Being ‘Too African’ or ‘Not African Enough’

   It’s weird navigating identity sometimes.

             One moment, you’re being called **“too African”**—because you actually love African prints, because you **still eat banku with your hands**, because you refuse to abandon your roots for a curated aesthetic.  

The next moment, you’re **“not African enough”**—because you like Afrobeats but don’t understand every local dialect, because you sometimes eat pasta instead of jollof.  

And somehow, you’re expected to exist within this invisible boundary—**enough for one side, but not too much for the other**.  

It’s as if identity is a checklist—  

✅ Speak your native language fluently.  

✅ Know the history of every ethnic group.  

✅ Never adapt, never mix cultures, never embrace external influences.  

But let’s be real—culture is **not static**. Africa itself is layered, evolving, dynamic. The continent is made up of people who hold tight to traditions but also embrace the new. **We are walking contradictions**—modern but deeply rooted, global but undeniably homegrown.  

So why do we police identity? Why do we measure someone’s “Africanness” by superficial things like food preferences, accent, or whether they know every line in *Things Fall Apart*?  

You don’t need to *perform* being African. You just *are*. Whether you rock kente or sneakers, whether your Twi is fluent or *respectfully struggling*, whether you enjoy local dishes or occasionally crave sushi—it doesn’t make you less African.  

Because the essence of identity? It’s **lived, felt, experienced**—not something that needs approval.  

So if anyone asks you to **prove** how African you are? Tell them—  

*"I don’t need to. I exist. And that is enough."*  

Because it always has been.  

Because it always will be.