“Indeed the very shape of Africa, a question mark, is sphinx-like in its challenge to all scholars to find the proper key to an understanding of its rich diversity and complexity.” This view expressed by Elliot P. Skinner in 1973 remains as valid today as when it was first proposed. The search for the proper key to understanding and making sense of such a huge and diverse continent as Africa has taken many twists and turns. From generalized monographs, often with Africa in their titles, the content of which, however, betrays a fleeting and shallow observation of a singular practitioner, to disciplinary-based studies, and now interdisciplinary approaches, it has become obvious that a continent that boasts no less than two thousand different languages, and hence at least two thousand peoples—in other words, nations of varying sizes, customs, environments, and experiences—cannot be explicated on the basis of one theoretical prism. According to an Igbo proverb, one cannot stand at a spot to watch roving masquerades dance. Just as the dance of the masquerades is dynamic, reflecting the varying tempo of the drums, the mood of the moment, and the demands of the occasion, the popular traverses studies on Africa and African cultures spanning a wide range of disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, subsuming history, politics, linguistics, religion, economics, science, health, transportation, literature, arts, ecology, sports, and films. These studies have national, regional, and continental foci. They include specialized journals and scholarly associations, and they have evolved into academic subjects such as Africana studies or disciplines qualified by the adjective African (e.g., African linguistics, African literature, Lusophone Africa, Afro-Latin studies, African and African American studies, African and African diaspora studies). The number of Africans whose research focuses on Africa, its peoples, and cultures has grown steadily since the 1970s. In the spirit of Binyavanga Wainaina’s essay “How to Write about Africa” (Granta 92 [2005]), this article foregrounds the extant works on Popular Culture and the study of Africa. In focusing on contemporary scholarship, specifically works that date from the 1970s on, it may be possible to avoid, even if slightly, the unsavory descriptions, images, and representations of Africa, its peoples, and practices that are sometimes found in the so-called seminal, classical, and foundational works on Africa.