![\"American](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Lifestyle_News_2_1727683559327_1727683610481.jpg\" "\\"American")
American influencer shares ‘another’ Africa on tour<\/p>\nIShowSpeed, a 21-year-old African American influencer, has raced a cheetah, leapt with Maasai warriors and drawn huge crowds in a month-long tour of Africa that has also busted cliches about the continent.<\/p>\n
American influencer shares ‘another’ Africa on tour<\/p>\n
The YouTube and Twitch star’s tour, which started on December 29, took him to 20 countries, showing his tens of millions of followers a different side of Africa as he visited a diamond mine in Botswana, discovered Ethiopia’s rich cuisine and attended the Africa Cup of Nations football final in Morocco.<\/p>\n
IShowSpeed born in Cincinnati, Ohio as Darren Jason Watkins Jr. is one of the most-followed influencers on the planet.<\/p>\n
He hit 50 million YouTube subscribers last month, Rolling Stone magazine named him the Most Influential Creator of 2025 and Forbes estimates his net worth at $20 million.<\/p>\n
Subscribers to his channel have soaked up his African tour, with some black Americans posting emotional videos of their own saying IShowSpeed had opened their eyes to a completely different vision of the continent, far from TV cliches of endless poverty and violence.<\/p>\n
“He shows another Africa, an Africa on the move, modernising, eager to achieve great things. He goes to places with modern infrastructure,” Qemal Affagnon from Internet Sans Frontieres told AFP.<\/p>\n
“At a time when the US executive can sometimes portray Africa in rather pejorative terms, he offers a different narrative. It’s something that has clearly resonated with his American audience,” the social media expert said.<\/p>\n
In Lagos, Nigeria’s megacity of around 20 million inhabitants, the influencer celebrated his birthday as well as hitting 50 million subscribers on YouTube.<\/p>\n
In Angola’s capital Luanda, he marvelled at the warmth of the reaction to his visit.<\/p>\n
“I love the love in Africa. The energy here is crazy,” he enthused. On stops in Kenya and Addis Ababa, he was smitten by the architecture.<\/p>\n
He was, however, careful not to broach the subject of politics during his visits, especially in countries reputed to be autocratic.<\/p>\n
Living up to his nickname “Speed”, he has applied the same formula as on other trips around the world being filmed live by his teams as he dashes around at a frantic pace, alternating cultural discoveries, interactions with vendors or street artists with various antics.<\/p>\n
– True image –<\/p>\n
The tour netted him nearly four million new YouTube subscribers in a month. His broadcast from the final of the Africa Cup of Nations has already racked up 15 million views.<\/p>\n
His popularity is not contained to YouTube he also has 45 million subscribers on Instagram and 47 million on TikTok.<\/p>\n
For his fans, he was not setting out to present himself as the saviour of Africa but to show its true image.<\/p>\n
“To be the first streamer from America to tour the entire Africa, it’s something historical,” Nigerian YouTuber Stephen Oluwafisayomi, 24, known as Stevosky, said.<\/p>\n
“It’s a very big edge he just unlocked in the streaming industry,” he added.<\/p>\n
The publicity may appeal to some governments keen to attract new visitors.<\/p>\n
“There are countries that are currently reaching out to certain communities of people of African descent and it can serve as a link between these two worlds,” Affagnon said.<\/p>\n
– Live from the pyramids –<\/p>\n
In Nairobi, he met Tourism Minister Rebecca Miano and received a warm welcome via a video message from President William Ruto, while in Egypt he received permission to film live inside the Great Pyramid of Giza.<\/p>\n
IShowSpeed started out like many streamers by filming himself playing video games.<\/p>\n
But the avid football, and in particular Cristiano Ronaldo fan was not content to just remain in his gaming chair and has previously travelled in Asia, Europe and South America.<\/p>\n
He has won several top streaming awards in recent years.<\/p>\n
In 2023, he became eligible to return to Twitch following a two-year ban from the platform for “sexual coercion or intimidation”.<\/p>\n
In Africa, where he’s donned the national football team’s shirt in each country he has visited, he has at times also been targeted, either by over-enthusiastic fans or by hostile members of the public.<\/p>\n
He had to break off a live broadcast in Algeria because football supporters were throwing bottles at him in a stadium during a match.<\/p>\n
As his Africa tour drew to a close recently, the streamer planned to take a DNA test which he hoped would reveal his origins on the continent.<\/p>\n
Ghana later granted citizenship to the US YouTuber, the country’s foreign minister said, saying he had “irrefutable ties” to the nation.<\/p>\n
While in Liberia he met somebody with the same surname as him whose ancestors had left Ohio, IShowSpeed’s home region. “He’s really my ancestor,” the YouTube star quipped.<\/p>\n
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