Influence is settled. Distribution, platforms and production infrastructure are not.
BellaNaija's Funmilola attended the seventh edition of the Africa Soft Power Summit 2026 in Nairobi, Kenya, where Rita Dominic, D'banj, Tomiwa Aladekomo, and Bolanle Austen-Peters led conversations on African creativity, female leadership, and economic ownership.
While Nairobi buzzed with talk of African soft power, the real question isn't whether our creatives can command global attention, Burna Boy and Lupita Nyong'o already settled that debate. The summit's true test lies in whether this gathering of luminaries like Rita Dominic and D'banj can translate their influence into dismantling the extractive systems that still see African talent packaged and profited from elsewhere. Until our soft power translates into hard ownership of distribution, streaming platforms, and production infrastructure, we're still performing brilliance on stages we don't own.
While Nairobi buzzed with talk of African soft power, the real question isn't whether our creatives can command global attention, Burna Boy and Lupita Nyong'o already settled that debate. The summit's true test lies in whether this gathering of luminaries like Rita Dominic and D'banj can translate their influence into dismantling the extractive systems that still see African talent packaged and profited from elsewhere. Until our soft power translates into hard ownership of distribution, streaming platforms, and production infrastructure, we're still performing brilliance on stages we don't own.
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