Moyosola Olowokure is an 18-year-old artiste from Osun State, Nigeria, who expresses herself through writing, poem performance (spoken word), modelling, dancing, and voiceover production. Of all her creative skills, Moyosola is prominent for writing and performing poems, and she has been featured on several big platforms, including the 2022 Ake Arts and Book Festival.
On today’s episode of The Big Showcase, we cover Moyo’s entry into the creative arts industry, her peculiar skills, challenges, successes, and future endeavours.
On Starting Young
“I started writing when I was about six or seven years old. I remember writing poems for my dad’s birthday because I thought it was a special way of showing my affection for him. I also wrote poems for other loved ones on their birthdays and anniversaries.”
Moyosola Olowokure’s creative background is similar to many other creative people who exhibit creativity at a young age. It used to be rare to have a family that encourages the pursuit of creativity, but thankfully, she was born when families started to embrace creative careers as good choices.
Apart from using poetry to appreciate her loved ones, Moyosola Olowokure discovered early on that poetry is a creative tool for expressing different emotions. She found solace in this writing form while going through adolescence.
“When I entered puberty, poetry provided an escape and a way to express my emotions. As teenagers, we sometimes feel like we don’t really have a safe space to express thoughts that aren’t pretty or lighthearted. So, at thirteen or fourteen, I mostly wrote when I was sad.”
The beautiful yet funny thing about life is that with different seasons come different expressions and methods of dealing with changes. As she approached young adulthood, the tone and subject matter surrounding Moyo’s poems also evolved.
“Evolving into young adulthood has been quite a major shift, especially after entering and winning ‘My Rainbow Books’, a writing competition organised by Isang Awah. Ms Renee, my writing teacher, supervised my winning submission. This competition shifted my attention from just writing as a form of self-expression or emotional release to writing as a form of communication and ministering to others. ”
On Improving Her Craft
Moyosola Olowokure added performance to her artistic repertoire when she discovered ‘Purple Silver’, an art-based community located at the time in her hometown in Kaduna.
“Purple Silver hosted an open mic on Sundays, and on one of those Sundays, I read one of my poems, and it felt good even though it wasn’t ‘that’ good. It felt nice to read my words aloud, and that was when the seed for spoken poetry was sown.”
From late 2020 to early 2021, Moyo took her performance skill further by starting a poetry series she performed on camera without consulting a book or notepad.
“Interacting with a camera and learning to read my poems by heart made it easy to transition from written poems to spoken words. One of the most significant experiences that marked this transition was my first spoken word poetry slam in Lagos in 2021. Even though I didn’t win, it was a defining moment for me, and I knew this was something I wanted to continue doing.”
2022, The Year Moyosola Olowokure Shined The Brightest
There’s always that season that announces and spotlights a creative; 2022 was that year for Moyosola Olowokure. Speaking on gaining relevance and being noticed by top art platforms and influential art-infused events in 2022, she expressed awe at how remarkably well and fast she’s grown.
“Relatively speaking, I’ll say that my growth this year has been exponential because, in just a few months, I have gained access to and rubbed shoulders with people I’ve always considered sources of inspiration. This growth in followership and relevance can be traced to how good I am in what I do, yet it still amazes me when influential people enter my DM to invite me to perform at their events.”
From being invited by UNICEF to perform a poem in commemoration of the International Day of the Girl-Child, where she met with renowned artists such as Anendlessocean, and top MTV on-air personalities, to performing ‘Let’s Be Light’, one of her most-raved-about poems, at Ake Festival, a foremost literary festival that draws literary icons from all over Africa and the world, Moyosola Olowokure has been on a successful roll since she made the wise decision to become a spoken word artist.
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