Created by Nicole Amarteifo and Millie Monyo, An African City, has hit viral proportions. The YouTube sensation follows the lives of five returnees to Accra, Ghana, who are looking for love in a country ruled by men. With the success of the webseries, Nicole, Millie, and “the Ghanaian Carrie Bradshaw,†MaameYaa Boafo has had their work compared to HBO’s Sex and the City. The show features the talents of Nana Mensah (Sade), Marie Humbert (Makena), Maame Adjei (Zainab), and Esosa E (Ngozi) – An African City spotlights a growing entertainment hub and production capital in the Motherland.
As An African City continues to skyrocket to the top of the charts, BlackEnterprise.com sat down with the creators and actress Esosa E to talk about their respective origins, how they went after sponsorships, how the show developed into an entertainment hub in Accra, and why ladies should be wary of “The Belly Button Testâ€.
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BlackEnterprise.com: When you and the team were developing the show how was it to formalize a plan of action to court sponsors? What opportunities were you willing to offer in exchange for support?
Millie Monyo: Getting organizations to sponsor anything can be a very daunting task, but it has to be done. Nicole and I literally sat down one day and wrote down every single company, brand, person, and product that came to mind and set them as our targets. When seeking sponsorship, it’s your job to find interesting ways to get people interested in what you have to say. We had to think of getting sponsors for our show as another project that needed to be completed. It’s no different than finding locations, clothing, or talent.
Nicole Amarteifio: For our sponsors, they saw the immense opportunity to align themselves with something Afropolitan and showcase themselves among an Afropolitan audience. For example, African Regent is the leading Afropolitan hotel on the continent, so our audience is the perfect fit for their offerings. With them being modern, sophisticated, classy, and undeniably African, it was only right that we attempted to work with them while producing An African City.
However, being that the series was going to be on a global platform such as YouTube, we wanted to make sure that we showcased the best of what Africa has to offer on a worldwide scale. We needed to showcase the best of what Africa has to offer in terms of fashion, such as Christie Brown, Kiki Clothing, Ameyo, Osei Duro, Afro Mod Trends, Deborah Vanessa, Unknown Collections, Afrodesiac, and Chemphe Bre. We wanted to showcase the best music from artists like Jayso, Rhian Benson, M.nifest, Samini, ChorkorHeights, Jeff Spain, Efya, and A.I.
Even with books that the characters are reading on the show were important to showcase and spotlight. Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selassi, Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie are just two that people should check out for themselves. The painting in Nana Yaa’s room was also sponsored to us by a Nigerian artist based in Washington, D.C. named Aniekan Udofia.
On the next page, the gang talks about Ghana’s acceptance of An African City…
As one of the main characters in the cast, Esosa, how did you develop your role as Ngozi? How did those elements best represent who you are in real life?
Esosa E: I had to find the core truth about Ngozi that resonated for me personally, and imagine all facets of her life that weren’t in the script. I have to shout out my amazing acting coach Marishka Phillips for her support during that process. Ngozi has a very innocent way of seeing the world and although she is educated, she’s extremely naive about sexuality because she is a virgin. Ngozi has a desperate desire to be liked and to fit in, so she struggles with trying to retain her identity as a Christian amongst her secular friends. I really didn’t see myself as her initially, but I had strong reference points for friends and family that were on the journey of celibacy until marriage or had an Ngozi quality about them. I used those people as inspirations and then chose to make some slight external adjustments, specifically with my voice, until I really felt at home moving through the world as her.
While having a lunch meeting with Nicole she had the brilliant idea to make Ngozi a vegetarian. Personally, I’ve been vegan for over ten years, and outside of acting I run a health blog called Raw Girl in a Toxic World, which focuses on vegan lifestyle and holistic health. I was also raised Christian, but I’m a little bit more of a hippie than Ngozi because I combine my Christian faith with yoga and daily meditation and that’s how I stay grounded. The best elements of Ngozi that are also a big part of me are her commitment to health, to love, and the love of God.
Together as a collective, An African City has started a wave of attention that is purely contagious. Has the same fervor developed back in Accra, Ghana? How do you all believe the native audience has taken to the cast and the concept of the web series?
NA: There are Ghanaian women who now come up to me in restaurants or social gatherings and thank me for putting women on screen who look and sound like them. For so long, there has only been one type of African woman on screen, this was something different.
MM: I agree! Ghanaians are excited to see the unique faces in our cast. With African programs, although the talent exists on the continent, filmmakers tend to overuse the same people as their main characters. The most frequent response I have heard in regards to An African City is the fact that it is exciting to see fresh faces talking about topics that are relatable and real and not typically spoken about in African film!
EE: I have seen, especially on Twitter, tons of positive comments from Ghana. People are saying that they are so grateful for a high qu
ality African production. They wish it was on actual television, and they love the fashion showcased within the show. The only funny things I noticed were the comments about how all of us “Americans†were pronouncing some of the African names wrong because we speak with our U.S. accents. This is true, but it’s also how our characters would speak because we are African, but did not grow up on the continent or have been abroad for many years.After episode one, some people voiced that they felt the show wasn’t representative of all African women. This is also true. But, what show can be? What show can be representative of all African women? I think that when someone breaks new ground, everyone desperately wants the story to speak to everything they know and hold dear. Our story is one about the returnee. I hope that rather than get upset about what An African City doesn’t include that people are inspired to get their own work out there. The world needs more of our stories in it, period.
