IShowSpeed wraps up Africa tour highlighting the continent's cultural diversity

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — The American streamer and YouTuber IShowSpeed is on the final leg of a 28-day tour of Africa aimed at showcasing the continent's cultural diversity, which is often overshadowed by images of poverty and violence.

“I’ve done so many incredible things in my life,” he said during a stop in Botswana. “But this trip is different. It opened my eyes. Africa is not what I thought.”

The 20-nation tour across southern, eastern and North Africa began in Angola in late December. He attended the Africa Cup of Nations final in Morocco on Jan. 18, then visited Senegal, celebrating the national soccer team’s victory with fans, and Nigeria, where he passed 50 million YouTube subscribers and marked his 21st birthday.

On Monday, he visited Ghana, trying jollof rice, meeting a traditional ruler and receiving a massage at the shea butter museum.

“I am back home, there ain’t no better feeling,” the content creator, whose real name is Darren Watkins Jr., said upon arriving in Ghana, revealing that his ancestry traces to the West African country. He arrived on Tuesday in Namibia, likely the tour’s final stop.

For his “Speed Does Africa” series, Watkins streamed live on YouTube. In videos lasting up to nine hours, he sampled local dishes, learned traditional dances and challenged athletes, often shouting in excitement. Large crowds of his followers swarmed him at many of his destinations.

Pape Seye, a 40-year-old resident of Senegal’s capital, Dakar, highlighted Watkins’ visit to the House of Slaves on Gorée Island, a symbol of the Atlantic slave trade that sent millions of Africans into bondage.

“Americans, especially Black Americans, need to know that our histories are tied, that many of our ancestors might have been deported from Gorée,” he said.

Souleymane Ba, a 24-year-old literature student from Senegal, told The Associated Press: “I hope that as Americans learn more about Africa and see its rich cultures, they will realize it is not made up of ‘shithole countries.’”

For some Americans, the message appears to be resonating.

“IShowSpeed is single-handedly changing our view of Africa,” GrowYourEther, another American streamer, said in a TikTok video.

“We had been told Africa is primitive, that it’s dangerous,” said American influencer Caroline Jones in tears on Instagram, adding she was moved by the warm welcome the streamer received on the continent.

Others have been more skeptical. Beninese influencer Nelly Mbaa, known online as Afro Chronik, said that Watkins embodies a Western expectation that young Black men be valued for spectacle rather than intellect. She said he's followed not for subtle humor, but for performing “an absurd, exaggerated and grotesque character.”

“If he were to abandon this persona — the constant grimacing, shouting and controversial remarks — his audience would likely disappear,” Mbaa said.

IShowSpeed has more than 50 million YouTube subscribers, 45 million Instagram followers and 47 million on TikTok.

He has built his brand on loud, exaggerated and sometimes aggressive reactions that became his online persona, but also sparked controversy. In 2022, he was banned from a professional online gaming competition after a sexist outburst against a female player and briefly suspended from YouTube for showing sexual content in a video game.

American YouTuber and online streamer Darren Jason Watkins Jr., better known as IShowSpeed, is served Ghana jollof rice at Independence Square in Accra, Ghana, during his Africa tour, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Tsraha Yaw)

American YouTuber and online streamer Darren Jason Watkins Jr., known as IShowSpeed, meets fans at Independence Square in Accra, Ghana, during his Africa tour, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Tsraha Yaw)

American YouTuber and online streamer Darren Jason Watkins Jr., known as IShowSpeed, meets fans at Independence Square in Accra, Ghana, during his Africa tour, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Tsraha Yaw)

American YouTuber and online streamer Darren Jason Watkins Jr., known as IShowSpeed, meets fans at Independence Square in Accra, Ghana, during his Africa tour, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Tsraha Yaw)

American YouTuber and online streamer Darren Jason Watkins Jr., known as IShowSpeed, meets fans at Independence Square in Accra, Ghana, during his Africa tour, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Tsraha Yaw)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — President Donald Trump is headed to Iowa on Tuesday as part of the White House’s midterm year pivot toward affordability, even as his administration remains mired in the fallout in Minneapolis over a second fatal shooting by federal immigration officers this month.

While in Iowa, the Republican president will make a stop at a local business and then deliver a speech on affordability, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. The remarks will be at the Horizon Events Center in Clive, a suburb of Des Moines.

The trip will also highlight energy policy, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said last week. It’s part of the White House’s strategy to have Trump travel out of Washington once a week ahead of the midterm elections to focus on affordability issues facing everyday Americans — an effort that keeps getting diverted by crisis.

The latest comes as the Trump administration is grappling with the weekend shooting death of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse killed by federal agents in the neighboring state of Minnesota. Even as some top administration officials moved quickly to malign Pretti, the White House said Monday that Trump was waiting until an investigation into the shooting was complete.

Trump was last in Iowa ahead of the July 4 holiday to kick off the United States’ upcoming 250th anniversary, which morphed largely into a celebration of his major spending and tax cut package hours after Congress had approved it.

Republicans are hoping that Trump’s visit to the state on Tuesday draws focus back to that tax bill, which will be a key part of their pitch as they ask voters to keep them in power in November.

“I invited President Trump back to Iowa to highlight the real progress we’ve made: delivering tax relief for working families, securing the border, and growing our economy,” Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, said in a statement in advance of his trip. “Now we’ve got to keep that momentum going and pass my affordable housing bill, deliver for Iowa’s energy producers, and bring down costs for working families.”

Trump’s affordability tour has taken him to Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina as the White House tries to marshal the president’s political power to appeal to voters in key swing states.

But Trump's penchant for going off-script has sometimes taken the focus off cost-of-living issues and his administration’s plans for how to combat it. In Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, Trump insisted that inflation was no longer a problem and that Democrats were using the term affordability as a “hoax” to hurt him. At that event, Trump also griped that immigrants arriving to the U.S. from “filthy” countries got more attention than his pledges to fight inflation.

Although it was a swing state just a little more than a decade ago, Iowa in recent years has been reliably Republican in national and statewide elections. Trump won Iowa by 13 percentage points in 2024 against Democrat Kamala Harris.

Still, two of Iowa’s four congressional districts have been among the most competitive in the country and are expected to be again in this year’s midterm elections. Trump already has endorsed Republican Reps. Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks. Democrats, who landed three of Iowa's four House seats in the 2018 midterm elections during Trump’s first term, see a prime opportunity to unseat Iowa incumbents.

This election will be the first since 1968 with open seats for both governor and U.S. senator at the top of the ticket after Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst opted out of reelection bids. The political shake-ups have rippled throughout the state, with Republican Reps. Randy Feenstra and Ashley Hinson seeking new offices for governor and for U.S. senator, respectively.

Democrats hope Rob Sand, the lone Democrat in statewide office who is running for governor, will make the entire state more competitive with his appeal to moderate and conservative voters and his $13 million in cash on hand.

Kim reported from Washington.

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters aboard Air Force One after leaving the World Economic Forum in Davos for Washington, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026, after returning from the World Economic Forum in Davos.(AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)