Drawing in viewers with juicy telenovela-style drama, star-studded casts and curated soundtracks, MTV Shuga has become a favorite among the scandalous and socially-conscious television viewer on the African continent.
Over five seasons, Shuga has operated as three self-contained miniseries, each set in a unique country and with a distinct cast. The stories have traveled from Kenya to Nigeria and, most recently, South Africa.
Each arc explores negotiations of culture, tradition and family through African millennial lenses. You won’t find any of the “Feed the Children” or National Geographic imagery or motifs here. No, it focuses on the realities of interpersonal relationships in modern Africa.
With various storylines and character developments, the show also addresses sexual education, holistically and without bias. It explores experiences of navigating education, establishing a career, finding love or just having fun, presenting the characters as both likeable and relatably-flawed.
Through this, the players in the stories become accessible and relatable to youth around the world, but Shuga still centers African people and African culture. It is refreshing to see characters like these completely humanized in entertainment media and in stories that address sexual health in contemporary Africa.
Shuga’s relatability is due in large part to the African talent working behind the scenes and at the forefront of the show’s storytelling ventures. Their presence is evident in the cultural references and social issues presented.
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Source: ‘MTV Shuga’ is a messy millennial edutainment series educating African youth about sexual health
