A Candid Portrait of Africa's web3 Culture with Nigerian Artist, Taslemat Yusuf
Rug Radio Host, web3 creator and entrepreneur, Taslemat Yusuf, offers her hopes for Africa's web3 future.
Taslemat Yusuf, from Lagos, is one of three Nigerians featured in the Tribeca Film Festival nominated film, Minted. She’s not only a talented web3 artist, but an entrepreneur, a Rug Radio show host, and an advocate for African artists. She offers valuable insights on how to raise up emerging artists and marginalized web3 communities in the web3 space.
When did you become an artist and how did you start creating art as NFTs?
I’ve been an artist all my life. I started as a poet — I’m a published poet, and I also delved into spoken word.
Taesirat, my twin sister, was the main visual art person. She used me as a model in her photography to express themes for her photo shoots. We took a photography class together, but I didn’t get serious about art until the COVID lockdown. We were at home and I saw that Taesirat was doing artwork on her phone. We needed something to keep us occupied as a form of therapy, so we started painting on our phones using Adobe Sketch. That’s how I got into visual art.
It was also my twin sister who told me about NFTs. She belonged to a NFT community called Black Women Photographers, and they onboarded her into the NFT space. When I saw her posting things, it made a lot of sense. I basically onboarded myself.
There were a lot of Clubhouse spaces going on then, and I would join. Initially, I didn’t go up on the stage to speak — I’d stay in the shadows listening. Then I joined a space called the NFT Type, and I minted my first work eight days later. The same collector who collected Taesirat’s photography, collected my work too. There was this euphoria in the space. Everyone was excited in the early stage. I decided to continue creating works and onboarding people. Back then, it was difficult. Twitter was banned for Nigerians, and it was the platform used in the NFT space. You had to use VPNs to get access. It was rocky, but we were able to find our ground.
Tell me about your first NFT painting.
I did my first human portrait on my phone. I used Adobe Illustrator, that’s now called Adobe Fresco. I was able to buy an iPad last year with money generated from sales of my NFTs.
How did you learn about Rug Radio, and what made you decide to host your show?
I used to join Twitter spaces hosted by Farokh, but I didn’t really feel like I could come up on stage to speak. Usually it was white people who did not talk like me or look like me, so I stayed in the audience listening. Even when the Rug Radio NFTs were finally launched, to be honest, I did not feel like it was something I could do or a community I could join. Then Ed Balloon had a show on Rug Radio for the black community in the space. I joined his spaces because he was a familiar person. That’s how I learned I could sign up to be a host with Rug Radio. I applied because I realized there was no African show on Rug Radio. I didn’t want people to feel pushed out of the space like I did when I joined. You want to feel that level of connection with your host, someone who sounds like you and looks like you and has the same experience and reality.
Before we launched Twitter spaces, my sister, Taesirat and I hosted Clubhouse spaces every Friday for artists to come talk about their work and to onboard people. We decided to call it Non-Fungible Fridays. We started our Rug Radio show as co-hosts, but now Taesirat’s in medical school, so I do the show on my own and she joins if she wants to. We’ve had some guest cancellations recently, but I plan to return to spaces after a break.
Can you tell me a little bit about Africa’s web3 culture?
I would say people in Africa are more familiar with crypto and defi, so there’s kind of a divide with creators. From the creator point of view, we don’t really have a major sense of those other communities because everyone has different groups they belong to. Last year there was this hype about NFTs because everyone was making money, but many people don’t really understand what NFTs are.
Are you networked with other NFT creators and artists in Africa and Lagos?
We don’t really have the opportunity to host as many events as we would love to because it costs money. Meta Mike, who is a Nigerian collector in the space, hosts a yearly event for creators in web3 to meet and talk to each other and also connect. We [my twin sister and I] cannot organize restaurant meetups and regular events because it costs money, so we have to do virtual events. Sometimes I see artists’ physical paintings at art galleries, but we don’t really have in-person web3 events.
