Ranking of African countries based on cultural influence. Do you agree?

[MacNCheese]

South Africa is an economic power house

African giants: The 10 largest economies on the continent

List of African countries by GDP (nominal) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And that has literally nothing to do with cultural influence. What has South Africa put forth that compares to the global impact of just Nollywood and Afrobeats? Which South African writers have had the impact of Achebe, Soyinka or even someone contemporary like Chimamanda Adichie? Culturally speaking, the only thing they've done that's had a real global impact is amapiano, but even then it was Nigerians who actually made it popular in the US.

Straight up, the only black countries/communities comparable to Nigeria in terms of culture are Jamaicans, Brazilians and African Americans who are at the top obviously.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

And that has literally nothing to do with cultural influence. What has South Africa put forth that compares to the global impact of just Nollywood and Afrobeats? Which South African writers have had the impact of Achebe, Soyinka or even someone contemporary like Chimamanda Adichie? Culturally speaking, the only thing they've done that's had a real global impact is amapiano, but even then it was Nigerians who actually made it popular in the US.

Straight up, the only black countries/communities comparable to Nigeria in terms of culture are Jamaicans, Brazilians and African Americans who are at the top obviously.

South Africa has a political science history alone that drives global sentiment in addition, again, to economics and geographic strategic benefit. AND again the rise of afrobeats is boosting the cultural output of the continent which is HQ’d in South Africa and Nigeria.

AND people know about South Africa. Most people do not know anything about half of the countries in Africa. This alone matters.

 

[Blackrogue]

What can you tell us about Angola? I'm low-key fascinated.

Oil money. Beautiful women. Portuguese speakers. Closest you can get to Brazil in africa

 

[Blackrogue]

What have Egypt and South Africa done to be on the same tier as Nigeria? I guess if you're counting things that happened thousands of years ago you could argue for Egypt but if you're doing that any country involved in the Atlantic Slave trade should automatically be at least in A. South Africa is much more of a world power than most African nations but I don't see any area where they're trendsetters or culture influencing. I'd move them down to B and put Ghana in A.

South African music is everywhere in Africa. All you gotta do is go see big brother results and see that shyt was mostly south Africans and naija brehs. But the south African influence is interesting. It exists musically but on a day to day you are not gonna meet many south Africans in other countries like say Kenya in my instance. They stay home. Naija however are everywhere and I think have the largest population of black folk in the world ( correct me if I'm wrong) so even the NFL and NBA full of them.

 

[invalid]

Egypt is above Nigeria.
And I would say South Africa too with what they've contributed in the realm of global human rights - Freedom Fighters, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu. Nigeria doesn't have an equivalent. Nigeria's influence is in soft culture not high culture.

 

[Budda]

Yeah but in comparison to these other cultures what have they really influenced?

Religion, the Yoruba religions are reall the only indigeinous African religions, oiutside of Egypt that have had any big infulence in the new world, Yemaya, Oshun etc you have practitioners in Brazil, Trinidad, America, Cuba etc.

Most religions have a Afro Asiatic roots but in modern times, the other countries have had influence on religion via religions imported from other regions like Mali.

Since Fela Kuti, music also.

Also by far the biggest film industry in Africa via Nollywood, with Suth Africa being a close second.

 

[Budda]

Mali should be number 1 one on any list. The cultural impact of Mali has been gigantic across the World.

If were basing it on the last millennium, Mali should be number 1, heavy influence on Blues, one of the biggest reasons a lot of Sub Saharan countries adheare to Islam, the most notable civilizations in Songhai, Mali, Timbuktu.


There influence has dwindled in the last 200 years but every other nation is still playing catch up.

 

[Budda]

It’s imani’s,Ayana’s,ashanti’s and Jabari’s running around all over the place
Anansi the spider and trickster tales been entrenched in language arts curriculums for 30 years

but we talking about Afrobeats

Nollywood also has no equivalent, Yemaya, Oshun and the religion of IFA, have no equivalents in West/Central Africa also.

Imani, Jabari, Ayana, are Arabic names via Swahili, which also contains Arabic, but Tanzania doesn't have huge influence outside of that.

Kenya does but not as much as other West African countries(Mali, Ghana, Nigeria), the reason certain West African countries have more influence really is because of the peoples taking to the new world, i would have Kenya in a tier below Ethiopia overall, Ethiopia should probably be in the first tier also.

