‘AFROSURF’: The Project That Will Finally Highlight Africa’s Surf Culture

African surf brand Mami Wata is showing the world that surf culture isn’t just Americans and Australians with blue eyes and blonde hair.

With a new book titled AFROSURF, African surf brand Mami Wata is curating a project to fully document and celebrate the continent’s overlooked surf culture, bringing it’s vibrancy into the light. While the image of surf culture has been predominantly thought of as blue-eyed, blonde-haired Australians or Americans, AFROSURF will capture the diverse experiences and prolific history of Africa’s surfers.

200 photographs spanning 18 countries alongside comic books, essays, and profiles of surfers are included in the project, sharing with the world what surf culture is like in places such as Morocco, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Madagascar, Mozambique, Liberia, South Africa, Somalia, Ghana, and many more.

Mami Wata’s co-founder Selema Masekela said in a short promotional video for the project that the brand “aims to showcase all of the different layers, unique aspects, style and tradition, and African culture that contribute to this idea.”

To cover the costs of printing and producing the book, Mami Wata is striving to raise 30,000 GBP (39,000 USD), and once complete and on sale, all the profits will go to two different “surf therapy” organizations in Africa; Waves for Change and Surfers Not Street Children.

The campaign for AFROSURF launched on Friday, and donations can be made through it’s Kickstarter page with early donors seeing incentives like merchandise from Mami Wata.

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