With each year, it becomes clearer to the editorial board at YNaija, the premium our annual New Establishment list places on the work of young emerging players in diverse field within Nigeria.

Providing that first wave of recognition for the work that the men and women of our annual lists do in the communities is important for their growth and for our commitment to support innovation, courage and personal excellence.

Many of the alumni of our lists have gone on to do fantastic things, proving yet again, that our lists sieve through the morass of activity and nepotism that clog our creative industries and highlights the hidden gems within.

This year’s list is no different; from multi-disciplinary artists securing prestigious placements, self-taught developers founding some of the web’s most celebrated platforms, entrepreneurs breaking barriers on social entrepreneurship and activists galvanising the globe into action, the New Establishment class 2019 has proven they have the mettle to take on the world.

Entertainment, Culture, Technology, Advocacy, Media, Politics, Enterprise, Fashion

CULTURE

Benita Nnachortam (Visual arts, Kuta Nigeria)

Shattering glass ceilings is something Benita Nnachortam has become quite comfortable with over the last few years. She is the first female photographer to officially document the tenure of an Ogun State governor,a feat that becomes even more impressive considering Nnachortam is Igbo. But the true scope of her impact on the arts and creativity in Ogun state cannot be understood without looking at the work she has done with Kuta Nigeria.

Creating an Arts Community in the heart of Abeokuta has provided a safe space for young people in Ogun interested in the arts to explore their interests without fear of being ostracized or being limited by financial and creative constraints. Nnachortam through Kuta Nigeria created a multidisciplinary space called the NEST, where young creatives can meet up and share ideas. Through Kuta’s volunteer service, young residents of Abeokuta have found opportunities for volunteer for events like the TEDx IBara. Nest also offers short residencies to artists looking to leave the familiarity of their home cities and create.

Benita Nnachortam is proving that Art and creativity need not be centralized in megacities like Lagos but can thrive everywhere.

Tony Ola (Art Bridge)

In Tony Ola’s second year studying at the University of Lagos, he decided to open a second Instagram account. This one he dedicated to his growing interest in the Nigerian art scene and focused on documenting the work of young artists within in his school and Nigeria at large. As Tony Ola documented, his interest in art grew beyond a passing fancy to an all-consuming passion, one he nurtured by taking internships with Bukola Oyebode of art magazine The Sole Adventurer and the curatorial team at gallery Art Twenty One. Five years later, Tony Ola has grown to become one of the most enterprising young art curators working in Nigeria today and proof that interest can grow into expertise with diligence.

Tony Ola started The Art Bridge Project in 2017, his own personal contribution to arts in the country, with the focus on creating opportunities for young art enthusiasts and emerging artists to connect with established and veteran artists away from the sterility of art gallery presentations and exhibitions. He has also been instrumental to many of 2018’s most important art events, working with Derenle Sonariwo and Tokini Peterside to help organize the Rele Gallery schedule of events and the 2018 Art X Fair respectively.

Tony however is best known for his unwavering support for emerging artist and using his platforms to elevate and interrogate their work.

Muyiwa Awojide (Sodas and Popcorn)

Culture demands to be shared. We create communities around the things we love because we want to be able to experience the mutual joy that sharing our interest with others and bringing to the same level of appreciation that we have can bring. Olumuyiwa Sylvester Awojide has dedicated much of his time online and offline to fostering communities around pop culture, fringe interests and geeky pursuits, elevating them through structured interactions and critique. Awojide created Sodas and Popcorn, one of the first indigenous movie review sites to pop up in the Nigerian blogosphere, and he has sustained the site to become the premiere resource for information and reviews about Nollywood films.

Awojide joined the management of Lagos ComicCon, Nigeria’s first comic book fair and conference, helping the organization grow in its three years of operation to become the premiere place to discover new comic, Vfx companies and individual visual and comic artists. He has also worked with Social Media Week Lagos, curating the digital experience for guests and helping them reach audiences through branded digital campaigns. In all he has managed over 100 campaigns. Awojide subverts the trope that the unconventional interests cannot be financially profitable while also being creatively fulfilling.

Aisha Salaudeen (journalism)

Journalism in Nigeria can be an exercise in drudgery. With poor funding for journalists and dangerous conditions that make it near impossible to pursue investigative stories with the kind of grit and tenacity that brings about true change, most journalists in Nigeria end up becoming pawns in the machinations of politicians and private individuals. Aisha Salaudeen however, has become a beacon for progressive, factual and important journalism.