 

[Samori Toure]

If were basing it on the last millennium, Mali should be number 1, heavy influence on Blues, one of the biggest reasons a lot of Sub Saharan countries adheare to Islam, the most notable civilizations in Songhai, Mali, Timbuktu.


There influence has dwindled in the last 200 years but every other nation is still playing catch up.

Their influence has not dwindled. It is just different and people don't recognize it it. You mentioned the Blues and that music has impacted every form of American music.
From Country to Rock and Roll, to Rap,, to Pop, to R&B, etc. Another cultural impact is the Mende people of Sierra Leone. The Mende are actually Mandingos that immigrated to Sierra Leone from Mali. The Mende were one of the major ethnic groups brought to the United States. Their impact on the USA has been huge and the Mende are the largest group of people that we consider Gullah Geechee people.

 

[invalid]

Don’t forget the rise of afrobeats too. A bunch of countries are about to get LAPPED.

They've also been riding the backs of South Africa's Amapiano scene. Another reason why I put SA above them.

Plus the Zulu mythology is >>>> Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa. I wouldn't even be able to name a king or chief from one of those tribes.

 

[Budda]

Their influence has not dwindled. It is just different and people don't recognize it it. You mentioned the Blues and that music has impacted every form of American music.
From Country to Rock and Roll, to Rap,, to Pop, to R&B, etc. Another cultural impact is the Mende people of Sierra Leone. The Mende are actually Mandingos that immigrated to Sierra Leone from Mali. The Mende were one of the major ethnic groups brought to the United States. Their impact on the USA has been huge and the Mende are the largest group of people that we consider Gullah Geechee people.

You are right but i'm talking about modern times the last 50-100 years, Blue is the foundation of every modern music but its over 150 years old, so is Islam, Timbuktu Songhai, Mansa Musa and so on.

In that same time period Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria, have been more influential to peoples on the continent, and outside of it. From music arts, religion and so on, Ghana and Nigeria borrowed heavily from Mali and Senegambia to form their modern 'culture' but these nations have been more influential in that time period imo.

 

[Budda]

They've also been riding the backs of South Africa's Amapiano scene. Another reason why I put SA above them.

Plus the Zulu mythology is >>>> Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa. I wouldn't even be able to name a king or chief from one of those tribes.

Afrobeats was already thriving without the implementation of Amapiano, Wizkid and Burna Boys biggest songs borrow more from ADOS than anything from South Africa, the biggest songs from Africa in the last 10 years aren't Amapiano songs, Wizkid and Tem(Essence) Burna Boy (Last Last), Davido(Fall) Tems(Free Mind) are not Amapiano songs..

Ironically, Water by Tyla kind of is.

 

[invalid]

Afrobeats was already thriving without the implementation of Amapiano, Wizkid and Burna Boys biggest songs borrow more from ADOS than anything from South Africa, the biggest songs from Africa in the last 10 years aren't Amapiano songs, Wizkid and Tem(Essence) Burna Boy (Last Last), Davido(Fall) Tems(Free Mind) are not Amapiano songs..

Ironically, Water by Tyla kind of is.

I agree with this but SA music scene is robust and influential without having to incorporate sounds from other nations (except ADOS of course). It's essentially homegrown whereas Afrobeats has had to subsume Amapiano (as well as Juju, Highlife among others) because of its influence and popularity. Not to even mention other SA genres like GQOM, SA House, SA Gospel, etc...

 

[invalid]

you indirectly just exposed why nigerian is way more widespread and influential

You have a point. But if that's the case, Senegal leads against Nigeria.

 

[Budda]

I agree with this but SA music scene is robust and influential without having to incorporate sounds from other nations (except ADOS of course). It's essentially homegrown whereas Afrobeats has had to subsume Amapiano (as well as Juju, Highlife among others) because of its influence and popularity. Not to even mention other SA genres like GQOM, SA House, SA Gospel, etc...

SA music scene is basically just House.

Afrobeats didn't have to subsume Amapiano, because the biggest artists had success from their songs which didn't have Amapiano or South African House included, Davido is really the one artist who has implemented South African house music widespread in multiple records.

Juju is Nigerian, and Highlife is Ghanaian.

All modern African music has roots or influence from the African descended people who spread to the new world, including older ones like Palm Wine music Highlife and Juju.

Afrobeats is the Hip Hop of Africa so its natural it subsumes other genres and incorporates its sounds, just like Hip Hop did.