From Hollywood to the homeland: Why African countries are courting black American stars

Although their forefathers were seized from West and Central Africa centuries ago, the bond between African-Americans and their ancestral home has been a lasting one.

For instance, Liberia, Africa's oldest republic, was founded by freed black American slaves in 1822. After Ghana became independent in 1957, a wave of black intellectuals and artists moved there from the US. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali subsequently paid high-profile visits to Ghana, while Guinea became home to Black Panther leader Stokely Carmichael.

This transatlantic connection has ebbed and flowed over time - but in recent years, there has been a real resurgence, helped by the use of DNA tests.

A number of black American celebrities have sought the nationality of African countries - singer Ciara has become a citizen of Benin, rapper Ludacris and film star Samuel L Jackson are officially Gabonese, actors Meagan Good and Jonathan Majors are citizens of Guinea and musical icon Stevie Wonder has Ghanaian papers.

The celebs have, in most cases, flown out for elaborate citizenship ceremonies and tours of local beauty spots, all of which have been captured for glossy social media content.

Posting photos of her citizenship ceremony in Guinea, Meagan Good told her 7.8m Instagram followers last month: "This is history in motion".

Good, who has featured in films like Think Like A Man and Saw V, and her husband Majors, known for Creed and Marvel flick Ant-Man and the Wasp, became citizens after DNA testing traced their ancestry to Guinea.

"This recognition goes beyond titles, it is a homecoming and a reconnection to our Afrodescendant roots," said Good.

Messaging from the various African governments has echoed this sentiment.

"In conferring Ghanaian citizenship upon Stevie Wonder," former president Nana Akufo-Addo said at Wonder's 2024 ceremony, "we not only extend our warmest embrace to a beloved son of Africa but also reaffirm our belief in the enduring spirit of pan-Africanism and the global African family".

Ghana has long promoted its pan-African credentials - for a decade anyone whose ancestors came from Africa have been entitled to Ghanaian nationality, a policy that arguably inspired Benin to launch a similar scheme.

Ghana also launched the "year of return" in 2019, a buzzy initiative encouraging Africans in the diaspora to relocate there.

More than 1,000 African-Americans have done so in the past decade, according to Dr Erieka Bennet, ambassador for the Diaspora African Forum, which helps people relocate to Ghana.

"It is not only about romanticism," Marie-Roger Biloa, a Cameroonian journalist with a focus on West Africa, tells the BBC.

"It's all very much about how can we tap into the potential they have, the Americans."

Tourism is an obvious motivator. Governments hope that social media posts from the stars will encourage other black Americans, a large group with a growing economic power, to visit and inject money into their countries.

Biloa notes that Benin's president, a former business tycoon, is keenly aware that his country's former role as a key departure point for slaves makes it a poignant destination for black Americans.

"President [Patrice] Talon has really started investing in cultural heritage, in a way to engage the African-Americans worldwide. He understood it could be an engine for a new form of tourism and a new branch of economy," she says, mentioning The Marina Project, a memorial and tourist complex being built in Ouidah, once one of Benin's main slave ports.

Positive publicity from stars like Ciara may also encourage diasporans to invest or buy property in Benin, as they have been doing in Ghana since the year of return.

Soft power is also an important factor - by promoting their culture and building a robust network around the world, countries like Benin, Guinea, Gabon and Ghana stand to gain global influence.

In this mission, celebrity citizens act as ambassadors, Francis Kpatindé, a Beninois lecturer at France's Sciences Po University, tells the BBC.

"Benin has no diamonds like the Democratic Republic of Congo, no petrol, nothing. We just have cotton, the ports and culture," he says.

The celebrity ambassadors are "a way for us to be on the record, to be on-screen. Now it's working. You can go to the social networks. You see Benin everywhere," Kpatindé says.

Many people from the countries involved recognise the economic and political benefits of giving citizenship to black American celebrities, but others are more critical.

There is an underlying feeling that the stars are bypassing what can be, for those born in the countries, a cumbersome and costly process to get passports.

Taufic Suleman, a painter and decorator from Ghana, felt "irritated" when the foreign minister announced that IShowSpeed, who grew up in the US but has a Ghanaian mother, had been approved for a passport.

"It is really, really, really a bad precedent... why do people, your citizens, have to go through vetting? Sometimes others end up being denied," Suleman, aged 32, tells the BBC.

"You just can't hand out a passport to anyone just because the person is a celebrity."

Following the foreign minister's announcement, Patrick Boamah, a member of the Ghanaian parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, told local broadcaster Channel One that the content creator must follow the required legal procedures to get a passport, although the authorities "may waive certain steps for him".

Sindé Chekete, the head of Benin's tourism authority, told the BBC that "citizenship processing is not influenced by celebrity status" and that Ciara "followed the same standard procedure as any other applicant".

Another criticism of the celebrity citizenship trend is that it will be superficial and fleeting - the stars will collect their certificates, publish a few social media posts, then go quiet.

It is not clear whether, in all cases, the celebrities are required to publicise or maintain lasting links to their second homes, but Chekete stressed that Beninois citizenship "is not a transaction and it does not come with contractual obligations, whether promotional, financial, or otherwise".

Six months after getting her citizenship, Ciara returned to Benin in January to play at the Vodun Days festival.

Meagan Good and Jonathan Majors have stressed that their connection with Guinea would be "long-term and evolving".

"We could absolutely see ourselves having a home here and spending meaningful time in Guinea," they told the BBC over email.

Yaw Nyame, one of the numerous Ghanaians who welcomed IShowSpeed's naturalisation, says he hopes the content creator uses his passport to set up a base in the country.

"Even if he's not going to come to Ghana all the time, at least him having his presence in Ghana or doing a project in Ghana," Nyame says.

The doctor says giving IShowSpeed, real name Darren Watkins Jr, a passport is a "brilliant, strategic move" as the creator currently has "all eyes on him". He has more than 50 million YouTube subscribers, with a recent 20-country tour of Africa contributing to the growth of his platform.

It will take time for Ghana, Gabon, Guinea and Benin to gauge whether their strategies have paid off - maybe one or two decades, Kpatindé says.

Earlier this week, Benin's government said it would open a government agency specifically dedicated to nationalising "Afro-descendants".

Regardless, Kpatindé believes that by welcoming home some of the diaspora's brightest stars, the African countries are on the right trajectory.

People on the continent have long hailed pan-Africanism, "but now we need action," he says. "We need concrete acts, not to just speak".