The African creative economy is a supply chain problem

Every few months a report announces that African creative industries are poised for growth. The framing is always about potential, rarely about plumbing.

Nobody needs another panel confirming the talent exists. The talent has been confirmed, repeatedly, by global charts, festival bills and streaming numbers. What is thinner is the apparatus around it: rights administration, touring infrastructure, insurance, visa pathways, reliable local promoters, transparent accounting, and legal support that does not cost more than the deal.

Nobody needs another panel confirming the talent exists. The talent has been confirmed.

Those are supply chain questions, and supply chains are built by unglamorous institutional work over long periods. They are also where value leaks. An artist can be enormous and still capture a small share of what they generate, because the intermediary layer sits somewhere else.

This is why representation matters beyond bookings. An agent who understands both markets is a translation layer between a creative economy that produces and a commercial system that captures. Getting that translation right is the difference between an export moment and an export industry.

The work I care about here is unspectacular: better contracts, better routing, better relationships with venues and states, and enough continuity that the next generation inherits something rather than starting again.

Growth follows infrastructure. It has never worked the other way around.