African.....how i hate and love the word.

Ok this might sound strange, but as i hate the word African, i also love it.
I love the word African, as it stands for so many positive things as i am...but why is it that when anyone refers to me as an African or from Africa i cringe. Dont get me wrong....I love who i am and i am so proud of where i belong and would not trade it for anything. I believe my hate for the word "African" has nothing to do with any embarrassments, I just hate when i hear that word being referred . For instance why is it African art but not European Art. Why are we all bottled in one category when we are a people of diverse and different categories. I might not be well informed but art in Nigeria varies from Nok Culture scuptures,the benin bronzes, to various eras of designs. But why is the whole of Africa categorized under one huge umbrella. When you see art from the North it is very different from the west, the south , the east. I mean someone walks up to me and says "oh do the African dance". What the hell does that mean. like we all Africans have a type of dance where we move our hands and legs and jump up and down and do the hokey pokey and we turn ourselves around? Only in Nigeria i know a few types of dances such as bata, atilogwu, egungun and many more dances. No one ever says "hey do the European dance" or the "North American dance". crazy! Crazy i say.
Well i have been told by my friends that i am making this more of an issue than it really is. That there is no big deal if we all summed up under one group. Well this might not make any sense to someone else but it does make sense to me. SO as Africans, lets begin to give names to our individualities and not generalize. No more "African music "but Fuji, apala, Afro juju, juju, hip life, high life and all the works. Egungun Dancers taken from Youtube.


Igbo Dancer taken from Youtube