KUGALI
ONE OF AFRICA'S LEADING ENTERTAINMENT HOUSES.
KUGALI, the brainchild of entrepreneur, Ziki Nelson, CG artist, Hamid Ibrahim, and videogame developer, Toluwalakin Olowofuyeku, is the latest home of authentic "Afro inspired" storytelling designed to provide to millioins of fans worldwide, animation, art and augmented reality. Theirs and stories that "respect the history of Africa. embrace its present and imagine its future."
Kugali addresses the problem of distribution by creating a digital showcase platform for African content. Their milestones include the publication of a Pan-African anthology of comic books and the creation of an afrofuturistic series set in Lagos, Nigeria: IWAJU.
African content export just went global with Kugali X Disney's Iwaju! a move with tons of significance regarding the status & future of Africa's entertainment industry & ripples that can't be ignored. We and Kugali, discuss details about their latest project, its implications, and everything in between, In our brief interview with the team.
Everyone naturally wants to know the series’ premise. A basis, blurb, even the genre. How much can you tell?
Iwájú is a Science Fiction story set in Lagos, Nigeria. The first look image gives you a nice glimpse of our vision for this future. The series will explore themes like class, innocence and challenging the status quo. - Ziki
What inspired the creation of Iwaju?
I grew up in Lagos and I’ve always wanted to tell a story that shows the full breadth of what the city is about. The science-fiction allows me to be more imaginative and push the envelope. - Ziki
What changes does the team believe African story telling requires and how does Iwaju tackle them?
“This question is hard to answer given its sheer breath. Firstly, there are so many different countries in Africa and storytelling is really broad therefore it’s hard to make specific recommendation. Our main interest is to enrich the world of storytelling by bringing forth the hidden gems of African myths and cultures. Iwájú is going to showcase a storytelling experience the world has bever seen before and that’s what we’re all about.” - Ziki
“Traditionally, African stories were passed down by word of mouth from one generation to the next. This unfortunately created a lack of representation in popular media. Kugali has always been on a journey to solve this problem by bringing African stories to the world using different art forms like comic books and augmented reality. Iwájú is us using animation to bring African stories to the world in one of the most popular mediums with one of the giants in the story telling world.” - Hamid
Does the name Iwaju resonate with the futuristic setting of the series alone or does it also coincide with the series’ thematic destination?
Both. The title Iwájú stems from the fact that the story is set in a futuristic Lagos, Nigeria. However, the story is really supposed to inspire viewers to think about what sort of future they want for themselves and more importantly, their community. -Ziki
Kugali’s work has been quoted thus, ‘challenging the status quo’. Clearly, the team had noticed some kind of over engaged motif or something amiss in modern fictional literature, or even in real life, that needs to be made right, what is this ‘status quo’?
Iwájú’s themes include challenging the status quo. We wouldn’t want this misquoted as applying to all our stories, as we have a plethora of stories across all our comics and our writers have the creative freedom to explore whatever themes that interest them as long as they are not putting other people down. – Tolu
Despite representation in western entertainment & media, the problem remained that faces of Afro, especially continentals, were represented but not through their own voices; their reality & truth, largely due to the fact we have had non-African creators for major franchises involving POC who, often, don’t tackle our reality satisfactorily. Kugali takes the continental African experience to a global platform, what is it going to say on our behalf?
The creative force behind the story, direction, world building and art of Iwájú all spent most of their lives on the continent and Tolu is currently on the continent and lives in the city the story is taking place. This story is going to be one of the most accurate depictions of Lagos culture in a world that is going to feel so familiar, even as a futuristic version of the city, that everyone who has been in Lagos will say "This is Lagos" after watching the animation. - Hamid
There has always been the question asked through silence in the more conservative sector of the African creative community that the Disney deal brings familiar issues ranging from the drain of viable intellectual property to feed an industry dinosaur to the loss of creative control and freedom required to tell the story in the way they choose. Surely, these fears are unfounded?
One of the things that surprised us about this project was how much freedom we’ve had to tell our own stories with this project. It was clear from the outset that Disney are making a very genuine effort to open themselves up to African stories in the way that Africans can authentically tell them, and this has been most exemplified in the fact that they haven’t assigned an external director to the project, they've kept Ziki in charge - the story is Kugali to its core, Disney Animation is providing the resources and expertise in the field for us to tell the story in the best possible way we can - Hamid
What kind of ripples do you envision Iwaju having on global entertainment?
Similar to how manga and anime tell authentic Japanese stories that can be enjoyed by non-Japanese people, we want the authenticity of Iwájú and all the stories we tell to show the world that amazing storytelling is not limited to only the few places that are repeatedly featured at a global level. Every place in the world has the potential for great stories, but only a few have had the opportunity to share those stories far beyond their own borders - Tolu
About your future plans… what next Kugali?
Since we started working with Disney Animation, we never stopped working on our comics library and our in-house animation team. We have already published 17 comics from 10 African nations, and we will continue to put out good quality, authentic African comics. It’s too early to be more specific, but you can expect video games and animation from us in the future. We already make the best African SnapChat filters on the planet, and we’ll definitely keep doing that as well. - Tolu
INTERVIEW BY AFRO-COLLECTIVE
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