The Journal
Notes from the Afrobeats era and the systems behind the culture.
An archive of reflections, interviews, and field notes from the work of building culture at scale. Less hype, more infrastructure. Less headlines, more legacy.
December proves demand every year. What it doesn’t build on its own is continuity. Diaspora Roundtables exists to hold the conversations that don’t fit on a stage — about legacy, partnerships, safety, and the systems required to move African culture from moments into lasting infrastructure.
“Detty December” was never just a party season. It was a movement built long before it had a name, shaped by creatives, promoters, artists, and diasporans moving between cities in the absence of formal infrastructure. As debates grow around branding and respectability, the real question is not what we call the season, but whether we understand the system behind it and whether we are ready to build the structures that protect what has already been proven.
Ahead of the Diaspora Roundtables, I visited Jambo Spaces in Accra to understand what sustainable creative infrastructure looks like in practice. Built and owned by Africans for African creatives, Jambo offers a clear example of how access, permanence, and local control allow creative economies to move beyond moments into systems.
Accra has proven it can gather people at scale. The GTBank concert made that undeniable. A free stadium show, tens of thousands in attendance, and a city operating at full cultural intensity.
But scale increases responsibility proportionally. Crowd safety, infrastructure, and operational discipline are no longer secondary concerns. They are the difference between moments and systems.
What happens next will determine whether Accra’s cultural dominance translates into sustainable growth, or remains a seasonal peak without the structures to carry it forward.
Yesterday, I joined Channel One TV in Accra for a conversation about Afro Nation, December in Ghana, and the work that follows moments of cultural growth.
When culture grows faster than structure, the task is not to slow culture down. The task is to build fast enough to hold it.
Legacy is not presence. It is what remains because something once passed through.
Guide Radio in Accra: Owning the Narrative Behind “Detty December”
“Detty December” was never just a party season. It was a movement built long before it had a name, shaped by creatives, promoters, artists, and diasporans moving between cities in the absence of formal infrastructure. As debates grow around branding and respectability, the real question is not what we call the season, but whether we understand the system behind it and whether we are ready to build the structures that protect what has already been proven.