Touring Europe And USA Is Easier Than Africa – Mr Eazi

Popular Afrobeats musician, Mr Eazi, has said that touring Europe and the United States was easier than touring Africa in the early years of his career. He recently had his say at the 2026 Africa Prosperity Dialogue, held under the theme “Empowering SMEs, Women and Youth in Africa’s Single Market: Innovate, Collaborate, Trade.”

According to him, he was once prevented from entering Kenya despite being paid to perform and having the number one song in Africa.

Mr Eazi added that Africa must focus on implementation to fully benefit from the African Continental Free Trade Area.

His words, “In the last ten years, I have spent six of those years as a singer touring the world and four of those years doing a lot of entrepreneurship. Two things stand out to me.

In the first six years of my rise, particularly the first two years of me blowing up, it was easier to tour America and Europe than it was to tour Africa, even though I had some of the biggest songs… once I had the number one song in Africa, touring here became even harder.

I remember two occasions, one of me going into Kenya with my band. Even though I had been paid to perform, I was stopped at the border.

My band, which included members of other nationalities, were allowed to enter, but I — the lead artist who was being paid the most — had to wait.

That incident speaks to the reality of the friction that is being put in place — friction that stops us from uniting, stops us from being stronger, and prevents us from developing.

Borders as they currently function create friction in movements, in payments, in regulation and in the abilities of small and medium-scale enterprises to scale.

One of which I’m really proud of is a company that is live in 19 African countries and processes four million transactions a day.

The young people under the age of 35, we actually don’t care about borders. Collaboration now happens via the internet, via cross-border collaboration in business and in creativity.

What remains is the important work of implementation.

We are not speaking about removing nations or weakening sovereignty. We are speaking of enabling the commitments already made and allowing people to move, trade, and build within Africa more efficiently, securely, and lawfully.

A more connected Africa is how SMEs grow into continental champions.

When Africa moves together, we do not lose strength. We multiply it… If we make Africa borderless, Africa becomes unstoppable.”

WOW.