By Soba Dakuku-Peterside
The fear isn’t irrational. Culture has been borrowed, repackaged, and sold back to us before. But that history cannot be the reason we stop telling our own stories outward.
For years, I believed authenticity was the greatest strength culturally rooted businesses had. Now I’m starting to question whether authenticity, as we market it, can also be our greatest limitation.
As someone building an African fusion food company in the diaspora, authenticity has always been our compass. Even in fusion, there are lines I refuse to cross. Because culture is not a prop. It is identity. But here is the uncomfortable truth I am confronting: Sometimes, we don’t just preserve authenticity. We preserve isolation.
Walk into most African restaurants in England, and you will notice something quickly. The rooms are full. The food is exceptional. But the audience is mostly African. Not because others wouldn’t enjoy it. But because they were never fully invited into it.
Our marketing speaks our internal language. Our humour, our references, our norms, and while that builds cultural intimacy, it can also limit global accessibility.
Whilst writing this article, I had just returned from a performance by the National Symphony Orchestra in London, guided by the precise and intentional hand of distinguished conductor Rimma Sushanskaya. It was distinct. Elegant. Unforgettable. I found myself thinking: Imagine an advert where, after their final bow, the orchestra sits backstage eating jollof rice together. The reactions would be priceless. Some Africans would love it. Some would question it. Some would debate whether it was necessary. Whether it represented us correctly. But many outside the culture would simply see it as beautiful. Interesting. Different.
And that’s when it struck me.
When other cultures invite themselves into our world, it creates curiosity, but when we invite others into ours, it sometimes creates resistance. Not because the culture isn’t powerful, but because we are still protective of how it travels.
One of my favourite ads last year was by Rimowa in collaboration with Nigerian visual artist Daniel Obasi titled ‘NDEWO’. Whilst Nigerians are not the largest consumers of Rimowa products, seeing our culture reflected so intentionally sparked aspiration, curiosity, and conversation within a new segment of Nigerians. The product didn’t change; the cultural bridge did. It reinforced something I am continuously learning, i.e businesses that scale globally don’t just export products. They translate culture, and translation requires cultural curiosity. Not just expecting the world to understand you, but being willing to understand how the world understands.
Some of the most globally dominant brands actively study cultures outside their own and adapt their storytelling accordingly. Sometimes imperfectly. Sometimes controversially. But intentionally. Yet in many of our communities, there is an unspoken fear that too much external influence risks cultural dilution or disconnection from our roots. So we stay within ourselves.
There’s a real anxiety in many African business communities that translation means surrender. That if you make it too accessible, you lose ownership of the narrative. That outsiders will take the entry point you created and eventually cut you out of your own story. That fear is rational, and it has a historical basis.
But staying within ourselves also keeps our businesses within ourselves. This is where I believe technology becomes critical. Not as a replacement for cultural instinct, but as an amplifier of it. Technology, especially AI, data, and digital platforms, now gives culturally rooted businesses something that previously required decades of market presence and enormous budgets. The ability to listen before you speak. To understand how a story lands before you commit to telling it. To test whether your cultural reference translates or gets lost entirely before it reaches the wrong audience in the wrong way.
A small African food brand can now use data to understand that its packaging resonates deeply with second-generation diaspora in Birmingham, but barely registers with curious non-African consumers in Manchester who might love the food but don’t yet have the cultural context to feel invited by the branding. That insight used to require expensive consultants and years of trial and error. Now it is accessible.
But technology doesn’t just help us understand other audiences. It helps us understand ourselves more clearly. It shows us which parts of our story are universal and which parts we have been assuming people understand without explanation. That gap between assumption and reality is often where culturally rooted businesses quietly lose potential customers they never even knew were interested. The opportunity is not to use technology to water down the culture. It is to use it to build better bridges. To translate with precision rather than guessing. To scale authenticity without surrendering it.
The future of culturally rooted businesses will not belong to those who abandon authenticity. It will belong to those who learn how to translate it. Authenticity should be our foundation, not our ceiling.
Whilst watching Chef’s Table: Legends, the story of Chef José Andrés stood out to me. He was deeply devoted to Spanish cuisine, shaped by his time at El Bulli, but when he moved to New York to work at El Dorado Petit, he encountered a new reality: authenticity alone was not enough. It needed translation. To truly connect, he had to understand the American audience. Their references. Their nostalgia. Their expectations.
Years later, his reinterpretations, like his take on the Philly cheesesteak at The Bazaar and his deconstructed Caesar salad at Minibar, became cultural bridges. He didn’t abandon Spanish cuisine. He made it accessible. He didn’t dilute his culture. He designed entry points into it. And in doing so, he didn’t just cook Spanish food in America. He made America curious about Spain.
The conversation about whether to translate is often framed as a question of integrity. But I wonder if it is actually a question of confidence. Whether we truly believe our culture is compelling enough that others will value it on its own terms, even when reframed for a new audience. Translation is not simplification. A good translator doesn’t remove complexity. They find the same level of complexity in another language. The goal is not to make African culture easier. It is to make it legible without making it less.
The brands that will define how African culture is seen globally in the next decade are being built right now. The question is whether they will be built by us, on our terms, or whether we will cede that ground by staying too comfortable within ourselves.
Soba Dakuku-Peterside can be reached via fspeterside@gmaill.com
