For a stretch of one September weekend, the waters off Luanda Bay carried more star power than most red carpets. Will Smith was back in Angola. So was LeBron James — for the very first time in his life setting foot on African soil. Between them, a Hollywood legend and an NBA icon turned a debut electric-boat race into something closer to a diplomatic occasion.
The occasion was the E1 Luanda Grand Prix, held September 12–13 at the Yacht Club of Luanda — Angola’s first appearance on the UIM E1 World Championship calendar and only the second stop the all-electric raceboat series has made on African soil, after Lagos. E1 built its identity on futuristic RaceBirds skimming tight, technical courses close to shore, powered entirely by electricity rather than fuel, and its ten teams are, notably, mostly owned by household names: Smith, James, Tom Brady, Rafael Nadal and others among them.
Smith’s connection to Angola predates the race itself. He owns Westbrook Racing by Visit Angola, a team whose very name embeds the country’s tourism board into its branding — a partnership struck earlier this year specifically to put Angola in front of a global audience through the E1 platform. James, for his part, arrived as owner of Team AlUla, chasing continued strength in the championship standings.
Race weekend, in the end, delivered mixed fortunes for the visiting stars. Tom Brady’s Team Brady took the win and stretched its championship lead. James’s Team AlUla came home seventh. Smith’s Westbrook Racing ran into technical trouble, borrowed a boat from Team AlUla to keep competing, but missed the finals and finished ninth.
On Sunday, September 13, Angolan President João Lourenço welcomed both men to the Presidential Palace — a meeting that ranged well beyond sport into tourism, cinema and basketball, according to the country’s national broadcaster.
Lourenço presented each guest with a personalised jersey of Angola’s national basketball team, using the moment to remind his visitors that Angola carries a 12-time African men’s basketball championship pedigree — a record-extending achievement secured on home soil.
For James, the visit carried its own historical weight: it was his first trip to the African continent. He used part of his time in Luanda to visit the National Museum of Slavery, reflecting publicly on a history that, in his words, connects directly to the American story. He also spent time courtside with young local players during an E1 fan experience, shooting baskets and posing for photos with a generation of Angolan kids who, according to local journalists covering the event, already know his highlight reels by heart.
None of this was Smith’s first rodeo in Angola. Back in March, he travelled to Luanda alongside E1 founder Alejandro Agag and Angola’s Tourism Minister, Márcio de Jesus Lopes Daniel, to formally announce the country’s place on the E1 calendar. That trip also planted the seeds of something beyond racing: Angolan officials said at the time that Smith had expressed interest in returning to film movie or television scenes in the country, including a possible project tied to the Bad Boys franchise.
Six months later, the September race weekend reads less like a one-off celebrity cameo and more like the second chapter of a relationship Angola is deliberately trying to build out — one racing season, one presidential meeting, one film conversation at a time.
None of this attention is accidental. Angola’s government has been explicit that events like the E1 Grand Prix serve a larger strategic goal: positioning the country as a credible destination for tourists, investors and future international events.
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Tourism Minister Márcio de Jesus Lopes Daniel has pointed to the E1 race as proof of Angola’s growing capacity to host events of this scale — and the arrival of two of the most recognisable faces in global entertainment and sport gave that message a reach no conventional tourism campaign could easily match.
E1’s own leadership made a similar calculation openly. Team owners like Smith and James, one E1 executive noted, come with enormous global followings — audiences that a traditional destination-marketing budget simply cannot buy.
Smith’s Angola chapter fits a wider pattern taking shape across the continent, where international celebrities are increasingly lending their names — and their fanbases — to African tourism, sport and investment projects. For Smith, Westbrook Racing offers a way to fuse his global brand with sport and sustainability. For Angola, hitching its tourism ambitions to a Hollywood name and an emerging green sports league offers a shortcut to global visibility that money alone struggles to buy.
Whether the relationship eventually extends to cameras rolling on Angolan coastlines for a future film remains to be seen. But for one September weekend, at least, Luanda’s waterfront belonged to electric boats, NBA royalty, and the Fresh Prince himself.