From his lyrical activism to his fusion of Yoruba tradition and global consciousness, Nubia’s work stands as a beacon for artistic integrity and African renaissance.
Beautiful Nubia: Nigeria’s Renaissance Troubadour Inspiring Cultural Renewal Through Music and Poetry
I first came face-to-face with Beautiful Nubia in 2021, when he performed at my university during my undergraduate days. After the electrifying show, as students crowded around him for pictures, I had the privilege of a brief exchange while trying to interview him as part of the event’s organizing team. That moment, though fleeting and unable to scratch the surface of the questions burning in my mind, crystallized a dream I had carried for over a decade: to one day sit down properly with an artiste whose music had profoundly inspired me.
For anyone who grew up in a Southwest home, particularly in Ibadan, where I am from, the opening lines of Beautiful Nubia’s classic record “How do you do? (Owuro L’ojo)”—“Ojúmọ́ tí mọ, ará mi, ẹ gbéra nílé, iṣẹ́ tí yá”—are as familiar as sunrise itself. It’s a song you will hear almost everywhere: on radios, on televisions, and even on speakers on the streets. Of all his classics, however, “Irin Ajo” stands out as a personal anthem for me, a song of reassurance that reminds me brighter days always return.
Yet whenever I attempt to describe Beautiful Nubia’s music, words often fail me. I find myself returning to the assessment of the late Rick Sanders, the talented journalist and musician who captured something deeply essential about Nubia’s appeal: “Immediately very likeable. There’s a certain flavor to Beautiful Nubia’s music which is a sure and pleasurable thing. His lyrics speak for humans in general—through a poetry of traditional fable, modern clear-sightedness, balance and good humor—and his band are consistently right on the button. If they don’t melt your heart, seek help.”
His philosophy about human potential resonates deeply with this experience: “Everyone has a talent, even if they think they don’t. Nature doesn’t create waste, nobody is excess to requirement, nobody is useless,” Beautiful Nubia reflects during our recent conversation.
What strikes me most profoundly about his work is its inherent poetry. There are no Beautiful Nubia songs without poetic reference, no compositions that don’t elevate everyday language into something transcendent. Sanders’ observation about his band being ‘right on the button’ proves strikingly accurate when you witness the Roots Renaissance in concert; their musical chemistry is intuitive and precise, and they create spaces where strangers become friends, and diverse audiences unite in shared joy.
This long-awaited conversation reveals an artiste whose influence extends far beyond contemporary folk music and also reaches into philosophy, social commentary, and cultural preservation. In Beautiful Nubia’s hands, songs become vessels for wisdom, concerts transform into communities, and music serves as a map for personal and collective transformation.
The Making of a Renaissance Mind
The name Beautiful Nubia, created and carried by Segun Akinlolu as his stage name and cultural signature, tells a story of aspiration and historical consciousness. “The name has two parts. The first, Beautiful, describes a kind of soul, a soul beyond hate, one that can only love,” he explains. This beautiful soul, as he describes it, transcends the superficial divisions that often tear societies apart. “It embraces everyone and seeks to make people happier than they were before meeting you. It’s about sowing good seeds, building a progressive society, and giving all your gifts, talents, and abilities to help others thrive.”
The name also carries the weight of historical reclamation. Nubia, he reminds us, was once a powerhouse of ancient civilization. “Around 3,000 years ago, Nubia was to the world what America, China, or Germany might be today, a center of advancement, civilization, and leadership.” In choosing this name, Beautiful Nubia plants a flag of possibility in the consciousness of his listeners, particularly young Africans who have inherited narratives of perpetual marginalization. “I chose the name to remind us, especially young people, that we haven’t always been second-class citizens of the world and, at one time, people like us were leaders of the world.”
But even more importantly, he gave himself the name as a challenge, he explains, so that when people call him “Beautiful,” it keeps him on his toes and serves as a reminder to stay on the path of growth and improvement. More than personal accountability, he hopes that others who hear the name are also inspired to embrace those values of inner beauty.
The journey from veterinary medicine to musical stardom might seem like a dramatic career pivot because how does a veterinary professional end up being a bandleader, troubadour, and composer? For Beautiful Nubia, however improbable it may seem, it represents the natural unfolding of a plan conceived in adolescence. He always tells people that he was a musician long before he became a veterinarian, having discovered his musical talent at the age of nine. By thirteen, he was already documenting his compositions with methodical precision that would later characterize his approach to both science and art. He started writing them down, numbering them “Song 1, Song 2, Song 3,” and told himself that when he grew up, he would be a musician, a writer, and some kind of scientist.
His academic excellence opened doors to prestigious career paths, but these achievements served a different purpose in his grand design. The years spent studying veterinary medicine at the University of Ibadan, from 1986 to 1992, followed by eight years of professional practice, were strategic investments. Veterinary medicine, he reflects, provides a unique 3D view of the world. It connects animals with humans, plants, and the broader natural environment. It is a holistic discipline, and one he recalls studying with genuine enjoyment.
Those corporate years at Animal Care Services Consult, where he rose from salesman to divisional manager, proved invaluable in ways that only became apparent later. He learned a great deal about marketing, product development, promotions, events, and packaging skills that continue to benefit him as a musician today. More importantly, he was accumulating the financial resources necessary to launch his artistic career on his own terms. This foresight would prove crucial when record companies rejected his early work as ‘word-laden’, intellectual and uncommercial.
