Moyọ̀sọ́láolúwa Olúwabùsọ́lá Olówókúre, fondly known as Moyọ̀sọ́lá, is a sophisticated Nigerian artist, poet and performer who weaves a unique tapestry of psychology, spirituality, and romance through her work. With a distinctive approach to spiritual poetry, she draws unexpected parallels from biblical narratives, transporting and uplifting her audience to new heights. Influenced by the likes of Lindsey Abudei, Titilope Sonuga, Yebba, and Mereba, Moyo’s lyrical dexterity and intricate sound have captivated listeners.
Through collaborations with fellow African artists, she creates impactful audio-visuals that shape culture and spark meaningful conversations within her growing online community.
With her debut single, ‘Sex is a kind of death’ (SIAKOD), released in February 2024, Moyo continues to push boundaries, seamlessly blending poetry and music to create a truly distinctive art form.
What inspired you to combine poetry and music in your creative work?
I’ve never really seen them as separate entities; I think of them as related. For me, poetry always blends into the music; the rhythm, the musicality, melody and all of that. I wanted to explore that musicality with poetry, especially with streaming platforms, and places that are designed for musical works. I just felt like it would be really cool to give my poems a richer form of expression.
Can you share a bit about your creative process with writing either poetry or music?
Hmm, I sort of run away from this question because it’s sometimes hard to keep track of how the work comes to be but often I think it’s a very spiritual process. I see my creation as more of a curation; the pieces are already existing in fragments and in different forms all around me, whether in a thought or in a sermon or any Bible passage or whatever and then I sift through all the data, picking off those ideas and then weaving them together to create something tangible. I’m always extracting from what is and weaving them into something new.
In a more practical and understandable term, I would say that my creative process starts off with me just having an intention, a creative intention. What I want to say, what I want to communicate and then sometimes it takes research especially if I’m writing something that is a bit outside my immediate experience.
So, first, creative intention, having a general idea of what I want to say and then expanding from there and finding ways to say what I want to say, choosing whether I want to use coded language or to say it directly, choosing whether to sing or not, and all of that. Sometimes I kind of hear melodies like in a dream or something, I can just hear it and then those ones I’m fortunate to remember, I just do a quick voice note to remember. Sometimes it comes easily, sometimes, I have to go to war with it. That’s my creative process in a nutshell.
What role does emotion play in your heart and how do you convey these emotions through your poetry or your music?
I think this is a bit tricky for me because while poetry is a very emotional experience for me, it’s also very logical in the sense that I perceive myself to be. I am a minister, and so everything I speak is powerful; everything I say has an effect and so the role of emotion is tricky, because sometimes what I feel may not necessarily be what needs to be said.
To be frank, I think something I’m struggling with is striking that balance between allowing my emotions to breathe in my poems and also being conscious of what soul effect and impact I want to have with my work. In my work, I think of emotions as a two way street; how I feel and what I want to write about, and how the person that is going to hear this poem is going to feel so emotions are definitely a dominant and very important aspect of creating for me.
So what themes or topics do you often find yourself drawn to in your work?
I love romance, talking about God, and hope, so, you’ll see a lot of themes on freedom, salvation, sin, romantic love, platonic love, grief. I write a lot of poems about grief. Those are the major themes that I think show up.
Can you share a bit about the inspiration for your upcoming album?
So ‘DIRT and DIVINITY’ exists because there’s a prevalence of two major extremes in the world we live in. There are people that act like they are untouchable by human experiences and people that are in touch with humanity and I just wanted to bring the synergy of these points of view; to explore weakness, fragility and a reliance on God. We have access to unlimited strength in God. We have access to unlimited creativity in God. We have access to boundless love in God and yes, these two things exist at the same time, like existing in this meeting place between heaven and earth. What does it look like for someone to love God yet experience acute grief? What does it feel to be so in love with life to care so much, to not give up on your dreams? What does it look like for past experiences to imprint and skew the way we experience the present? That’s basically the concept of ‘DIRT and DIVINITY’.
What would you like listeners to take away from the album?
I would like people to feel seen when listening to my work and also hope. I definitely want people to awaken to hope when listening to the album, to be more in touch with themselves and divinity and explore walking the balance between dirt and divinity.
How do you approach performing your poetry and your music live?
For me, live performances are an exhilarating experience, I really enjoy myself on stage. Approaching the stage takes a lot of mental fortitude so I always make sure to be in sync with the poem and also practice; I practice a lot because it’s very important to me to properly know my piece while sharing them. I try to avoid reading from a page as much as I can.
