For many ‘Africans’ and those that use the identifier in reference to a category of people, it might seem almost self-evident what it means. Yet, on basic conceptual inspection, it becomes apparent how behind the seemingly innocent label lie contradictions with difficult implications to reconcile with both demographic and political changes in Africa over time. Through constructivist identity theory, this paper traces the dialectical process in the construction of Africanness, the evolution of its boundaries, and the implications of its different forms of usage. In so doing, and by using the archive of the 1990s ‘exchange’ between Wole Soyinka and Ali Mazrui and reflecting upon the case of non- black Africans, the paper highlights some of the complicated questions in the debates on Africanness. Focusing the critique on selected two broad definitional categories, here referred to as the nativist and the cosmopolitan, I argue that a clearly delimited or essentialist definition of an African is beyond reach. Our use of the concept has to be deracialised and contextualised, for it may mean different things in different settings including both being a positive rallying nucleus and a tool for xenophobic mobilisation. I do not aim at providing an alternative definition or conceptual orthodoxy, but rather, analytically show the shortcomings embedded in some of the conventional usages.