Using the leverage her position with the new media news and analysis platform Stears Business affords her, Salaudeen has taken it upon herself to provide context to many of the peculiarities around Nigeria’s problems. Since 2017, Salaudeen has run beats on sexuality, health, business, gender and injustice, travelling around the country to speak to the people at the heart of these stories. Her articles are insightful and introspective and her approach to telling the stories of other is one that is grounded in respect for the other and an understanding of the nuances that inform these important conversations. Ms. Salaudeen is also a devout Muslim and breaking glass ceilings for Muslim women in journalism.

We cannot help but be excited for Salaudeen and the change she is intent on bringing to the Nigerian media industry.

TJ Benson (literature)

In 2016, TJ Benson was part of a surprise group of writers who were shortlisted for the then new Saraba Manuscript Prize. As one of the prizes springing up across the continent that sought to reward the work of emerging writers, Benson’s shortlisting legitimized his work as a speculative fiction writer in an industry where 60’s era wartime novels were all rage. When he was announced winner of the Prize in late 2016, it set in motion a chain of events that would lead to Benson’s debut short story collection, ‘We Will Not Fade Into Darkness’ being picked by Paressia Books and his name entering the roster of established writers.

Benson affirmed his win in 2017 by being shortlisted for and coming first runner up of the 2017 Short Story Day Africa Prize, with his short story ‘Tea’ about a migrant couple who explore identity in the face of homelessness. Benson debut short story collection made several end of year lists in 2018 and he was invited to the prestigious Ake Festival and the Kaduna Book and Arts Festival to speak on his work as a speculative writer, photographer and filmmaker, and the future of spec literature in Nigeria.

Benson’s work on and off the page investigate the boundaries of possibility for Nigerians in arts and inspire everyone who is fortunate to experience his work to look a little deeper with greater empathy for the lives of the other.

Osaze Amadasun (Visual art)

This January, multi-disciplinary artist Osaze Amadasun was chosen to participate in the Rele Gallery Young Contemporaries group exhibition. The exhibition is unofficially regarded as herald for artist who are expected to gain steam in the coming years and transition into successful careers. The gallery has been proven largely successful since it started the series in 2016 and with the curated collection Amadasun showed during the event, it was clear that they were about to be vindicated yet again.

Amadasun has been active in the creative industry for the last few years, and best known for his work mining and documenting the chequered and celebrated history of the ancient Benin Empire, and the history, artisans and craftsmen that documented the Benin Empire’s culture and conquests. Amadasun’s preoccupation with this subject has been the subject of much of his work in the last three years and have been reflected in his private commissions that include full wall murals for a handful of the tech spaces in Lagos and beyond.

Amadasun’s work at Rele (a curated part of a more comprehensive whole) breaks down the advent of the Portguese to ancient Benin and how culture and ignorance can meld into unexpected results. Amadasun’s dedication to his craft, his commitment to research and representation and his sheer skill will keep him relevant to the Nigerian art industry long after hype and publicity.

Kugali Media (Ziki Nelson, Tolu Foyeh, Hamid Ibrahim)

Frustrated with the lack of accurate African representation in comics in Western markets Comic Artist Ziki Nelson left a cushy job in banking to create his own comic and tell authentic stories that reference Africa but also understand the complexities and nuance that comes with reference African history and religion in pop culture. Business manager Tolu Foyeh and animator Hamid Ibrahim joined forces with Nelson to create Kugali Media, a media company dedicated to finding and publishing the comic work of African artists living in the continent and in the diaspora.

With a lot of attention from international media, their very first anthology and nearly a dozen contributors to Kugali media either creating their own standalone comics or contributing to the anthology, the guys at Kugali are already changing how comic books are consumed on the continent. Their work is resonating in literary circles too because their graphic novel Lake Of Tears by Kwabena Ofei was chosen as the best African speculative fiction comic of 2018 by the Nommo Awards. There are still many stories to be told on the continent and Nelson, Foyeh and Ibrahim are committed to provide the platform on which these stories will reach mainstream audiences.

Stephen Tayo (photography)

Even before Stephen Tayo graduated from the University of Lagos where he was studying philosophy, he knew he was not going to practice. At least, not in the way most philosophers practice the discipline. He knew he wanted to observe and understand the motivations behind people’s actions, to document their lives not as a spectator but as a collaborator. He dabbled across mediums and settled on photography because it allowed him maintain a level of intimacy with the people he photographed while remaining detached enough to keep them from changing themselves to suit his impressions or expectations.

