Nigeria's Laolu Senbanjo on the 'mystery of African thought', Beyonce and taking art into space.

Record ID: 945334

  • Title: Nigeria's Laolu Senbanjo on the 'mystery of African thought', Beyonce and taking art into space.
  • Date: 9th January 2018
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF SENBANJO PLAYING THE GUITAR
  • Embargoed: 23rd January 2018 12:06
  • Keywords: Laolu Senbanjo art afromysterics yoruba markings Africa Beyonce Lemonade
  • Location: LAGOS, NIGERIA/ UNKNOWN MUSIC VIDEO LOCATION
  • City: LAGOS, NIGERIA/ UNKNOWN MUSIC VIDEO LOCATION
  • Country: Nigeria
  • Topics: Art,Arts / Culture / Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVA0037XE2Z4N
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Laolu Senbanjo is a Nigerian visual artist, musician and attorney whose work has been featured by Nike and on Beyonce's Lemonade visual album video.
    He says his paintings have a spiritual connection to stories around his subject.
    For this woman, he draws a crown and lots of triangles to signify the three children in her 'kingdom'.
    Senbanjo grew up in the Nigeria's western city of Ilorin, Kwara state.
    His grandmother was very instrumental in shaping his love for art as she constantly told him stories of Yoruba mythology and culture even when he could barely understand what was being said.
    To please his father, he studied law and worked for five years before deciding in 2013 to leave Nigeria and pursue his love for the arts.
    Senbajo weaves his Yoruba roots and ancient Nigerian symbols into complex patterns. He calls it Afromysterics.
    "It is called the mystery of the African thought pattern. The thought, there is a pattern, there are lines, complex but also something detailed that you can tell stories with. So I like to take the line on a walk, you know like take different like concepts and put it in different things, like I am telling a story with my lines, with my different patterns. So I want those patterns to mean something. So a lot of times I draw inspiration from maybe Yoruba mythology, might be happenings, might be social justice, might be a lot of things but I just draw different inspirations and put them on whatever surface. I do charcoal on board, I do acrylic or ink on canvas, I do a lot of mixed media also but then the most recent one is putting my painting on human skin, which I now call the "Sacred Art Of The Ori", which is totally different and that is what got me a lot of notoriety because people where like 'how do you paint on human body'. So that just took a life of its own, but it is something I have always done, like I am an artist who tries all sorts of medium that is why I use the term 'everything is my canvas.' I can paint on anything."
    Thirty seven-year-old Senbanjo has worked with American Sportswear company Nike, to create art inspired sneakers.
    Last year he teamed up with luxury brand Bvlgari to design an artistic bottle for the 'Man In Black Essence' fragrance.
    But it was "the sacred art of Ori" that catapulted Senbajo and his Yoruba heritage to fame after it featured on R&B star Beyonce's "Lemonade" in 2016.
    The album sold 485,000 copes, more than 900,000 songs and was streamed 115 million times, totaling 653,000 units according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan in the first week.
    "When "Lemonade" dropped it was like wow, the whole world like had seen Lemonade, seen the pattern, seen the art, they talk about Yoruba culture now, everybody is asking questions. I get to do the TED talks, I am going to do another TED talk in India, I did one in Canada. I am going all over the world talking about this art, not just painting, like I am inspiring people to actually follow their... You know it sounds so cliché like when I tell people Oh, don't give up, you never just know who might be watching you know. Sometimes I feel like I used to think that all these motivational speakers, like it's easy to say that but honestly, it is true because your success is this close and sometimes you don't even know how close it is," he said.
    Senbanjo also expresses himself through music - drawing inspiration from legends like Fela Kuti, Sade and Bob Marley and blending Yoruba lyrics with English.
    He says he plans to take his work to outer space.
    "I think a lot of things in life are boring, I just think they look so ordinary, like I am thinking of painting a space ship right now and I am like... I need to talk to NASA you know? Like I think spaceships are boring. People are like 'are you crazy?' I mean I just think, why not put art on everything, put art on airplanes, you can put them on a spaceship, you can put them on cars you can put them on anything. I just believe that life should be more colourful and I want to leave the earth better than I met it. So I want someone else to come here and see what I have done and get inspired to do even more because I think we all add colour to this world. I think I have found my calling, found what I am supposed to do in life. I just want to explore it to my last breath," he said.
    Senbanjo says he is proud to have stayed true to Yoruba, Nigeria and Africa even as he struggled to make it as an artist in Brooklyn and on the international stage.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2018. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: Audio restrictions: This clip's Audio includes copyrighted material. User is responsible for obtaining additional clearances before publishing the audio contained in this clip.
Register