"The Africobra" is a midcareer tribute to Wadsworth Jarrell's foundational years with the eponymous art collection. Jarrell was one of the five founders of AFRICOBRA (the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists) in 1968, on the South Side of Chicago. Conceived as a discussion group to work through how art could serve the Black community amid the Civil Rights Movement, AFRICOBRA developed a series of tenets around formal and conceptual making which they codified into manifestos about art making. Their traveling group shows (AFRICOBRA 1 and 2 beginning at the Studio Museum in 1970 and 1971 respectively, and AFRICOBRA 3 beginning at Howard in 1973) were tremendously influential to a generation of young artists around the country.

This midcareer piece pays tribute to those important early years in Wadsworth's creative career, and is based on a photograph of the group from Summer 1970. The same photo would later be used as the cover of the AFRICOBRA 3 pamphlet in 1973, but depicts the original ten members who were part of AFRICOBRA 1: Ten In Search of a Nation in 1970: Wadsworth Jarrell, Jae Jarrell, Jeff Donaldson, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Gerald Williams, Sherman Beck, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, Omar Lama, Carolyn Lawrence, and Nelson Stevens.