S5 Ep. 298 African Intelligence

We keep hearing “AI” and thinking machines. We’re flipping that meaning to something older and, in many ways, more urgent: African Intelligence. After reflecting on five years of the World Cafe Live Show, we zoom in on a question that hits culture, education, and identity all at once: why do so many people treat African knowledge as something to hide, downplay, or dismiss, even when it solves real problems every day?

We break intelligence down into a practical idea: information gathered, interpreted, and turned into decisions. From there, we talk about what gets lost when a society relies only on oral tradition without strong systems for documentation, data capture, and teaching across generations. A standout story follows a grandfather’s experience as a fisherman navigating Nigeria’s coastal waters by using the stars and reading wind direction to anticipate rain and seasonal change. That’s indigenous knowledge systems, environmental literacy, and applied science, whether or not a textbook gives it a name.

We also look at African sound, percussion, Afrobeat, and amapiano as proof of complex cultural engineering that the world already celebrates, and we ask what it would look like to bring that same confidence into education, African engineering, cuisine, botany, biology, and geography. The closing message stays grounded: don’t chase being “better.” Own being different, and let your difference complement the world.

If this sparked something in you, subscribe, share this episode with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners find the conversation. What’s one piece of knowledge from your family or community that deserves to be recorded and passed on?

Transcript

Welcome And Five-Year Reflection

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Good everything. Welcome to the World Cafe Live Show. This is the space where we're coming to lean on one another's experience to forge a positive path. Yes. It's always fun coming in here, sincerely. How are you? How are you doing? Ah, it's been an amazing season. You know, amazing season. You know, the World Cafe turned five this year. Yeah. 2026. Five years of sitting down, sharing some moments with you. I mean, each time I go back, that it happened in March anyway, it gives me so much joy. And I'm grateful to God. Yes. I often look at the world from a lens, the lens of we all came here for a purpose.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

We have something to offer. And uh not until you discover it.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Like a wise man said, abuse is inevitable when purpose is not found, it's not discovered.

What African Intelligence Means

SPEAKER_01 1:40

I want to talk about what I call today, I want to share with you what I call African intelligence.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

AI.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Not artificial intelligence, but the African intelligence.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Do you know that? Where Africa is Africa has this intelligence that has been ignored, abused, bastardized, looked down on. So much so that even Africans downplay their own intelligence. Yes. You downplay it. Now,

Defining Intelligence As Usable Information

SPEAKER_00 2:35

what is intelligence to start with?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

What is intelligence? Let's leave the dictionary definitions and all that. And let us look at it from observation. What really is intelligence?

SPEAKER_00 2:48

When you look at the word intelligence, you have, if you split it, it has a component called intel. Then there's a gentlem somewhere like an agent.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Intelligence. Okay. I'm helping you. This is how I look at words and begin to get the meaning, in my opinion, the true meaning. So when you say intel, it boils down to what? Information? Data. You know, just like when security agencies are gathering intel. They are gathering information, they are gathering data. Now, upon the gathering of this data, they begin to make informed decisions. Like we say, they make intelligent decisions. And so when you say something is intelligent, it means it has a consciousness, it lives, is alive, it's aware, it can emote, it can give off.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

So let us bring it home.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

The African intelligence. Often we look at our intelligence as diabolic, as evil, as I don't like using that word, but for the lack of better expression, dark.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

You hear things like dark magic. And it's like, what do you mean by dark magic?

Stars Winds And Coastal Navigation

SPEAKER_01 4:31

I I know there was this time I sat with my granddad. One of these days I'm going to, it will be an episode on the show. I'm going to talk about stories from my grandparents or from my granddad. It will blow your mind. It will blow your mind like my grandparents or my mom.

