IShowSpeed's Chaotic Monrovia Livestream Still Has Liberians Talking
IShowSpeed (Darren Jason Watkins Jr.), pictured during an earlier tour stop in Singapore, September 2024 — file photo, not from the Liberia visit. Photo: Chin Yu Chu, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A five-hour livestream by YouTuber IShowSpeed pulled huge crowds into the streets of Monrovia and put Liberia in front of his 50 million-plus subscribers — cancelled football match and all.
American YouTuber Darren Jason Watkins Jr., better known as IShowSpeed, brought a slice of Monrovia to more than 50 million subscribers in January when a five-hour livestream from the Liberian capital pulled thousands of fans into the streets.
The 21-year-old streamer moved through PHP Park, West Point and Waterside Market, Providence Island, the Sports Commission and the Ducor Palace Hotel, sampling street food, joining traditional dances and stopping to take in a historic mural at the Ducor reflecting on African history. A planned exhibition football match, arranged as part of the visit, was scrapped after Watkins reportedly preferred to keep things spontaneous rather than follow a scripted government program.
Reaction at home was mixed: plenty of amusement and pride at the international spotlight, some criticism over how he engaged with local food and customs, and pointed questions about how prepared authorities were for the sheer size of the crowds a single livestream could pull into central Monrovia. The stream nonetheless gave Liberia a rare moment of visibility with a global, mostly Gen Z audience, before Watkins moved on to Côte d'Ivoire as the next stop on his Africa tour.