Naa Ashorkor urges content creators to project Africa

CREATIVE content creators have been urged to forge ahead and penetrate the global market with original content that promotes and projects the positive stories of Africa.

Giving the advice, actress and media personality, Naa Ashorkor Mensah-Doku said Africans must tell the Africa story in an authentic way “we must not be swayed by western narratives. We must tell authentic African stories focusing on who we are as a people and the positive things happening on the African continent”.

The future of content

Naa Ashorkor as she is professionally known was speaking with Graphic Showbiz after she joined a panel in a podcast style conversation to speak on the future  of context during the opening of a two-day summit and grand final of the Africa’s Business Heroes(ABH) event in Kigali, Rwanda.

The event is on the theme ‘A.I-African Innovation, Insight, Impact’ starting today November 23 to November 24,2023.

During the conversation the panelists, which included an actress and UNHCR goodwill ambassador, Nomzambi Mbatha and moderated by the CEO of Nas Company, a film production company, Nuseir Yassin, shared insight on their entrepreneurial journey.

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Wear African prints

As a broadcast journalist and creative content creator Naa Ashorkor has produced over 200 live shows that transcends geographical boundaries to captivate audiences in Ghana, Nigeria and beyond.

For her, she said what worked for her was being intentional about producing shows about African women and highlighting happening on the content.

She urged African content creators to “wear African prints, African braids, speak a local language and that is the way we get people from across the world to know our stories and who we are.”

Highlighting the importance of telling original and authentic stories in content creation, she said global audiences are hungry for Africa stories and urged content creators to constantly find ways to infuse Africa and 'africanness' in all that they do.

“Content is global. If l put content on TikTok in Ghana someone in China will be watching it and it is an opportunity for me to expose who Africans and Ghanaians are," she said.

The broadcast journalist urged content creators to “understand that what we have is gold. The best shows about humanity and culture are in Africa. The best stories are told in Africa and we must tell them ourselves.”

Africa, she said, “is more than people. It is about humanity and the wealth in our stories. Create TikTok videos about African stories and tell our stories better because African stories are best told by africans.”

 Describing the ABH platform offered her as “an honour. It has inspired a lot of young African entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs to be more than just who they are. It tells us that it is Africa's time. It is time for Africa to come out of its comfort zone in our storytelling, in the products we produce as a business and be global in our thinking.”

She said the ABH has been the highlight of her entrepreneurial and journalism journey and urged all young entrepreneurs at the summit to network and build collaborations for the success of their business and the growth of the African continent.

Actress and UNHCR goodwill ambassador, Nomzambi Mbatha asked content creators not to compromise quality and also collaborate with others in the industry as well as explore crowdfunding options.

On his part, the CEO of Nas Company, Nuseir Yassin insisted that the lack of capital should not be a hindrance to the creation of quality content. “We can start telling the story of Africa with zero dollars. We can make high premium quality films and put them on Netflix. We can get more Africans in journalism telling the African story on international news channels and also take advantage of TikTok or YouTube which is free and put content there.”