By Christy Anyanwu
Jimi King, a Nigerian textile artist, has been a name to reckon with on the fashion scene for over 39 years now. His brand, Jimiking Art Fashion, is known for its hand-painted and dyed Adire attire, which is actually ‘wearable art,’ as well as hand-painted and dyed linen gauze duster made in different styles.
He does dresses, jackets, Yoruba hand-woven aso oke fabric and many more artistic accessories.
Saturday Sun met the iconic Jimi King in his new outlet in Surulere, Lagos, recently. The 69-year-old artistic genius took us down memory lane. He talked about his brand, relived childhood memories, life abroad, contemporary issues in Nigeria, his lifestyle and lots more.
Tell us more about your brand
I am a textile artist. What I do is wearable art. It is not mass-produced. Everything is one of a kind. It’s low fashion, not where you make 1, 000 of a particular piece. You might make money from the number of pieces you make but what legacy are you leaving? Life is not all about money.
You have been around for many years. Who were your celebrity clients abroad and in Nigeria?
Stevie Wonder has been to my shop and bought some things. That was when I had a shop in Hollywood. Whoopie Goldberg, The Beatles, they were my neighbours and they bought my stuff, like many other celebrities who came around to pick things for people.
Funke Kuti’s father, Dr St. Matthew Daniel, was my client. He used to buy my things a lot. Lots of Nigerians buy my brands but I just don’t remember their names now.
Of course, I started in Nigeria; if Nigerians didn’t support me, I would not have been able to make any impact abroad because charity begins at home. But I would like to make some things for the young Afrobeat musicians. When the right one among them is ready, we will link up. I think what I make blends with what they are doing. I’m a textile artist and I make out-of-the-box pieces. I make avant garde pieces. Our young musicians need to recognise that they need to represent by wearing African garments on stage and in their videos because they will make more impact. The audience they are trying to target, which is mainly European, by wearing European clothes, they wear leather suits in a tropical climate, when they do their videos, the background is tropical, I don’t know how to place it. They need to represent by wearing made-in-Africa.
Some people have wondered: Is Jimi King a Nigerian?
Yes. From Isale Eko. My mum is a Sierra Leonean and my dad is Yoruba. I grew up under the bridge as ‘omo ita’ – an area boy. (laughs).
You must have been a stubborn boy growing up…
What do you expect? I grew up in Lagos. It was survival of the fittest. People would make fun of you, of your body parts, growing up.
When we were four or five years old, we used to go for lessons and my head was bigger than the rest of my body. I had a big head and my body was slim. They used to sing for me in lessons, mocking me. It hurt and these were friends. When I got home, I told my mum and she said, when they are singing, just be dancing and smiling. So anytime they sang, I would dance and smile and they were compelled to stop because they thought I was okay with that, not knowing that I was hurting inside. Thanks to my mum’s advice, they stopped.
Growing up, you did lots of good things and bad things. I have been making clothes since primary school because my grandmother was a seamstress. The same tailor who made my school uniform sewed for me when I started business. I sewed for my classmates in primary and secondary school. I would go to Ojuelegba to source for fabrics then. By age 13, I started making money selling in schools and my mum encouraged me.
I would assemble bottles, milk cans, match boxes and Ovaltine cans to build something. I was following the path that had been chosen for me by the universe.
Where have you been these past few years and why the new office location?
I have been in Atlanta, Washington DC, California, London, Europe and a few places spreading the gospel of African arts, clothing and paintings. We were at the former place for 40 years. We just moved to the Akerele area in Surulere. I prefer this place. There’s more foot traffic here. At my former place (Ogunlana Drive), the banks have taken over. At 6pm, everywhere is quiet. But here, life starts at 6pm. There are nightclubs, joints, and all the mallams changing money are around here. So, you are bound to notice us, especially those who want to change money from abroad.
How do you juggle having offices in Nigeria and abroad?
Nigeria is a hard place to do business. The environment is hostile. Not the people, but the system. There’s no system or, let me say, there’s a system that they carved out to better some people that are holding hands ‘chopping.’
I tried to ship a container-load of something to London, which took us days. We had to find a warehouse close to the port. This was shortly before COVID. Everything we needed, we had to go to the Central Bank through our bank, then the port. When you get to the port, there are like 17 different government organisations that you have to settle. At the port, I can’t tell you what happened. It is ridiculous. It’s not encouraging for young people to export, which is what is important now in Nigeria.
We need to export everything and bring back that foreign currency. We don’t need a strong naira. The naira should be N2, 000 or even N3, 000 to a dollar; as a matter of fact we need to cancel using dollars for anything. The only thing we need dollars for is to pay our debt.
Most of my productions are abroad. I take the fabric and take it abroad because our people are so hung up on making inferior quality things. You show them a sample of what to make, you still have to complain. I just shipped an order to the UK of 500 pieces and they are complaining. I told them to ship everything you don’t want back and we have to reproduce and send it back again.
How do you relax?
I will be honest with you. There’s hardly any time I don’t think about design. It’s been an issue for me for a long time.
