Naija boy remix: Afroexploitation and the new media creative economies of cosmopolitan African youth

Abstract

This article examines how young African cultural entrepreneurs harness the economic, technological and creative openings created by globalization with a focus on the Naija Boyz, two Nigerian-born, US-based brothers, who became YouTube sensations via their ‘African Remix’ genre of hip hop video parodies. With over 20 million views, the videos are situated within four converging movements within contemporary African youth cultural production: the maturation of African hip hop; the specific resurgence of Nigeria as a cultural hub driven by Nollywood and the local hip hop scene; the circulation of new media technologies; and, the formation of an increasingly cosmopolitan, tech-savvy generation of African youth. Using the Naija Boyz’ images and lyrics, the YouTube videos are analyzed as critical commentaries of (black) American and African cultural scripts, which interrogate issues of gender, class, citizenship, and inter-/intra-diasporic relations. Moreover, the Naija Boyz are posited as archetypes of a rising generation of African youth, whose intercultural experiences outside of the African continent serve as a form of social capital that constitutes the basis of new (and potentially problematic) creative economies, which expand the presumed boundaries and concerns of African youth cultures.

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