In the very least, recent works on contemporary African popular cultural formats (for example, see Newell and Okome 2013; Yeku 2015; Ayobade 2017; Barber 2018) and the generosity of Ashesi University (Ghana) to be home to the Center for African Popular Culture Studies point to the sustained academic and institutional interests in the popular arts on the continent. In this Round Table discussion, we seek to further highlight the intellectual relevance of the discipline by trying to garner a relative holistic perspective on research practices around popular cultural formats in West and East Africa. This discussion, motivated by the Nigerian proverb that, “one cannot stand at a spot to watch roving masquerades dance” aims to explore and map out varying thematic foci, methodological and cutting-edge theoretical frameworks employed to understand new and reconstituted popular cultural formats that have emerged in these respective arenas.