ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author wants to think about how people begin to understand, and how people continue to understand “African authenticity” in the digital future before them. This is very much about looking at the contemporary, because the contemporary is actually the closest people are going to come to the future: the now is the future that is unfolding itself before their eyes. So, one tangent to think about is “skeuomorphism,” which is when people adopt an older form and bring it into a newer one, in order to make some kind of auditory or visual metaphor, even though it’s not natural to the new thing. Having explained skeuomorphism, the author finds it relevant to the perception of being fully contemporary in Africa. As though only the talking drum were authentically African, or as though only electronic mimicking of the talking drum were permissible.
