Roger Okewole drawing
Meet Roger Okewole! Africa's Andy Warhol! The US-based artist is putting Africa on the challenging map of Pop Art. Teambooktu interviewed him about his art style and views on African art in general.

Welcome, Roger, to an interview on your career as Pop Artist which has inspired so many. We are quite keen to learn more about you and this art form.

Thank you for having me.

Okay, please give us a brief rundown on your career, how you got to where you are now, and what inspired you. Because it’s quite curious, you know: Pop Art is uniquely different and not exactly a style many artists are involved in.

I have to credit my parents because I have been an artist for as long as I could lift my own fingers. So that started from the baby chair. That’s not made up… I’ve been drawing since I was in a baby chair. And my parents always encouraged me in that regard. My mother introduced me to Andy Warhol’s pop art. This was way back in the early ’70s. More credit goes to my parents for introducing me to books which is the ultimate pop art expression. I read whatever was put in front of me. My interest was piqued by comic books and I always had them since I was five or six years old. I was sort of a bookworm.

As far as my career growth and company, my father was very supportive of my art endeavours but he insisted I got a degree in engineering, which was the normal Nigerian thing. So I did what he wanted. I was in the industry for twenty-plus years till I reached a crossroads where I decided to form a graphic art company.

'Bronze Queen' in the Afrobeats pop art line
‘Bronze Queen’ in the Afrobeats graphics line

Looking at the landscape and the emerging technology, I realized it was something I could do, especially in this web-based world that we live in now. So I decided to form my own company. My two rules were: keep it fun and not do what other people are doing. Which is at the crux of pop art. So don’t try to be Rembrandt or Picasso. Do what speaks to me, my art is for me, not necessarily for an audience. If an audience takes a liking, that’s a bonus but it’s really for me,

I formed the company in 2011. It has gone from strength to strength. So today it’s like 13 years old now. It started as a home decor but has branched into things like T-shirts, logo creation, logo design, and event materials. I do commissions when called upon and I have several graphic lines within my graphics company. So that’s it. That’s where I am today.

'DJ Queso' in the Rat Pack pop art line
‘DJ Queso’ in the Rat Pack graphics line

Interesting. From your background, you read a lot of comics. Did you ever at a point consider going into comics or animation? Or did you choose graphic arts because of its utilitarian nature (e.g. t-shirts, home decor etc.)?

Well, I’ll tell you what. That’s a great question. I actually did animation in Nigeria. There was a company looking for someone who was computer-literate, because they had this idea to do some animation for some television studios, and they were looking for a fresh idea. They couldn’t get fresh ideas from the art studios around Lagos at the time. Somehow I got introduced to them through some friends and I said, yeah, I can do what you want. I made them believe I was a lot more capable than I was, because I had nothing to lose.

At the time, how old was I? I was maybe 17 years old. They gave me a computer which I took home with me. They told me what they wanted and I did an entire animation for them. I taught myself how to use the animation program. Compared to what they use now this thing was a dinosaur. So I’ve done animation back in my teens. My father came down to see what I was doing and was impressed. He was always very supportive.

You moved to the US in 1993 and started your graphics company in 2011. How was the response to it when you started?

So, then there was no social media. So, the response was complete silence. And even now with social media, it is an uphill task. I know that’s one of the challenges you might be facing at Teambooktu. If you’re not selling naked women, nude pictures, you don’t get massive followings. And I’m selling something serious. I’m in serious business. So, you have to plow for your exposure. So, I find goodness that our originality has given us our marketplace.

Well-said. So, in your production of African pop art, you have a graphic line called Afrikkan Pantheon. In terms of reception, do people understand the concepts behind the art? Are your patrons for this line mainly of African descent?

So specifically Afrikkan Pantheon was created as a reaction to Marvel movies which I’m a huge fan of.. huge, huge, huge, huge fan. I watched every second of just about every one of their movies- with exception of maybe one or two. When I watch those movies I’m not watching them just for the plot, I’m also watching them for the designs, the lighting, the costumes, the script… because I tend to be quite detailed in my art. So when I draw a belt on someone, the belt actually fits on the person. I draw it in front and behind (to ensure it does fit).

Kangalogba in the Afrikkan Pantheon pop art line
Kangalogba in the Afrikkan Pantheon line

So let’s talk about Sango (pronounced shango) for example. If I’m going to do Sango, I’m not going to do a muscular guy holding an axe because that’s been done before. I’ll do a unique take on it. When I do the piece, if I’m going to market it, it’s usually with someone somewhat familiar with what pop art is trying to do. It catches their eye. But paradoxically, it’s normally not with a person who knows much about Sango. So I will talk them through who the character is and I’ll usually do a parallel to the more familiar character- Thor. So because that’s more recognizable.

However, it’s funny because with Afrikkan Pantheon I’ve dealt with a lot of foolishness from our fellow Africans who believe that it’s somehow paganism to make an attempt to portray the fact that there was religion in Africa before Arabs and Christians came there to enslave people. That is ignorance at its state. I don’t have a lot of patience for that argument. The Afrikkan Pantheon is really for foreigners. It has really developed that way.

Okay. So is your pop art primarily showcased on t-shirts or are there other media you display them on?

So I have a graphic line called Let Your Mojo Out motivational art. They can be home decor. A lot of these currently decorate my living and dining walls right now. But a lot of my other graphic lines like The 7 Deadly Sins, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse... are really for the t-shirts.

