American YouTuber IShowSpeed was in Lagos on Wednesday, where he celebrated his 21st birthday by hitting 50 million subscribers.
Popularly known as Speed, he arrived in Nigeria as part of his ongoing Africa-wide livestream tour, making the country his 15th stop on the continent. While in Lagos, iShowSpeed stopped at the Balogun Market, Freedom Park and the Nike Art Gallery. He also tried Nigeria’s famous jollof rice.
The YouTube and Twitch star kicked off an African tour at the end of December, visiting 15 countries across the continent and drawing huge crowds at every stop.
His tour has featured a race against a cheetah in South Africa, a football match with 100 children in Angola, a visit to Kenya’s Maasai and the Africa Cup final in Morocco. On Tuesday he celebrated Senegal’s AFCON victory in Dakar.
Born in Cincinnati as Darren Jason Watkins Jr., Rolling Stone magazine named him the most influential creator of 2025.
The 20-year-old YouTube star, whose real name is Darren Watkins Jr., landed in Lagos on Wednesday and immediately went live ahead of his 21st birthday celebration.
Speed is in Nigeria under “Speed Does Africa”, a 28-day livestream tour launched on December 29, 2025, designed to visit 20 African countries while showcasing the continent’s culture, people and landscapes to his global audience of over 28 million subscribers.
Early footage from Lagos showed the streamer inside a vehicle wearing a Super Eagles jersey, animated and wide-eyed, sparking reactions online as fans joked about Lagos traffic and the pace of the livestream.
According to social media updates, Speed is currently streaming live and preparing to celebrate his birthday in Nigeria alongside fellow Twitch streamer Carter Efe.
During the Lagos stream, Speed also joined the long-running Ghana jollof versus Nigeria jollof debate, declaring, “Nigeria jollof is the best,” while eating the dish.
The Africa tour has taken Speed across North, East, Southern and West Africa, with Nigeria becoming the latest destination.
Key moments from earlier stops include a livestream from inside the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, a meeting with Kenyan President William Ruto, cage diving with sharks in South Africa, and a royal initiation ceremony in Eswatini where he was given the name “Logijimako”.
In Ethiopia, his Addis Ababa stream became the most viral of the tour, attracting over 10 million views in less than 20 hours, while his Nairobi stream drew more than 8.4 million views within five hours.
Overall, the tour has generated hundreds of millions of views, with individual streams frequently peaking at over 100,000 concurrent viewers.
Nigeria joins countries including Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa, Senegal and Botswana among those already visited as the tour continues across the continent.
Additional Sources: African News, The Eagle Online
