Things We Lost in the Fire

The things we lost in the fire. Let’s take carte blanche and call the fire exactly what it is. This all-consuming, eradicating, forever-changing fire was colonialism. It was slavery. It is the condition of Black people in the diaspora after our encounter with Europeans.

Like so many, I mourn all the things we lost in the fire. So much that can never be recovered. And centuries later, it feels like our generation is still trying to pick up some of those pieces, standing on the shoulders of giants, trying to reclaim what once seemed irretrievably lost.

This fire, like the devil depicted in Abrahamic scripture, came to consume and destroy. It came to change and reshape what was. But thankfully, not everything could be discarded. So much beauty remained. Beauty that has long been obscured by the Western lens in its depictions of Africans, in its literature, in its TV shows and films. So much has been distorted and manipulated to suit a narrative of degradation, designed to deter those of us in the diaspora from ever returning. Almost as if to say, we saved you through the process of destroying you.

And now, watching a young man like iShowSpeed travelling through the continent, showcasing its beauty, its complexity, its multitude of cultures and customs, embracing native religions and practices — where there should be unspeakable joy, exists a deep sadness. There is a depth of emotion that is difficult to articulate. Something about his journey, about what he is showing, touches a nerve. I think every Black person watching carries some of those emotions somewhere in the pit of their gut.

So much has been lost from generation to generation. Not touching base with who we are. Not fully understanding ourselves. Walking this earth as half-formed humans. Because who we are is inextricably linked to that "dark" continent. To the motherland. To where we originally come from. We cannot divorce ourselves from that.

And so much of what is now presented as Blackness in the diaspora feels incomplete, not quite whole. And because of that, it is easy for the world to project things onto us. Just as easy as it is for us to internalise distortions. Many of us spend our lives searching for the missing pieces of ourselves through other mediums, often provided by the very people who colonised and degraded us.

So yes, so much was lost in the fire. But it is something to witness a generation that is waking up. A generation willing to look back, to reach out, to embrace, to grow, and to know. A generation beginning to understand that what was never fully destroyed can still be reclaimed.

I have a lot of hope in Gen Z. Millennials, like myself, and the generations before us, did a hell of a job to bring us into this space of accepting our identity as Africans.

There are countless podcasts and forums where I have heard Africans speak candidly about being teased growing up simply for being Africans, and other Black people in the diaspora often dished out this form of bullying. People who themselves were conditioned to see Africa as poor, barbaric, and backwards. Being African became comedic. These savages. These people fresh off the boat. With their smelly food and strange customs. These “backward” cultures. All reinforced by what we were shown on the BBC and other Western platforms, especially during charity campaigns like Red Nose Day. You know the ones: images of babies with flies on their faces, starving mothers, endless deserted lands framed as nothingness.

All of us were thrown into the fire of the coloniser’s gaze. And Black people in the diaspora learned to see Africans through that prism. Poor. Worthless. Backwards.

Millennials had a fight on their hands, and we fought it well. We pushed back. We reclaimed parts of our identity and stood firm as the years went on. Music played a huge role in that. There is a lot to be said about music and its power to unify us, to give us language, pride, and belonging. From highlife to hiplife to the emergence of Afrobeats as we now know it, millennials witnessed that rise and embraced who we were becoming.

And now here we see our children. Gen Z. Gen Alpha. They are taking things even further.

When I look at Gen Z, and I think about iShowSpeed, because that is what he is, a Gen Z kid, I feel proud. Proud of the ease with which they embrace culture. Proud because they are standing, quite literally, on the shoulders of giants. Every generation builds on the legacy it inherits. And it is deeply moving to see that this legacy has not been abandoned or left to gather dust, but is being expanded, challenged, and reimagined.

They are dismantling long-held negative perceptions of Africa. Of who we are as a people, both collectively and within our individual countries. Because we are not the same. We are deeply diverse. Some things unite us, yes, but there are also customs, traditions, cultures, and belief systems that distinguish us from one another. That multiplicity matters. That complexity matters. For too long, we have been flattened into one false narrative, and watching that narrative unravel in real time feels powerful.

It is genuinely wonderful to watch and chronicle the journey of this young man across the continent, and to witness the impact it is having on this new generation. It gives me hope. Hope for Africans and Black people in the diaspora, at large. Hope for our collective identity and our gradual return to ourselves.

Because the old saying is true. You don't know where you are going until you know where you come from.

There is still so much ignorance entrenched within the system. And so much of that ignorance has been adopted by us, consciously and unconsciously. But layer by layer, it is being peeled away. And it is the youth doing the peeling.

That is something worth celebrating.