Nike is the uniform for kids all over the world, and African

“Nike is the uniform for kids all over the world, and African design has been killed by Nike. Africans no longer want to wear their own designs.” – M.I.A.

Listen well, children of the new age, for these are not merely words of lament, but of warning and awakening. The artist M.I.A., a voice both rebellious and prophetic, speaks here of a wound that runs deep through the heart of identity. She speaks of culture, of colonization, and of the slow fading of the self beneath the bright lights of global fashion. Her words are a cry against a silent conquest—not through armies or empires, but through brands, desire, and imitation. “Nike is the uniform for kids all over the world,” she says—and in that truth, we hear both unity and loss, both belonging and erasure.

For what she names is the rise of a universal uniform, a mark of the modern empire. Once, children in the villages of Africa, Asia, and the islands of the sea wore garments woven by their own hands—dyed in the colors of their earth, patterned with the memory of their ancestors. Each thread spoke a story: of tribe, of craft, of place. But now, the youth wear the same logos, the same shoes, the same symbols of power. The swoosh has replaced the ancestral emblem. The fabric of identity has been traded for the fabric of profit. This is what M.I.A. calls the death of African design—not a literal death, but a death of reverence, of self-belief, of pride in one’s own creation.

Consider the story of Thomas Sankara, the revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso. When he came to power, he urged his people to wear Faso Dan Fani, the handwoven cotton cloth of their land. He said, “We must produce, consume, and wear what we ourselves create.” In those words lay a vision of liberation—not only political, but cultural. Yet even as Sankara stood against the flood of foreign influence, the tide of globalization was rising, carried by the engines of industry and desire. The world did not listen. He was silenced, but his warning still echoes in M.I.A.’s cry. If a people abandon their art, they abandon the rhythm of their own soul.

And yet, the seduction is powerful. The child who sees the glitter of the Western world on a screen begins to believe that beauty lies only there. To wear Nike, to own what others own, feels like entry into modernity, into acceptance. But the ancient teachers would say: “What profits a people to gain the world’s approval, yet lose the song of their ancestors?” This is not only about clothing—it is about memory, dignity, and self-worth. When the designs of Africa, of India, of Latin America fade beneath the shadow of a single logo, the world grows poorer, not richer. The uniform of sameness replaces the tapestry of diversity.

M.I.A.’s words are both lament and challenge. She does not despise the child who wears Nike; she despises the system that taught that child to be ashamed of their own beauty. She reminds us that colonialism never truly ended—it merely changed its armor. Once it came with guns and chains; now it comes with brands and advertisements. Once it sought to conquer the land; now it seeks to conquer the mind. This is the new empire, the empire of the image. And only through awareness, through the revival of pride in local design, can people reclaim their lost inheritance.

So let us remember the wisdom of the elders: To create is to live, and to imitate blindly is to die a little each day. Let the youth of every nation look again upon the colors of their soil, the patterns of their people, and find in them not embarrassment, but power. Let the artists, the weavers, the designers, and the dreamers rise again—not to reject the world, but to reshape it in their image. Let African design, and all indigenous design, breathe again, fierce and free.

And to you who hear these words—do not despise modern creation, but make it your own. Wear what carries your story. Buy from those whose hands still honor the earth. Teach your children the meaning of the symbols they wear. For in every thread lies a choice: between forgetting and remembrance, between imitation and identity.

Remember this: A logo fades, but heritage endures. If you wish to walk in freedom, wear not the uniform of another’s empire—wear the mark of your own soul.