of digital art as the future of creativity in Africa.
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