At an event in Abidjan in late October, Alexandre Quest Bede noticed someone staring at him. Then the stranger walked up to him with a T-shirt and asked for an autograph.
“He pointed at me excitedly and said: ‘You’re Monsieur Gnamakou, I know you from Instagram!’” recalls Bede at the poolside bar of Bissa, a boutique hotel in the upmarket Deux Plateaux neighbourhood on the eve of Abidjan cocktail week.