00:00Every day, millions of faces are edited before they are even seen.
00:04In an age of filters and AI beauty, who actually controls how African faces are seen?
00:10I always have the mind that we can tell the Western story better than them.
00:15And they can tell our beautiful African story better than us.
00:18And the reason why I go in the lane of Afrocentric,
00:21where Afrocentric is just merging the Western culture,
00:24a bit of it with a lot of African touch, so it's more marketable and appealing.
00:29Again, with identity, it doesn't make you lose touch
00:31because you are easily recognized because of the look.
00:36From TikTok and Instagram filters to AI-generated faces,
00:41beauty is no longer shaped only by people.
00:44And for Ghanaian award-winning makeup artist and creative director, Leonard Ahia,
00:49the question is, who gets to decide what beauty looks like in the first place?
00:54Leonard doesn't just apply makeup, he interrupts the algorithm.
00:58Across Africa, beauty creators are building some of the continent's fastest-growing online communities.
01:06And AI can now create a perfect face without a real person ever sitting in front of a camera.
01:12When I think of beauty being not real online, I think of people hiding their imperfections,
01:21in the sense that people kind of want to appear a certain way.
01:25The African skin has a lot of texture and, you know, beautiful melanin and all that.
01:30But with filter, it kind of appears more whiter and even more smoother.
01:35But in real life, that's not how it's supposed to be portrayed.
01:38So I feel it's really shaping the African identity in a very wrong way.
01:43Leonard believes the next generation should learn how to create trends, not just follow them.
01:48More than 800 young creatives have gone through his mentorship programs.
01:53Today, that lesson moves beyond the classroom.
01:57I find keen interest and I'm very happy when I take up young talent to mentor them.
02:03And the reason being that most of us didn't get a chance to study a lot of professionals or study
02:12even a professional.
02:13So we ended up learning on our own and then we made a lot of mistakes, you know.
02:18So with the knowledge that I have, I feel impacting in the lives of the upcoming.
02:23We'll give them a very good idea of what the industry looks like.
02:27And the mistakes that we mostly did will not be repeated.
02:31They are subject to be styled as not a runway model, but a head porter, Seata, who is seen every
02:38day but never really looked at.
02:40In styling Seata, you know, the moment I saw her, I actually started thinking about how I'm going to bring
02:47out that happiness from her.
02:49After everything that I did, people clearly tell that she was bored about herself now and, you know, confident about
02:56it.
02:56And this thing will live with her forever. And that's actually the details that I actually considered.
03:03Today, her face is not being filtered. It's being authored. And their backdrop is not a studio.
03:09But the very market itself, where Daily Toll becomes part of the story and suddenly, Seata has become a visible
03:17beauty to all.
03:18I've actually been very interested in the life of the Kayayos, the headquarters, you know, and for a lot of
03:25reasons.
03:26Because growing up, we all went through phases, right? So I know how it feels to go through that.
03:32And when you go to the market, the way they work, their struggles and all that doesn't, for me, I
03:38feel it doesn't sum up with what they get at the end of the day.
03:41Most of them don't have places to sleep. They are just by the roadside. They are in front of kiosks,
03:46shops and all that.
03:47So, and the next day, they get up early and still come back to work. You know, I could have
03:52just done anything and it would still be nice.
03:55But my worry is actually with that. And that's where my heart is.
04:00For Seata, does she feel like her natural face is competing with the internet?
04:06I am looking completely different. No one even recognized me when we got to the market. This makeup is so
04:13good.
04:14For a star, beauty isn't just something she sees. It's something she measures herself against.
04:20I can see I have a lot of things to also learn. And then he has imparted in me so
04:24well with how he transformed the persons before and then now the after I'm seeing him.
04:31It's telling me that we should never underestimate ourselves.
04:35I do makeup before I go online. So with that one, I want people to see the beautiful makeup I
04:42have done. So I don't use filter.
04:44But where I don't have makeup on, I use filter. And most of the times I use filters. Yes. Just
04:52to make me look very beautiful.
04:54As beauty becomes increasingly shaped by algorithms and filters, what does Leonard want as a work to remind people about
05:02real human beauty?
05:03I mean, when my name is mentioned, they should affiliate it or they should put it close to hope. I
05:09mean, you gave me hope, you gave me restoration. Most importantly, you gave me a better life.
05:14That's just what I want people to know me for when I'm normal.
05:17So just imagine that you're sitting at a table and then you let AI generate food to fill the table.
05:25Comparing that to going to a restaurant and having food on the table.
05:28I mean, you deceive yourself at the end of the day because I'll eat and you have AI to feed
05:33you, which will not be realistic.
05:35So fulfillment is what comes to play when things like that. So you can have the photo shoot on AI
05:41apps and all that.
05:43I mean, the real experience cannot be compared to the AI creation or generation.
05:48In an AI era, Leonard is proving something technology cannot replicate, human connection.
05:55Because when he touches a face, he is not trying to erase where someone comes from, but helping them be
06:02seen more clearly.
06:03I'm not saying that, but I am a Christian.
06:03I'm saying that I can nevermind you.
06:04So what can I do?
06:04What, what, what, what, what, what?
06:06What, what, what, what, what?
