Searching for the “Authentic” African The concept of the “true”, authentic African, as a person fundamentally different from Western people, had been long present in European academic discourse (especially in anthropology), as well as popular culture. Its antithesis emerged as a concept of the detribalised African, largely deprived of the traits of the authentic African culture and adopting European cultural patterns. The concept of an “authentic” African as a static “specimen” sourced from old Africa, resistant to cultural change, was rejected by the new, educated African elites. In postcolonial Africa, one of their responses was the idea of Afrocentrism. The article is an essay, not aimed at an exhaustive analysis of the subject. It is rather intended to indicate selected areas of discourse, as well as to show how the concept of an “authentic” African functioned within the academic discourse, as well as how, depending on the context and colonial doctrines, the phenomenon of the interpenetration of cultures and the empowerment of Africans evolved.