2025 asked for steadiness more than speed.
It was a year shaped by quiet pressure, growing responsibility, and moments of reflection that didn’t announce themselves loudly. From beginning the year in Rwanda, standing at the Genocide Memorial, to watching Afrobeats take up space on the world’s biggest stages, this reflection traces a season of transition, faith, and carrying the work forward with care. It’s about leadership formed through culture, dreams realised and released, and learning to move into what comes next without losing what came before.

This reflection is shared in care, from the perspective of cultural operators with a responsibility to think beyond moments and toward systems.

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.