Recently, I realized that I also like to explore the physical experience of the poem, in the sense of connecting to and using my body when presenting and sharing. I like to feel the words in every part of my body; how does the poem feel in my head, my hands, my arms, or legs?. Oftentimes, you’ll see me moving a lot on the stage.
Another important aspect of stage performance for me is being able to make space for that connection between me and my audience. I always like to give honor to the connection between me and the audience as they listen by maintaining eye contact. If I’m in a crowd of a thousand people and I feel in my spirit that that one person at the left corner or wherever is listening to me and feels moved by what I’ve said. I try to honor that and hold their attention with eye contact.
How do you stay inspired and motivated to create a new work or new project or poem?
I’ll say openness and calmness are what keeps me inspired. I was reading this ‘The Creative Art: A Way of Being’ by Rick Rubin and he talked about being open and making space for the quiet, making space for art to meet you where you are and that really resonated with me.
As someone who sees creation as more of curation, I cannot receive those messages from God. I cannot receive those creative promptings if my mind is so clogged up with my to-do list and with my self-defeating thoughts and with my worries and my cares. I try to stay inspired by making space for the quiet, making space for rest, making space for stillness and silence.
I think another thing that keeps me inspired is life. Just staying present in the happenings of life and being where my feet are. If I’m washing plates, my mind is on washing plates, if I’m about to fall asleep, I think of how nice the pillow and blanket feels. My mind is always present with my body and that allows me to experience the world fully.
I believe that anyone who experiences the world fully will always have something to say about it. Generally, being open, making space for stillness and consciously experiencing the world rather than passively passing through it – that’s what keeps me inspired.
What advice would you give to other young poets who are interested in incorporating music into their poems?
If you desire to combine poetry with music, I would say it would be a good idea to spend some time listening to other people who have done that. This may be a bit daunting because you have to avoid being too heavily influenced or being a copycat or whatever, but art begets more art and if you expose yourself to other people that are creating and doing this thing that you desire to do, it lights that flame and allows you to touch the reality of the possibility of you creating.
Before I started conceptualizing ‘DIRT and DIVINITY’ in my conscious mind, it was already developing in my subconscious mind because I had been listening to poets and poetry albums nonstop. That was literally all I was listening to at that point and I know that definitely had its impact on what I felt was possible in the space of combining poetry with music.
Are there specific instruments that you feel or think particularly complements your poetry?
I think I’m a bit biased towards strings, especially the piano. When I first started putting out my poems on IG, I liked to use those piano instrumentals as background music. They made me more comfortable with my words and how they sounded, so I’ll always have that emotional connection to piano. I also learned how to play the piano as a child.
Another favorite is the violin though I didn’t use it on this album but I’ll make sure to explore it for subsequent projects. My voice still remains my favorite instrument of all time.
Do you think your background and personal experiences have an influence on your work?
Like I mentioned earlier, experiencing life always inspires me to document and write. Experiencing being in love makes you want to write about love.
Experiencing grief makes you want to write about grief, experiencing the goodness of God and the infinite power and love that he has, makes you want to write about that. Losing my dad at age 15 also occupies space in my work and blends into it.
Being in love, experiencing the love of friends and family and the love of God, it’s humbling and it just makes you want to appreciate it because sometimes people do things for you that you can’t repay.
Documenting these things; writing, appreciating it in a poem counts for something and that’s how my work is influenced. Attending a good secondary school definitely has an impact on my work (shout out to Zamani College, Kaduna), being exposed to rich writing and grammar from a tender age has set a standard of quality for my work.
I also grew up with creatives; my brother is a rapper and my mom used to always come up with random songs in the house, literally anything could be turned into a song in my home, and I think that definitely allowed me to see the creative potential in everything around me.
What’s next for you in terms of your artistic journey?
I’m hoping that this album opens doors for me to continue the work of combining different mediums of art with poetry; exploring poetry and videography, poetry and visual arts, poetry and dance, e.t.c. Just combining my main forte with other creative mediums that are a bit foreign to me and collaborating with other artists. I’ll also love for my work to branch out in terms of geographical locations.
I recently performed in Accra and it was such a powerful experience. I definitely want to experience more of that; to learn and understand the cultural nuances that affect the way we write and also to experience the stories of other artists from other countries, especially Africa.
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