        But economic innovation of the sort that happens in Lagos is not the only kind of creativity that happens in African cities. Cultural mixing and innovation are the kind of thing that is often less straightforward than the economic, survivalistic sort mentioned above. In fact, the blending and creation of culture(s) in African cities is often inscrutable even to the people who are part of it. At the heart of urban cultural creation is what James Ferguson calls ‘cosmopolitan style’. He defines cosmopolitanism in opposition to ‘localist style’, a way of behaving and thinking which emerges from rural, tightly-knit communities and seeks constantly to reassure self and others that one adheres to group values and express group membership. Directly opposite this is cosmopolitan style, which he characterises as ‘a series of slaps in the face’. In the process of developing a cosmopolitan style, one develops attachments to a world outside the rural area they come from, and weakens or cuts ties to that same rural home. One aspect of the cosmopolitanism he noticed was an emphasis on individuality that is not prized in rural societies. As a rule, cosmopolitan individuals try to differentiate themselves by a number of different means, such as style, language use, and music. Cosmopolitan people make heavy use of slang derived from numerous languages, constantly inventing new ways to express themselves through language and engaging in a subtle game of one-upmanship, with the goal of being the most unique and clever, and demonstrating that cleverness through wordplay. In some ways this is similar to the kind of wordplay used in hip-hop and rap music. The two seem, in fact, to go quite well together, as demonstrated by the multilingual rap video we watched in class. 
Language isn’t the only mode of culture-creation that happens in cities. One example of a highly developed ‘cosmopolitan style’ is La Sape. La Sape is a culture originating in Brazzaville in the Congo, which revolves around a sense of fashion and particularly around highly expensive, fancy, name-brand European clothes. In order to get these clothes, sapeurs often travel from their home country to major European cities like Paris. There they would form their own ‘families’, cutting themselves off from their families back home. It seemed from the in-class discussion that sapeurs often did not participate in the common practice of supporting their families financially, choosing instead to spend their time and money on collecting fashionable clothes both to keep and to sell. In so doing, they flout rural ‘traditional’ expectations, in favour of a different ideal. This is not to say that they have simply become more ‘Europeanised’, but rather that they actively participate in creating their own culture, which is connected with other world cultures but apart from them, while traveling to and fro between African and European cities. 