Pride in the 7 Deadly Sins pop art line
Pride in the 7 Deadly Sins graphics line

For those not versed in pop art, what exactly is pop art? Can you briefly explain what it is and what makes it different from other forms of visual art?

So pop art (you must remember I never went to art school) is a rejection of the notion that commercial art is not real art. So the earliest iterations of pop art had pictures of Marilyn Monroe. Promotional posters of Marilyn Monroe. You’ve probably seen those before. Multicoloured pictures of her on a canvas or a can of Heinz baked beans. And that’s what I express. Because the rejection of comic book culture for the longest time… people looked down on them (as art) and I reject that. I reject that notion.

Okay. So what if somebody pushed the position of a rejection of the traditional concept of visual art to canvas for AI art is given its pride of place in art, what would be your take on it?

Well, calling an AI person, an artist is like calling a conductor a composer. If you’ve ever used AI (to draw), you’d know that somebody who’s doing AI is not an artist. I’m an earlier adopter of AI. I got Midjourney when it was still new. Primarily because I anticipated questions like this one. So, what happens with AI is not art. It is not. If I share with you the things I’ve done on AI and tell you what I did to make them and how long it took, it will pretty much make the case.

I did an artwork of Ogun the Yoruba god of metallurgy. To do it, I had to research Yoruba armour, You know we don’t have castles in Yorubaland like the British do and they have suits of armour in the hall. So in English culture, we know what a medieval knight looks like in armour. In Yorubaland, we don’t have that. All we have are the bronzes that were ‘borrowed’ from British museums.

So I had to research those and guess what a supernatural figure trying to embody all of that would look like. Then I seated him down looking very menacing. I researched what his weapon would look like, drew it, and made up his armor. It was drawn from scratch. I made that up by looking at the bronzes at museums. Not copying because what I drew for Ogun you won’t see in any photograph or any museum. It was all from my imagination-every single groove and wrinkling on that armor I drew from scratch. I have the time-lapse footage to prove it. With AI art, all you do is type in “African man sitting on a stool wearing armour” and it spits out the image for you in 3 seconds. That is not art.

Okay, I like that you are a stickler for detail. I feel attention to detail and thorough research bring about better crafts in any art form. We see a lack of these in some of our movies, especially period pieces, so the final product falls short. How do you think this can be addressed?

So the best remedy for mediocrity is self-reflection. I will say this: I remember saying I’m very inspired by the Marvel movies? Watching the Black Panther movies I was very conflicted. Because why do we need a fictional country? Why is that the case when the culture is so, so rich, as it stands? Now, I’ll tell you about some of the pushback I’ve gotten on the work I did with Afrikkan Pantheon. Why do I get that pushback? There’s a basic inferiority complex at the root of these things. That’s my personal belief.

When you watch something like Lord of the Rings for example… I’m the kind of person who’s so interested in details that I’ve watched, not only the movies, but the making of these movies- the documentaries. I know they went back to the original people who still keep the tradition of putting chainmail armour together to make the call for that movie. So that is a dedication to the craft. The only remedy to mediocrity is self-reflection. At some point in time, Africa art will have to be more than a little girl with plaited hair, fetching water from the river with the calabash. Can we just stop doing that? Why not let us do something different. To me, that’s the root of pop art. It gives me the freedom to do what I want to do.

'Cancer' in the Zodiac Goddesses pop art line
‘Cancer’ in the Zodiac Goddesses graphic line

There is a growing desire among African Americans and Africans in the diaspora to trace their roots and connect with the Motherland. How have we fared so far in facilitating this through art? Because there is a large market out there. What do you think African artists need to do to bring themselves out, just like you’ve been doing in the US?

Let me give Teambooktu a bit of a thumbs up here. I grew up reading a sci-fi comic called 2000AD. Teambooktu turned me to a show called Iwaju which I thought was a very, very good step in that (futuristic) direction- a very good step. While it was not necessarily the best show ever, I’m watching that show and I’m looking for the same type details that I will look for when watching the movie Dune. And the details were there. I like looking at details because I’m always looking for things to use in my artwork, always.

So in other words, the best way to communicate is by finding ways of channeling, advertising and publicizing our works in different media?

Yes. With attention to detail. Cost-cutting shows. You can tell. If you take this same approach to African movies we will do more. Let’s do more. Let’s think big. There’s no reason why Wakanda should be the West’s notion of African culture. No reason.

I know you have different graphic lines for your pop art. You’ve mentioned a few. Can you give us the others?

I’ve got Afrikkan Pantheon, Let Your Mojo Out, Rat Pack, 7 Deadly Sins, 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Warriors, Afrobeats and Bat Doodles.

Do you have a target market for each line? Like you said, the Afrikkan Pantheon is directed to a foreign market.

So I see what you’re getting at. They’re all generated by my inspiration. They pretty much all draw themselves.
But the nearest and dearest to my heart are Afrikkan Pantheon and Afrobeats (which celebrates the music genre).

This has been quite illuminating. Thank you for taking your time, Roger.

You’re welcome.

Roger Okewole
Roger Okewole

Roger is a US-based self-taught illustrator who founded his graphic arts company, 9ja Pop Art in 2011. The company focuses on pop art graphic lines themed around various inspirations. One of these graphic lines is the Afrikkan Pantheon line which is a small attempt to take some control of the African narrative in diaspora through pop art illustrations. Amongst many projects within this line are depictions of Sub-Saharan deities in the pop art illustration genre. Also illustrations from the "History of the Yorubas" by the Reverend Samuel Johnson and from "Forest of a Thousand Demons" by D.O. Fagunwa.

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