KEEPING IT AFRICAN WITH MORE AFRICA: THE LENS OFUCSED ON DISNEY'S KIZAZI MOTO ON AFROFUTURISM, BUT WHAT IF IT WAS FULLY MADE IN AFRICA?

 

Afrofuturism has become one of the most dynamic artistic movements of our time, an intersection of culture, imagination, identity, and rebellion. 

It stretches beyond sci-fi tropes and cool tech to become a canvas for rewriting the past and dreaming up liberated futures. One of the latest and most exciting additions to this space is Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire, a Disney+ animated anthology showcasing African futurist storytelling through ten short films by creators from across the continent.

But as much as Kizazi Moto lights up the screen with dazzling visuals and bold ideas, it also invites a deeper question. 

What does it mean for African creators to reclaim their cultures through speculative storytelling? And even more provocatively, what if Kizazi Moto had been made entirely in Africa, with African studios, African funding, and African infrastructure?

This is a conversation about ownership, place, and the power of telling our own stories in our own way.

Afrofuturism as Cultural Reclamation

Afrofuturism, is fundamentally, about taking back the narrative. It challenges colonial histories that reduced African identities to static, backward-looking caricatures. In contrast, Afrofuturism imagines Africans not just as participants in the future, but as its own architects.

Kizazi Moto brings this to life. In episodes like Herderboy and Enkai, we see traditional cultural frameworks, such as pastoralism, spiritual ancestry, and mythology, reimagined through high-concept sci-fi. These aren’t just creative mashups. They’re acts of reclamation, which are fusing ancestral knowledge with futuristic vision in ways that refuse Western validation.

The storytelling doesn’t just "include" African culture, it centers it, without apology or translation. The dialects, the names, the designs, the conflicts, and everything, are deeply specific and proudly local.

However, let us flip the tables.

What If It Was Entirely Made in Africa?

Yes, at times, it just echoes.

As progressive as Kizazi Moto is in terms of authorship and creative vision, it’s still a product of global production infrastructure. The project was produced in collaboration with Triggerfish Animation (South Africa), but also guided and distributed by Disney+.

What if the entire pipeline, from concept to animation, scoring, voice acting, post-production, and distribution, had happened entirely on the continent?

What would be different?

Creative Sovereignty

Currently, there's always a subtle tension between global accessibility and local authenticity. African animation has been a silent and sleeping pot of boiling potential in the world of animation, but not accurately tapped so to speak. However, despite this tussle happening, the few works that sprout from the continent have mostly been embraced locally.

This brings us to the core matter of this topic, which involves, African animation creators, being able to speak with a resonance to the African continent with local nuances and contexts, that bring a more vivid message to Africans. 

Would there have been a bit more stronger messaging through the stories than had already presented? Possibly leading to greater connection to locals with animation and African stories?

Would stories have leaned even deeper into local slang, cultural nuance, or spiritual traditions without the global gaze hovering?

Imagine an episode spoken fully in Shona or Wolof, without subtitles designed for the West or Swahili and Luganda from East Africa. Would the stories be less "palatable," or more powerful?

There's lots to put into perspective that local African animation creators would bring in, by tapping deeper into their roots, and having a better creative freedom and letting several voices to be heard. 

Economic Reclamation

Making animation in Africa means investing in African talent, building local capacity, and growing the industry from within. That’s not just about pride, it’s about jobs, ownership, and sustainability.

For a long while, animation in Africa has been as something that is veery niche, or a career path that is possibly not embraced by the majority, due to lack of awareness about it and how the people talented in the craft and continent can open opportunities for themselves.

A project developed and distributed worldwide, by Africans would breakdown myths and embrace a career path that is viable, as by recruiting more African animation creators into a stream of projects, helps develop a market for African animators to thrive and also grow by telling their stories that the world can embrace.

In addition, this places the importance of how African animation education can be emphasized, in order to  keep on developing talent to keep our stories getting out into the continent and embraced by the world. This leads to growth of schools, and various professions around the telling of African animated productions.

A fully African-made Kizazi Moto would be a statement, our stories, our tools and our terms.

Technological Reclamation

Afrofuturism often features advanced tech, but the irony is that African creators still struggle with access to production technology.

Thematically and from a storytelling angle, this touches on the ability of African to  be able to take in the resources of their land that are usually used for export and developing advanced technology that advances their society.

It passes on matters from a societal angle but also creatively, in that, the stories we tell, often give a sense of empowering the visual of what Africa holds, and should we create or have the ability to make use of technology, a greater future awaits.

This would emphasize careers that are seemingly exclusive from the world of arts, such as engineering, which would be incredibly useful to develop technology necessary to create the stories Africa needs. It can create both, stories about STEM individuals to bring up the voices of African STEM who are overlooked because of coming from a place where technology and opportunities seems absent, to also creating career paths for STEM individuals, away form the traditional STEM paths. 

Building pipelines within the continent could shift this, allowing creators to tell high-concept stories without outsourcing high-end tools. Plus, helping economies thrive in various ways

Cultural Reclamation is Also Spatial

Reclaiming culture isn’t just about what's shown on screen. It's also about where and how the work is made. 

A future where African stories are told in Africa, using African studios, and reaching global audiences without mediation, shows the true endpoint of cultural reclamation.

Kizazi Moto is a brilliant step, but also a teaser of what’s possible when the full ecosystem is owned and driven by African hands, on African soil.

Broader Reflections

Afrofuturism is not only a genre, it’s a political and cultural project. It invites creators to mine the past, imagine new futures, and demand space in the global narrative. It also raises stakes about infrastructure, sovereignty, and where the future is truly built.

Kizazi Moto proves that African imagination is boundless. However, for Afrofuturism to be fully realized, it can’t just be an artistic style, it has to become an industry, a system, a continent-wide creative ecosystem that supports itself from the ground up. It's less about having star names, but more about seeing several stars sprout up from the continent

Let’s Discuss

- What do you think would change if Kizazi Moto had been made entirely in Africa?

- Do you believe cultural authenticity is compromised or enhanced by global partnerships?

- Which episode of Kizazi Moto felt most like a reclamation of your cultural memory?

Drop your thoughts in the comments or tag us in your response. Let’s keep the fire burning.