Esther Akintade stops playing and starts speaking, except the speaking does not happen with her voice. It happens with her hands, through a centuries-old instrument that has survived colonization, migration, and now a Scottish academic stage.
Better known as Kira Africa, the Nigerian talking drummer recently found herself in a room of academics and policy leaders at the University of the West of Scotland in Paisley, invited to mark the 10th anniversary of the Center for African Research on Enterprise and Economic Development. It was not a novelty booking. It was recognition of a career she has spent five years building from the ground up, one performance at a time, thousands of miles from home.
Heritage as a business
Akintade’s craft is the Yoruba talking drum, the dùndún, an hourglass-shaped instrument whose tension cords allow a skilled player to bend pitch and mimic human speech. It is one of West Africa’s oldest forms of communication, historically used to send messages across villages long before phones existed.
Akintade did not just learn how to play it. She built an identity, and eventually a business. Carrying it into rooms it was never expected to enter.
Now based in Edinburgh, she has spent the past five years performing at universities, cultural festivals, and international events, positioning herself as one of the few female practitioners of the traditional talking drum in Scotland. In an industry where the instrument is still largely associated with men, that alone is a quiet act of disruption.
Building without a playbook
Building a career as a solo cultural performer in the diaspora is not a straightforward path. There is no standard roadmap for turning a traditional instrument into a sustainable practice thousands of kilometres from the culture that birthed it.
Akintade had to create her own lane, one that treats heritage not as nostalgia, but as a professional asset with real currency in academic and economic spaces. That approach brought her to the CAREED stage, where she delivered a keynote titled “Beyond Borders: How African Culture and Creativity Fuel Trade and Development.”
Through storytelling and live rhythm, she made the case that African cultural identity is not separate from economic conversation. It is central to it. Convincing a room of economists and institutional leaders that a drumbeat belongs in their discourse requires both confidence and clarity of vision.
The quiet barriers.
The obstacles here are less visible, but no less real. Performing traditional West African art in the UK means constantly translating context for audiences unfamiliar with its depth, while also resisting the pressure to flatten that heritage into simple entertainment.
Akintade has had to hold both identities at once: cultural custodian and business operator.
She is building visibility for herself without institutional backing, in a space where “cultural performer” is not always treated as a serious career category.
That makes her work more than artistic expression. It is positioning, education, and enterprise all at once.
Why this moment matters
The CAREED invitation signals that the work is landing.
Speaking after the event, Akintade said, “As a Nigerian talking drummer in Scotland, this moment reminds me that our stories, traditions and talents have the power to connect people across borders.”
That was not just a performance credit. It was heritage being treated as intellectually and economically relevant in a university setting built around research and enterprise.
Her growing catalogs of performances — from cultural festivals to community programs to academic institutions shows a career built on consistency and repeated proof of relevance, rather than one viral moment.
Lessons for cultural founders
At TWN, Akintade’s trajectory offers a useful reference point for anyone building a business around heritage or craft in unfamiliar territory:
- Specificity is an advantage: Akintade did not dilute her offering to fit into the general entertainment market. She leaned harder into the talking drum’s specificity, and that is what made her legible to spaces like CAREED.
- Institutions can raise your ceiling: Partnering with universities and research centers put her in rooms a standard gig calendar would never reach. Cultural entrepreneurs benefit from pursuing academic and institutional relationships, not just event bookings.
- Framing changes opportunity: The same skill set reads differently depending on how it is positioned — as entertainment, or as a contribution to trade and development. Akintade chose the latter, and it opened different doors.
Looking ahead
As African creative economies continue gaining global traction, performers like Akintade are proof that cultural preservation and business strategy do not have to sit in opposition. They can strengthen each other.
Her story suggests a future where heritage is not only performed, but positioned, pitched to policymakers, embedded in academic dialogue, and treated as infrastructure for cross-border relationships. Source Guardian News
For entrepreneurs in the arts, diaspora, and cultural sectors, her journey makes one thing clear: your background is not just backstory. It is your competitive edge. The question is whether you are willing to bring it into rooms it was not originally built for.
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