African K-Pop Fans Are Building Their Own Spaces
While the K-pop industry largely ignores them, fans in Kenya and Nigeria create K-pop communities for themselves.
When Sheila, a 25-year-old fan from Nairobi, Kenya, discovered BTS’s “Fire” music video in 2016 through a friend, she had no idea that the song would introduce her to a global K-pop fandom that would become a major part of her life. What started with BTS evolved into years of exploring the wider world of K-pop groups, including Blackpink, Stray Kids, Red Velvet, and EXO.
Like many K-pop fans across the continent, where very few K-pop bands have ever performed, Sheila experienced the fandom almost entirely online: streaming artists on Spotify, watching their YouTube performances, and catching up with news on multiple subreddits. Those spaces helped her feel connected to the wider K-pop fandom, but she considered the genre too niche to build a significant fan following on a continent where Afrobeats and Western music have long dominated mainstream consumption.
“Being a K-pop fan in an African country isn’t the same as being a fan anywhere else,” Sheila told me while showing me her collection of BTS albums, including the group's latest release, ARIRANG. “You have to work harder than fans in other regions if you want to keep up with your favorite bands. Finding albums and merchandise is also tough because of expensive shipping fees charged by third-party sellers. But the bigger hurdle was finding fans in my country that I could relate to.”
All that changed when she came across a poster advertising K-pop Festa Kenya on TikTok in late 2025. Sheila was surprised to see other fans in Kenya who were equally excited to sing, dance, and revel in a shared love for the music. Her obscure genre was no longer so obscure. Despite a lack of direct interaction with bands or with broader global fandom, fans in the region had begun carving out a space for themselves.