unknown 4:57

You know.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

So he told us a story. He was a fisherman. Told us a story of his adventures as in along the coast. Now, if you know the map of Nigeria so well, there's a place called the Bight of Biafra, is down south to the Atlantic Ocean. Now, when you see how the water flows from the, there's a place called the Koto Channel. I don't have my map here with me, but I'm just trying to create it. The Koto Channel, it flows through river state from the brackish water. Brachish water is simply salt water. You know, it flows and somewhere empties itself along the Orashi axis. Pick up your map, you see what I'm talking about. The Orashi axis empties into it. The Orashi is fresh water and it runs from the Oba Ebi Martin Doney axis of River State straight to Choba River. Then it circles back again. So you it will go to River Ninja. These were points he was traveling. And I was like, How do you navigate all of these things? He will laugh. He said, We use the stars as a guide. So before I saw most of the things in uh national geography and channels and all that, my granddad taught me all of that. You know, then how the wind direction will tell you it's about to rain. Or when the wind direction tells you the where the season is changing, that's where those of us in Nigeria will call it the Hamatan. So that northeasterly wind blows all the way from Sahara, goes through the middle belt, passes through Inugu Axis, the eastern axis of Nigeria, then falls into the Atlantic Ocean. It causes, brings in the cold wind. So the middle belt is now Benwe, Nasrawa, mostly just plateau, becomes very cold.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Am I speaking above your head?

SPEAKER_01 7:25

We have an intelligence.

Oral Tradition Versus Captured Knowledge

SPEAKER_01 7:27

So this is our problem. We don't appreciate our intelligence. We don't. And as a result of that, we give away value freely. We just give it away, or we don't even value what we have. Now, we come to see that you look at the Western way of reasoning and Western way of functioning. What exactly, what exactly, okay, data capturing, data gathering, data collision. That's intel. They are gathering it, putting it together, data interpretation, interpreting it, you know, so that the next generation can capture it and all that. But we don't have. You know, we are more of the uh storytelling kind of people, oral information. So from one generation to the other, and it disappears. But again, I I see that lately a good number of us are beginning to fight. The other day I read about fight in a good sense. I mean, I read about uh this name, Dr. Tam George. I think that's his name. One-time commissioner for information in River State. He was he won an award. He was recognized globally. You know, I've read his works. I mean, fantastic guy. I love the way he reasons and the way he talks. And I was like, okay, the way he arranges his thoughts in terms of intelligence now, the intel, the data, the information, he puts it together.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

You can see knowledge expressed.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

You can see intelligence being transmitted or communicated from one generation to the other. So don't forget this: human beings are creatures of communication. Our ability to transcend time is as a result of the ability to communicate. Like verbally, in terms of the image and all of that. I mean, we have that in abundance, but we have been unable to put this together effectively, capture it, transmit it, appreciate it from one generation to the other.

African Sound As Proof Of Genius

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Now, let me let me cite an example with or Father Butres, what I'm saying with this. The sound from Africa, the kind of sound, you know, we like large sound, the percussion, the drums, the heavy. So we call it things like afro. Like the amap, the amapiano sound from is it South Africa now or Southern Africa? Amapiano. While from Nigeria, we have the Afro sound. Like when you listen to Fella's uh tunes, they call it jazz, as in in the global scene, but actually he calls it afro. And you come to see that when that those pieces come together, they are very powerful, vibrant, heavy.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

So imagine we bringing that into the education. Just imagine that for a minute. Ask yourself that question. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

And so I feel we need to appreciate our intelligence, our AI. We need to appreciate it. We need to embrace it in the right sense, then use it to better our society. The African engineering, the African cuisines, and what have you, the African uh botany, African biology, African geography.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

I think there's so much value there.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

I think, in my opinion, there's so much value there, but we need to wake up. All right, guys. It's always fun coming in here to excite you for a good reason. So this is me provoking you. Yes, this is me provoking you in a good way. So go back, query it, and put it together and appreciate your intelligence. Put up your voice out there. There are places we can we can go make some bold statements, you know. Platforms like LinkedIn, you go make bold statements. You write, you put up a thought there. You're not there to beat down on anybody, but it's just to present your uniqueness.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

So I'm going to end with this.

Different Not Better Plus A Challenge

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Each time you look at yourself as being better than the next man, you're only creating an avenue for hate.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

But whenever you see that you are different, you're only creating an avenue to be complemented. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

So they were asking Mars Davis, the black American jazz singer, that question. Like, why are African sounds better than?

SPEAKER_00 13:49

And I said, no, no. We are not better, we're different. You have yours, I have mine. We're meant to compliment. Ah, and that's what I want to end with.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

You're different. So whoever tries to talk down on you know you are different. And your difference completes the world. Yes, we're available on all the social media platforms: LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, X. We have a YouTube channel. Have you subscribed? Please go ahead and subscribe and hit that notification button so that whenever episodes like this drop, you'll be the first to know. Go ahead, share, like, comment.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

Well, thank you for listening. Thank you for being there. I gotta go now. Until I come your way again. My name is Amakri. Amakri is subway. Bye for now.