Innovation is often thwarted by knowledge; an off-the-shelf solution that worked before, and somewhere else – transplanted, grafted or overlaid. When the test fails, the place is blamed, the lack of system, the people, but perhaps it was just a solution for another place, a different era. Perhaps it’s a new era now. Africa is not a country but the people who live on this continent, in all their diversity, are threading a network of innovation. To those who are listening, culture is the data.

Founded in the spirit of sovereignty, the leaders present at The First Congress of Independent African States in Ghana, named the 25th May, Africa Day to remember the founding of the Organisation of National Unity in 1963. It’s a day to mark “the onward progress of the liberation movement and to symbolise the determination of the people of Africa to free themselves from foreign domination and exploitation.”

The wind of that zeitgeist blows strongly today. African creativity is unapologetic and admired, and while it plays on global stages, it is solidly rooted in its foundations. It’s also transient, fluid, and remixed – but currently underpriced. In a world of idea-shopping, African creativity still has imagination, and imagination has become highly investable.

As we seek the arteries to carry African creativity in a world bleeding out, it is possible we need new solutions for its value – and its ownership. Ubuntu Economics seeks to reframe wealth as collective ownership over individual extraction. What if music were created by individual people but entered into a collective pool of music that was jointly owned? What if that collective pool had 40 000 artists who shared the revenue? Co-owned by a group that begins to have extraordinary bargaining power. What if anyone could invest in that pool and make it stronger, grow it bigger? Not through patronage but actual equity in appreciating and valuing cultural assets with IP that compounds with every generation, every remix, every new artist who adds to the tradition. Traditional Ndebele design patterns and township jazz would be collectively owned, licensed, and protected. These collective ownership trusts build the galleries and museums, issue the bursaries, make the instruments, and share their wisdom within and without.

‘I am what I am because of who we all are.’

Imagine that.