David Odiase is Building the Archive of Now Through Artistic Mediums 

David Osaodion Odiase‘s descent into the art world was motivated by his book-conscious and loving father. Enjoying this rare privilege set the tone for young Odiase’s odyssey in writing. With uncensored access to books and a blossoming imaginative memory, he started writing poetry at age four. But, poetry didn’t monopolize his artistic expression as his heightened imagination allowed him to feature his friends, neighbours and other willing people as characters in imaginative plays. He will, years later during Mrs. Iwunze’s Literature-In-English classes, come to recognize the structure of those childhood scribbling as poetry and plays. But, in those early moments, he wasn’t pressured about poetic or narrative structure nor rhythm. “She distilled literature into three genres and encouraged us to write a poem,” Odiase tells Culture Custodian during a recent interview.  

This academic lecture on poetry was followed by his discovery of social media groups: 2go and Facebook, that encouraged peer-to-peer poetry exchange.  These groups, with their in-built critical undertones and development festering, led to Odiase’s growth. Thus, while actively courting the heart of his crush through poems, he was equally sharing his poems with a digital community of growing Nigerian page poets consisting of Romeo Oriogun, Adedayo Agarau and others who are now the face of modern-day Nigerian poetry movement. These digital poetry communities afforded Odiase not just growth. It helped him fight the socially-approved idea that art is antithesis to masculinity. Prior to discovering these pages, he had been tagged weird because rather than passionately discuss football his interest rested on writing about flowers and other things. “My interest doesn’t fall into socially-approved masculine activities. This made me antisocial growing but these digital communities made me less lonely,” he recalls. 

But, this social disapproval and pressure affected Odiase. It led to his desertion of poetry. But, unmindful of how fickle his commitment to poetry was, it always warmly welcomed him. Odiase decided during this period to commit to spoken word poetry despite being a stutterer. A chance encounter with Bassey Ikpi’s poetry during one of Oluwaseun P’s weekly radio programmes on Nigeria Info 99.3 triggered that commitment. Oluwaseun P’s programme features Dire Straits’s Brothers in Arms and Maya Angelou’s Still I Rise. Odiase’s limited yet grounded  understanding of literature made him recognise what he heard as distinctively poetry and, from that day in 2012, he decided to pursue a career in poetry. The decision led to a lifelong apprenticeship in spoken word poetry. He consciously and painstakingly listened and studied Ikpi’s works, Dolapo Ogunwale, Kemistree, and international poets in the Def Poetry archive. This apprenticeship made him aware that spoken word poetry demands confidence. And it was this learnt confidence that motivated him on his first slam competition.  

There isn’t a concise history of Nigerian Poetry Slam. Nigerian spoken word poetry is reminiscent of African orature and traditional poetry performances. Rooted in the country’s rich oral tapestry, the modern poetry slam scene, also indebted to international influences, saw spoken word poets significantly contributed to social, political and cultural issues. From 2016, spoken word poets like Donna Ogunnaike, Wome Uyeye, Graciano, Uche Uwadinachi, Efe Paul Azino, Titilope Sonuga, Dike Chukwumerije, Olumide “King Olulu” Holloway, Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo, Akeem Lasisi, Iquo Diana Abasi Eke and others were filling clubs and arts centres while performing spoken words. During this now-distant and fragmentary document period, the Nigerian spoken word community was engulfed with spontaneous activities and slams. From Lagos to Ibadan to Abuja to Benin, poetry slams were held in large numbers encouraging inter state travels and collaborations amongst young Nigerians travelling to compete. In Lagos where Odiase is domiciled, poetry slams are held in open spaces, bars and restaurants across Ojuelegba, Somolu and Costain. Platforms like War of Words Africa, an international slam poetry competition, Word Up, and Word Up Talk series organised by i2X Media Limited, Wordaholics, Freedom Spoke Words, Eko Poetry Slam and other slam events gave spoken word poetry a temporary mainstream appeal. 

This mainstream appeal fades quickly due to numerous reasons. The Nigerian spoken word space is highly congested and competition driven. The then-thriving spoken word communities were built and structured around competition. This stalled the poets and the individual poets and spaces from growing as there weren’t community-focused initiatives aimed at nurturing growth nor collaboration without selfish interest taking a front seat. As Odiase argues, this individualistic mindset made it impossible for fellow poets to share opportunities like contests, gigs, competition. It also birthed the creation of cliques,  making it impossible for collective growth. The competitive atmosphere also  birthed monotony. Different stages across the state and country became monopolised by the same poets who are possibly performing the same poem. “The then-Nigerian-spoken-word community wasn’t really a community in the sense of peer and community development. Every poet wants to be better than the other one so they can win the prize money. This money-and-competition driven mindset affected and still hitherto affects the Nigerian spoken word space. It has made it impossible for poets to see each other not as another contestant.”