I’m a walker, that’s my pastime. I walk long distances of 12 miles on Sundays and Saturdays. Otherwise, I walk like four miles. Or I run up and down steps. You can’t just be walking, your brain will be working too in meditation. Years back, I used to be a marathon runner abroad but, when I’m in Nigeria, I go to the National Stadium to run, do yoga, jogging and walking. Now I do yoga, stretching and walking.
What’s your kind of music?
I love every kind of music but jazz is my favourite. But now I like afrobeats. They are doing a great job. They need better content but the music part of it, the rhythm and the beat, is fantastic. There are millions more afrobeats singers and musicians that have not been discovered.
You mean Nigerian afrobeat artistes?
All over the world. Some Malaysian people play afrobeats, Indians also play afrobeats.
You have travelled far and wide. Which are your favourite destinations?
Nigeria. Though there’s no place called Nigeria, it’s just an experiment. We need a better name because it has no meaning to us. Mungo Park discovered the Niger River that was there before but it was not ‘discovered’ until Mungo Park came.
Why I like the country is that the untapped potential is humongous. Honestly, we don’t need the name Nigeria. It is not our own. That is an oyinbo name, ‘nigger area.’ Names are very important in our culture. We need our own names. If we are going to stay together as a unit, we need a name that is befitting. Look at Ghana. White folks called them Gold Coast but they changed to Ghana. Even Dahomey was changed to Benin Republic. What is wrong with us? Why are we bent on following these people
to hell? After living among other people for so long, you can see they don’t mean well for us. The sooner we wake up and do the right thing, the better. I am digressing but it’s only in my heart. That is why I’m speaking. You see children in Malaysia, children in Japan are already building AI. They are building machines, they are building robots in school but our own are still using curriculum from 1825 that Lord Lugard and his girlfriend gave us.
What is going on? Our children are going to be servants for Asian Tiger children if we are not careful. They are going to be serving Japanese children tea in their hi-tech incubators. Our own children will be saying, Yes, sir, what do you want to drink? Whereas we, their parents, we are their ancestors, even the Japanese accept it that they are from Africa. They are black. Even the Chinese, the first dynasty in China was from Africa. People are just hungry for money. They get to a position of power where they can make a difference in the lives of people but they keep mute. It is not just here, it is all over the world.
Human beings are the same everywhere. When God created earth and finished creation, he had some change left like the dregs, non-entities, nincompoops. He went on and spread them all over the world to be politicians, madmen and agbero. I don’t fear anybody, I will say it to their faces. I will clock 70 soon.
These people are ignorant and that’s why they go into politics. They thought everybody and everything is about money. That’s what white folks made you think.
Money, capitalism, grab as much as you can because they know the money is still coming back to them, for example, through the IMF, World Bank. All these people will give you money. They know you will steal it and bring it back to Switzerland. How many European countries are on the list of most corrupt countries in the world? Look at the UK. Africans steal all the money and buy properties in the UK, but the country is not among the corrupt countries. Their banks are not among the corrupt banks either.
What would you say about the need for Nigerians desperate to relocate abroad, the Japa syndrome?
I think it’s a good idea because, for the visionaries, it’s a great idea. Those people who are japa-ing find out where they are going and export things to them. They look for things they have in Nigeria that they don’t have there, they export and make money from there too.
Also, the space they are leaving behind, those of us that are here can occupy that space. It’s an opportunity both ways. You go there with goods and services or you occupy the spaces that they left. That is human nature from time immemorial. Human beings migrate all the time from country to country, city to city, everywhere. There’s no way you can stop migrating. Things gets tough somewhere, human beings go where it’s easier. Human beings don’t mind starting a new life in an unknown area or trying to colonise other planets. It’s okay. Let them leave. Let them go and find out what is happening elsewhere. They are going there to represent either negative or positive things and, hopefully, they earn foreign money and in return to invest it in Nigeria.
What would you say about the Nigerian national anthem that was changed?
The anthem was composed by a white woman but she told our story. I think it also reminds us that our tribes and tongues are different, so let’s not try to live together by force. There’s strength in diversity also. There are two, three ways to look at it. I think we are looking back to look forward. We need to re-arrange our union.
Is there anything you want the government to do regarding the creative industry?
There’s no government, except for the First Republic, even those ones were extravagant. What we have is chop-and-clean-mouth. There’s no government in Nigeria. There are very few instances when you see the hand of government in a lot of affairs. The private sector has excelled and it’s excelling everywhere, and the government is busy creating a hostile environment for investment and creativity. Despite that, Nigerians have thrived, in spite of all the efforts by the government to thwart what individuals and the private sector are doing and despite that we have excelled.
You are rebranding ‘Jimi King’ in December. What are we expecting?
A week-long event in December, when the weather is better. We have started making preparations for that.
What about your 70th birthday in January? Any grand party?
My children based in Canada and Abuja are planning something for me. I will watch out for them. To me, 70 is not what I’m looking at. My target is 120 years.
With your wealth of experience, do you mentor younger ones?
There’s no adequate provision for the youth to take over from us. I want to mentor people but they need to show up too and play their part. I have a space I have dedicated to the young ones to showcase their works for free. Nobody did that for me when I started. I am doing that to encourage them. I will call it “Mbari, Mbase, Mbayo.”