Babi Oloko is a Nigerian-American multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Babi’s art combines her skill as a writer with her unique style to create striking visual messages. For two decades, her primary mode of connecting with and making sense of the world was primarily through writing. After exploring her journal as a space in which written and visual content could intersect, Babi now expands upon this practice and shares the words and messages she would once write down on paper on the canvas.

How did you get your name? 

I go by both my full name, Ajibabi, and my nickname, Babi. My full name is Yoruba, and means that when I was born, my family was on the earth to greet me.

How did you get into creating?

My mom always tells me she read books to me while she was pregnant with me. I came out of the womb with a love of reading that blossomed naturally and immediately into a love of writing. I've always been interested in art — I grew up making so many different arts and crafts projects (Borders and the library were my happy places as a child) — but it wasn't until I began adding art to my journal in the form of collages that I began to define my current art practice.

Where are you from?

I'm from New Jersey, about an hour outside of NYC, by way of parents who moved from Lagos, Nigeria.

What did you do to advance your skills/knowledge?

I just kept writing, kept reading, kept making, kept looking, and kept asking. I improve by doing and re-doing, endlessly.

Who inspires you?

My grandmother died when I was pretty young, and she lived in Lagos while I lived in New Jersey, so I never got to know her very well. But I remember she was just so full of passion and love. I've been divinely directed to follow in her footsteps. There have been so many times that I've brought home a new project or told my mom about my latest interest, and she's told me that it's something my grandmother used to do. Collecting crystals. Fermenting. Knitting and embroidering. Gardening. I've come home to my mom and been like, "Mom, guess what I'm into now?" And she'll tell me, "Your grandmother used to do that, too." So I feel very deeply tied to her. It's happened too many times to be coincidental. My grandmother was such a multi-talented, faithful, curious, and generous person. Even though she grew up Catholic in Nigeria, which has historically been more conservative, she was always open-minded and asked questions. She inspires me the most, followed closely by my own mother.

What is your goal when you create?

My primary goal is self-expression — to take the things I feel and think and present them in unique and interesting ways. This is my goal whether or not I'm creating with an audience in mind. When I am thinking about audiences, my goal shifts slightly and becomes to create something — a collage, a story, a poem — that resonates with someone else's experience of what it means to be alive in this complex world. During times when my mental health has really struggled, I find immense solace in music. That's always been the thing to help me the most, listening to lyrics of some of my favorite songs that reassure me that I'm not so alone, so strange, so unique in my experiences, that other people have gone through the same things and come out of those experiences and have been able to create beautiful art.

What's your go-to song right now and why is it important to you?

It's not really one song, it's more a genre. Right now, I've been listening to a lot of jazz — Sarah Vaughan in particular, followed closely by Julie London. This summer I listened to a lot of WBGO / 88.3 radio, and as the cold has set in, I've returned to jazz in earnest to take me back to warmer days in my mind. The lyrics are what keep me hooked — so plaintive, so jubilant, so full. Three-minute songs, but the lyrics make them stretch as long as a novel.

What would you tell someone else with a dream?

This is what I tell myself — don't compare, don't rush, don't worry, and have faith. We're living in a time where people are blowing up at really young ages, and things happen so fast. It's easy to get pressed, and ask questions like, when is my time coming? Why haven't I already made it? What am I doing wrong? I'm trying to sit at the intersection of faith and action because I think that's when things start to really happen. My main advice would be, be gentle with yourself, and know your worth as you pursue your dream.

Tell us about your most recent release

I'm working on a book proposal now — an Afrofuturist collection of my art and writing exploring what it means to me to be a Black woman. I'm working on a book review of a short story collection from an insanely talented Black writer. And I'm perpetually working on my TV script. One day, it'll be "done." Until then, I'm going to keep working.

Share a link to your most recent release:

Instagram: http://instagram.com/com/watchbabi

Website: http://ajibabi.com

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