Tayo’s photography, characterized by his insistence that his collaborators be photographed in their natural environments has found an adoring audience both here in Nigeria and abroad. He has become an in-demand documentary photographer, working with international fashion brands and revered fashion magazines like The New York Times, Vogue US, Vogue Italia, Dazed and Confused covering events like Chale Wote and Rocktoberfest. Tayo was recently chosen by art tastemaker Rele Gallery to feature in their 2019 Young Contemporaries exhibition, a showcase that has ‘discovered’ artists like Ayobola Kekere-Ekun, Yadichinma Ukoha-Kalu and Iam Ancestor. Stephen Tayo champions an inclusive and empathic approach to photography, and light of increasing attempts at pandering to Western audiences, is an important conversation to be had.

Joey Akan (culture)

When Joey Akan left his job as the chief music critic at Ringier owned media conglomerate Pulse NG, he did so as a matter of life-and-death. While Akan had gained notoriety for his unvarnished opinions on music from established and emerging musical performing artists, he also struggled with depression fuelled by an overwhelming feeling of dissatisfaction with the work he had done thus far.

And it was very important work. As the chief music critic of an industry that produced hundreds of millions of Naira in revenue and minted superstars without the prerequisite structures that would traditionally serve as gatekeeping for young hopefuls looking to make in the industry, Akan’s music reviews and analyses could easily make or dent an artist’s career. Inured to bribes or threats, Akan was one of the first true critics of the 010’s, though it was a role that often gave him only the power to destroy but not too often to build.

Akan left Pulse and reordered his career in 2018. He took on a management role at Universal Music Group Nigeria, helping steer the careers of artists like Odunsi The Engine, Nonso Bassey, Cina Soul and Tay Iwar. He also contributes for international music platforms like Okay Africa and The Guardian, demystifying the Nigerian music industry for its adoring fans.

 

Logan February (literature)

Literary prodigy Logan February is only 19, but you would never guess that from his extensive body of work that includes three lauded poetry chapbooks, and a coveted Push Cart Prize nomination. But Logan February represents the future of Nigerian literature, self-aware, stepped in activism and enriched by rebellion.

Though Logan February has been publishing poetry in journals and literary magazines since 2015, his first proper body of work, How To Cook A Ghost was first taken by a Glass Poetry Books and released in late 2016. He quickly followed up that chapbook with his most famous body of work Painted Blue With Saltwater, a collection published by Indolent press that was defined by its exploration and deconstruction of LGBT life in Nigeria. Since then, February has become a staple in the local poetry scene, speaking at the 2018 Ake Book Festival and slated to tour the US in the fall with his third chapbook Mannequin in the Nude. He is also co-authoring poetry anthologies for Dam Books and Indolent Press, two revered independent poetry publishers with respected rosters.

February took control of his name, his life and his poetry and is blazing a trail for other young Nigerian poets who want to carve out a space for themselves in the world.

Ayo Akinyemi: (Artist/Art Therapist)

For many visual artists, art is more than a medium of expression or even a way to make personal and political statements, it is catharsis. This is true of the work of Akin Akinyemi, a visual artist working out of Ogbomoso in Oyo State. Akinyemi has spent the last decade running the eponymous Ayo Akinyemi Centre for Research and Art Therapy, an organization he founded and donates his time and experience to.

Akinyemi focuses his work in visual arts and philanthropy towards empowering disabled children and youth through art therapy classes. He also volunteers in villages and small towns across the South West teaching young children and teenagers in those communities to work with and create art from locally sourced materials. Empowering children in this way is ground-breaking, especially as people from these regions are often discouraged from pursuing visual art as a career interest in favour of STEM disciplines. Akinyemi also volunteers his time to teach spontaneous drawing to undergraduate students from his alma-mater and heads the art Art Collective called DI + LOGOS. He also organizes student run educational trips to explore cultural and art heritage sites across the country.

Akinyemi is convinced that exposure to art can be therapeutic and freeing for young people and has dedicated his life’s works towards ensuring those ideas can be propagated. We need more people like him.

Oyinkan Braithwaite (Literature)

Oyinkan Braithwaite’s debut novel, My Sister the Serial Killer has three publishers on three continents and is in talks to be translated into several languages and has already been optioned for a book deal. This almost never happens to debut authors, but Oyinkan Braithwaite isn’t just any debut author. The spoken word poet and writer first gained international attention when she was shortlisted for the African Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2016 and began to gain the traction and publish excerpts of what would eventually become her now critically acclaimed novel.

Braithwaite belongs to an elite group of young Nigerian writers who are choosing not to write to pander to the western gaze. My Sister the Serial Killer, created out of existential angst in the months before Braithwaite turned 30 are an exploration of sibling rivalry and loyalty, the unique dynamics of Nigerian marriage and psychosis in a country where very little works.

When Ms. Braithwaite isn’t writing or creating spoken word poetry, she is working as an accomplished visual artist.

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