We tried to organize an NFT art show with thirty artists last year in Nigeria and Chicago. The Chicago event was successful because they had the facilities and the screens to display the work. But here, the cost was too great and we had very little sponsorship. Most people gravitate toward having events with someone popular, like someone from the traditional art world trying to become ingrained in the web3 space. The traditional art world doesn’t consider web3 artists as serious artists. Although SuperRare was at ArtXLagos, ArtXLagos had just ten web3 artists in 2021 and only one in 2022.
Who inspires you in the web3 space?
I would say Clare Maguire. I love calling out her name because she’s important in the space and she used to host events on Clubhouse for different regions. Maya Draisin from Timepieces and Maliha from WomenRise too.
When I see those three people do amazing things in the space, I feel the web3 space can be welcoming especially towards women. It’s not just a boy’s club. It’s inspiring to me because, to be honest, I don’t think the space is welcoming now for emerging artists and I’ve considered leaving.
Most people gravitate towards people that are already well known in the space, and I’m coming from a marginalized community already. No one knows me, no one knows what I do, so it’s really discouraging. But when I see people being consistent since the time they started, like Claire and Miss Maya, showing up every day and contributing to the space, I am inspired.
What are your personal goals for web3?
I’m working with BuenoNFT (BuenoHQ) which does smart contracts. But my personal goal is gravitating toward planning events and also onboarding people into the space. I find myself getting burnt out because I’ve hosted spaces since 2021, and I want to delve into something different.
Taesirat and I started a community called non-fungiblefrenz. Through that, we want to create more physical and virtual galleries to spotlight more African creators. We want to shift the focus so it’s not just on web3 but also on emerging technology. For instance we want to help people who are looking for job opportunities in the decentralized world, not just the web2 tech space.
Personally I would like to create more gallery exhibits and host more events, especially in Nigeria, for crypto and web3 enthusiasts. Not everyone can afford to travel to NFT.NYC, so I want to foster that sense of community here in the African community. We don’t know where web3 is going, but most people see that the sense of community keeps people showing up every day and talking to each other. So, I see more event planning and creating exhibitions and finding job opportunities for creators in the space. A lot of people are in bad places — no sales, nothing. It’s hard to expect someone to show up each day when they are struggling in real life.
Have you met more people internationally though web 3?
web3 a ultimately about connecting with people. You can collect work in web2, but in web3 you have the opportunity to connect with them, especially if you’re being genuine and interested in what another person is doing. I got my job via a recommendation from someone in the space. I aced the interview and was hired! So it is really wonderful to talk to people in virtual spaces.
Do you have any other thoughts on educating the community and sharing your artwork in web3?
I’ve considered collaborating with people that are well known in the space, for instance, my work was collected by AnonymouX and it brought more people to check out my profile. So, we have to admit that this type of power dynamics are in the space. Some people have more influence and recognition. If they make that special effort, not even collecting, but even sharing artwork or collaborating with another creator in that region, it brings a spotlight to them.
Just making that conscious effort every week — sharing ten creators’ work from marginalized communities — and you are bringing attention to that work and to other people who may want to collect their work. Taesirat and I created a collection on NiftyGateway, and we got some collectors from our work, but we did not sell out. NiftyGateway was not actively pushing our work, but it would help for platforms to share it. OpenSea used to do something similar where the shared creators on their front page and retweeted their work.
Also, SuperRare hosts spaces for creators from different communities, but we don’t know many people from Africa who are SuperRare creators. That type of platform guarantees that others see your work. So if platforms can make an active effort to highlight more work from less known creators, that will help lift them up.
Thank you Taslemat for sharing your insights and for all you do to help make web3 an inclusive and welcoming space for all. Taslemat’s art can be found at these links:
https://foundation.app/@taslemat
https://opensea.io/en-US/taslemat
Her Sisi Ekos Collection is here: https://opensea.io/collection/sisiekos2