On the next page, the gang talk about making Ghana an entertainment hub and “The Belly Button Test”…
Was putting together the production team, yours and Nicole’s first step? Or was it best to put together the show’s cast? Also, what were some of the obstacles you both faced in developing a show with an African production staff?
NA: We auditioned for the cast first before we selected the production team. I had written the characters, so I had wanted to see the actors that could bring those characters to life. MaameYaa Boafo – “the Ghanaian Carrie Bradshaw†– was the first to enter the the audition room. After she read, I turned to the rest of the team and said, “This is a great sign! This is going to be a good thing.â€
MM: Casting most certainly came first as it always should. In my book, “Until you have the right cast… you have nothing but an idea.â€
Ngozi serves as the moral compass of the group with her virtues starting plenty of the discussions between the girls. In “The Belly Button Test†episode, Ngozi has reservations about a potential mate examining your love below. Esosa, can you talk about your first thoughts about what “The Belly Button Test†was all about?
EE: Ngozi is the one within the group who believes in true love, but also understands that true intimacy and a lasting relationship includes friendship and being willing to let go of superficial reasons for loving someone. As her friends are finding every reason imaginable to avoid intimacy or to break up with men, she calls them out on it. But again, she is also very naive when it comes to sex. Sade, who is the most sexually active of the group, plays a mean joke on Ngozi and tells her that there’s something called “The Belly Button Test†and that if she doesn’t pass it, she may never keep a man.
Of course, this only flares up Ngozi’s insecurities because she believes the story full force, and then spends the rest of the episode worried about ruining her chances with the guy she’s seeing. When I first read it I saw it as just that, Ngozi doesn’t know much about her vagina (a word she’d never use) and she’s freaked out that she may not smell so great down below. I thought it was kind of silly, but really real too, because there are women out there who can be a bit clueless about their own female anatomy.
Esosa, can you update the readers about the progress of your first film, One Night in Brooklyn? How did your love of cinema first originate?
EE: Wow. I first fell in love with cinema while I was studying fashion design in college. I had planned to be a fashion designer and was so passionate about it, but along the way the acting bug bit me hard and I fell in love with storytelling. I started acting in short films and eventually writing and producing my own. For my fashion thesis, I made a film that featured my designs because I felt like film was the most powerful way to convey “fashion,†meaning, and emotion. Fashion for me was beyond dress, it was also about worldview and self-concept and film could contain all of those things. Film became important to me also because I eagerly studied the history of African-Americans in cinema and saw how powerful movies are in shaping worldwide perceptions around race and identity.
I wanted so much to be a part of that discussion; a part of creating powerful and fresh new images that could spark new opinions about humanity. My first feature film One Night in Brooklyn is a coming of age comedy about a group of twenty-something Brooklyn Bohemians on the night of a TransAfrican Independence Day Party. I was inspired to write it because I loved movies like House Party
, St. Elmo’s Fire, and The Big Chill, but I’d never seen anything like those movies with a truly multicultural cast.Right now, it’s still in progess. Very recently, I have started a conversation with a distributor who loves the concept and is interested in distributing it (even before it’s been made). I’m on the hunt for an investor. I have a good solid script, a talented cast, a business plan, and a dream to make an independent film that speaks to the African Diaspora and is profitable. I’m the type of filmmaker who thinks business too, and being a part of a project like An African City is wonderful, because it demonstrates what I have been trying to explain to people. There is a huge African Diaspora audience that is dying to see themselves onscreen. I want to give the people what they want.
With all the attention focused on developing Africa as a central hub for entertainment – what do you all think the future holds for the culture in Ghana?
MM: The future for the entertainment culture in Ghana is bright! Seven of the world’s 10 fastest-growing economies are currently in Africa, with 70 percent of the continent’s population living in countries which have enjoyed average economic growth rates in excess of 4 percent over the past decade. This steady progress has given rise to a growing middle class driving demand for the latest in entertainment. South Africa and Nigeria have all been touted as the entertainment hub for the continent, and I dare say Ghana is not too far behind. Ghanaians are hungry for shows that entertain, that we can relate to on all levels. The possibilities are endless for Ghana as well as our series.
EE: It is so interesting to ponder how social media and the Internet have made ideas so easily exchanged across and between continents. I’m Nigerian and I see this with Hollywood… that with time new global and cultural influences change the types of movies filmmakers are making. Ghana, specifically Accra, is a great place to do business and has already become a hub for investors and entrepreneurs from all over the world. The number of incredible Ghanaian’s in entertainment is growing rapidly and I was excited to work with Nicole and Millie who are on that list. I think that Ghana is going to continue to produce great content and great filmmakers, and that the entertainment industry there will blossom into one of the central hubs for storytelling in Africa. This is just the beginning.
An African City is currently embarking on producing its second season. You can check out the previous episodes on their YouTube channel.