Despite experiencing a proliferation of youth-led mobilizations in recent years, Africa remains peripheral to the analysis of the U.S.-centered Movement for Black Lives (M4BL). This article explores points of convergence and tension between African uprisings and the M4BL, with a focus on two movements at the intersection of education and activism: Nigerian "Occupy" protests and the "Fees Must Fall" movement in South Africa. Ultimately, I make the case for more engagement on the part of U.S. scholars and activists with struggles in Africa and other global contexts, in the interest of research and solidarity practices that value Black lives everywhere.

This article examines how young African cultural entrepreneurs harness the economic, technological and creative openings created by globalization with a focus on the Naija Boyz, two Nigerian-born, US-based brothers, who became YouTube sensations via their 'African Remix' genre of hip hop video parodies. With over 20 million views, the videos are situated within four converging movements within contemporary African youth cultural production: the maturation of African hip hop; the specific resurgence of Nigeria as a cultural hub driven by Nollywood and the local hip hop scene; the circulation of new media technologies; and, the formation of an increasingly cosmopolitan, tech-savvy generation of African youth. Using the Naija Boyz' images and lyrics, the YouTube videos are analyzed as critical commentaries of (black) American and African cultural scripts, which interrogate issues of gender, class, citizenship, and inter-/intra-diasporic relations. Moreover, the Naija Boyz are posited as archetypes of a rising generation of African youth, whose intercultural experiences outside of the African continent serve as a form of social capital that constitutes the basis of new (and potentially problematic) creative economies, which expand the presumed boundaries and concerns of African youth cultures.

Popular education has played a central role in Pan-African liberation struggles historically and in the present moment. In the period following African independence, social movements that emerged around and through education in Africa were informed by and in dialogue with related decolonial movements of the Global South. However, the specific contributions of Pan-Africanist revolutionaries to the broader philosophy and praxis of education for liberation is often under-appreciated. This paper explores this impact through Paulo Freire’s political and intellectual engagement with Pan-Africanist popular education movements, radical intellectuals, and broader revolutionary struggles. In considering Freire’s work in dialogue and practice with African revolutionary thinkers, this paper shows that, while Freire shaped elements of liberation education in Africa, he was also deeply shaped and influenced by the historical conditions of the time and key African revolutionaries who were struggling towards similar objectives. Additionally, we explore the continued salience of Freirean educational praxis in contemporary Pan-Africanist social movements, through the example of a present day online pedagogical experiment, the Pan-African Activist Sunday School and Solidarity Collective.

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