When rapper Lil Yachty posted a photo of himself serving a sullen Zoolander style blue steel look in a beret with a tan jacket, he probably thought it was just a regular picture. But posters on X saw something else: a resemblance to Francophone African political leaders and revolutionaries.

Like Lil Yachty, Thomas Sankara, a military officer who took over the nation of Burkina Faso in the 1980s, often sported a beret with a tan uniform. Sankara was an iconic figure for revolutionary movements in Africa. Ibrahim Traoré, the country's current leader who took control in a 2022 coup, makes similar fashion choices and intentionally invokes the memory of Sankara. So do the leaders of recent coups in Mali and Niger.

Lil Yachty, who is from Georgia, appears to have no documented connection to the political situation in West Africa. However, the rapper quote tweeted one of the more viral posts about his photo and seemed to get the joke.

Others took the opportunity of the viral photo to discuss more serious matters as well. West Africa has seen several coups in the past few years in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Niger. Amid the increasing desertification in the Sahel, which has been attributed to global warming and the presence of terrorist groups like Boko Haram and mercenaries like the Wagner Group, West African politics has gotten quite complicated.