This paper concentrates on youth languages found in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) and Kinshasa/Goma (DR Congo), examining speakers’ fluid contact and manipulation patterns throughout digital (Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube) and real spaces, and their scheming strategies in the shaping of new “repertoires”. The modern, urban and fluid features, typically ascribed to African youth languages, also apply to other linguistic practices and non-urban settings, and youth languages are unlike as to the pace and mode in which these processes and changes happen or are purposely used.