But, for socially ostracized Odiase, these poetry slams and platforms offered a physical community to interact with. For Nigerian spoken word poets, these communities were a physical haven affording intellectual exchange and building of lasting friendship. It afforded Odiase one of his career-defining conversations with King Olulu, poet and Chief Executive Officer of i2X Media Limited. Odiase had opted to speak with King Olulu who was one of the judges in a poetry slam he had been evicted from the first stage. That conversation, though truthfully brutal, reshaped his understanding of poetry and ideological sensibilities of a poem. “There’s nothing spectacular about your poetry,” King Olulu informed Odiase when he asked why he was quickly disqualified. This biting response prompted Odiase to start thinking of finding a political, cultural or spiritual identity for his poetry. Till then, his interest has just been in crafting punchlines that can quickly echo on judges and audiences’ minds. Poetry slams rewards a poet with punchlines. So, Odiase was working with that understanding. And that understanding gracefully rewarded him with numerous slam prizes including the Kudo Eresia-Eke Performance Poetry Prize, Poetry Archive Now! Wordview, Lacasera National Poetry Slam, the Ekonke African Storytellers Prize and others. But, that conversation with King Olulu compelled him to start reflecting on an identity to anchor his poems and performances on. “After that exchange, I wrote If You Ever Lose  a Slam, Don’t Come Home Crying, out of anger. This anger and a depressive period that ensued made me leave poetry, again. But, after deep introspection, I decided to interrogate the Nigerian Civil War and  Transatlantic Slave Trade. This time, I decided to strip myself of punchline pressure.” 

Now, Odiase is building a community-focused artistic movement and creating art-for-social-advocacy works across various mediums. Odiase starred as a spoken word artist. But, he doesn’t solely  identify as one anymore. Having experimented with poetry films like Tigerclaw, Open Line, Benin Did Not Die, She Sends Her Regards, Wata No Get Enemy, Mandela’s Shoes that has made official selections at international film festivals such as the African International Film Festival,  Zebra Poetry Festival, in Germany, and made him finalist at the 2023 Emmys’ International Young Creative Award, exhibited installations (In My Mother Tongue There Are No Horcruxes, This Land Speaks and Drumming New Worlds), performance poetry like Quantum Poetics,, Are We Mad or Can You Hear the Music, Black Dialogues and others, Odiase’s artistic exploration has given him a multidisciplinary artist tag. In this explorative journey, he came to realise the limitation of poetry as an art form. This propelled him to experiment with poetry films, sound, tech, coding and programming, graphic design, photography and performance installations. Having done all these, he believes it’s limiting to describe him as just a spoken word artist. 

Unmindful of the different artistic mediums he has interacted with, a recurring element is poetry and visual metaphors. In the Agony of Dying Trees, there are coloured kegs representing the killed Ogoni Nine. There is also the image of someone trying to sing the national anthem but gasping for breath. That understated but strong visual metaphor has cradled his works. And as Odiase’s works led him to interrogate Nigerian and African history and archives, he believes as individuals and collectives, we need to do the grounding and grueling work of  documenting and contextualising our history. The archive needs more culture workers to bring diversity to how we research, think about, interrogate and contextualise the archive. This, he argues, allows for a more rounded and thorough exploration of cultural  archives. And as one of the people doing this, he feels privileged to be able to offer Afrocentric thinking and worldview. “Besides archiving, we also have to understand that the art we make today becomes the artefact of tomorrow. This means that we have to take an urgent cultural approach to our ongoing story and culture.” 

Neocolonialism, as championed by Western media, lives and breathes on the mindset of Africans. AI prompts rarely generate images of black people. Western media —films, music, arts, and all, present a stripped down or problematic exploration of black identity. Odiase believes that to deconstruct this  colonial thinking, culture workers, journalists and multidisciplinary artists like him, need to wake up. A decolonial approach should be taken towards approaching African archives to ensure that it doesn’t glorify or center white supremacy while African cultural glory is spoken about in hushed tones. As he has shown in his works and cultural engagements, Odiase believes it’s our cultural and historical responsibilities as Nigerians and Africans to build the archive of now. To do this, he suggested that artists like himself should recognise the contribution of other working artists across the continent. 

Organizations like Open Restitution Africa creating research materials around African artifacts, and curating conversations around their returns and cultural projects like Digital Benin, which is a digital archive of cultural artifacts are curatorial spaces needing spotlight and supper. As our conversation ended,  he spoke on how static Western art can be. But, African arts as championed by performance artists like Jelili Atiku, is in constant movement. And, as an artist thinking about all these issues and addressing them in films, installations, performances and other mediums, he has taken the cultural responsibility to create the archive of now. “My work is geared towards contributing to the knowledge, system and network of people documenting our nowness.”