When I asked if he considered himself a polymath, Beautiful Nubia deflected with characteristic humility. He admitted that others might describe him that way, but he saw it more as a stroke of fortune than anything extraordinary. “People do say that, but I think it’s a bit of flattery. What really happened is that I was lucky. I discovered my talent very early in life, as a child.” Yet his philosophy about talent reveals a more profound wisdom about human potential and self-discovery. “Everyone has a talent, even if they think they don’t. Nature doesn’t create waste, nobody is excess to requirement, nobody is useless.”
That philosophy has sustained a career spanning more than twenty albums, beginning with Seven Lives in 1997. Rejected by every major label but resolutely undeterred, he founded EniObanke Music and released his debut on his own, draining his savings and even accruing debts. “We made 1,000 copies, and it took years to sell them off. In fact, many we simply gave away.” The transformative breakthrough came with the Voice from Heaven album in 1999, which earned him a KORA All Africa Music Awards nomination, one of the, if not the, biggest recognitions in African music at the time. “I was the only Nigerian artiste nominated that year. Suddenly, newspapers were talking about me, and people recognized me on the streets from the video.” Then came Jangbalajugbu, the album that transformed him from a respected artiste into a household name, followed by other landmark releases that have defined different eras of his career.
The Alchemy of Creation
The creative process behind Beautiful Nubia’s deeply layered compositions reveals an artiste who understands songwriting as a calling. His approach to composition demonstrates the intersection of natural gift and deliberate practice, influenced by formative experiences that shaped his artistic sensibilities from childhood.
His earliest influences were profoundly personal and foundational. “My earliest influences were my grandmother and mother. Those two powerful women taught us values that shaped my worldview: that you cannot be happy if your neighbor is not at peace, and you cannot be at peace if your neighbor is not happy.” That same lesson in interconnectedness, first learned at home, later found its way into his music, surfacing memorably in the song “The Path.” These values of community responsibility would go on to shape songs that function as personal expressions and communal calls to action.
The musical landscape of his childhood in Ibadan provided rich soil for the development of his artistry. “As a child, I was also fascinated by local talking drummers. On Fridays, they would come out, not necessarily for an event, but just to play, and I loved watching them.” The rhythmic patterns absorbed during these childhood encounters continue to influence his performances decades later and create a sonic bridge between traditional and contemporary expression.
His father’s electronics shop became an unlikely conservatory where young Segun Akinlolu absorbed musical influences from around the world. “From as early as four or five years old, I remember sitting in his shop, listening to music from all over the world. I was always curious, always eager to understand and absorb sounds.” This early exposure to diverse musical traditions would later enable him to create a sound that, while rooted in Yoruba culture, speaks to universal human experiences.
The discovery that his mother was also a songwriter provided inspiration for him. Notebooks filled with original compositions for church festivals were tucked away in his mother’s wardrobe, right beside chocolate balls. “That was when it hit me: ‘She’s a songwriter, just like me.’ But unlike me, she wrote hers down. So I thought, ‘I better start writing mine down too.’” This revelation transformed his approach to composition from one that was purely intuitive to a more disciplined and documented one.
Beautiful Nubia’s songwriting process operates on multiple levels, sometimes involving years of patient development. His description of creating “Seven Lives,” one of his most beloved compositions, and unarguably one of his biggest hits, illustrates the mysterious nature of artistic inspiration. “In 1989, I was 21 and a student at the University of Ibadan. Suddenly, a melody came into my head. I started humming it, thinking, ‘I like this, it’s very simple.’” The song emerged complete in a single sitting; melody, lyrics, and instrumentation arrived simultaneously, in what he describes as pure magic.
Other compositions follow different trajectories. His classic love song, “What a Feeling”, required fifteen years to complete, with the Yoruba verse written in 1984, the English chorus “Oh what a feeling / Burning me all up / I can’t help myself / Baby, I wanna love you” was added a decade later, and the final section completed five years after that. This extended gestation period reveals an artiste who is comfortable allowing songs to evolve organically over time, and who places his trust in the creative process even when immediate completion wasn’t possible.
His multidisciplinary artistic expression encompasses poetry, fiction, spoken word performance, and music. He believes a good songwriter should naturally be a good storyteller, whether in fiction, poetry, or prose. This interconnected approach to creativity means that some of his stories might begin as potential novels before transforming into songs, or poems might wait years for the right melody to bring them to full life.
Beautiful Nubia’s literary output is substantial, spanning multiple genres and formats. His published works include Sounds of Joy (autobiography), Book of Songs (lyrics and stories), Citadel Blues (fiction), A WordMerchant’s LogBook (poetry), and In the Circle of the Happy Moon (children’s book). He has also recently completed another book titled Passing Through, which demonstrate his continued commitment to literary expression.
In fact, during our conversation, he told me that before music consumed most of his time, he had been an accomplished performance poet, touring internationally and headlining festivals in the UK and beyond. Audiences would tell him after poetry performances that spoken word was his best medium, while those who encountered his music would insist that it was his strongest suit. Similarly, readers of his books have praised his writing abilities, leading him to observe that people’s assessment of his talents often depends on where they first encounter his work.
He sees all these artistic forms as deeply connected, flowing from what he describes as a stream of creativity and higher consciousness. Sometimes, he begins writing what might become a novel, then realizes the material sounds like a song and abandons the prose form to turn it into music. He acknowledges that without songwriting, he would have completed many more books by now. Still, he feels blessed to have been able to express himself across these different mediums with each offering unique ways to explore the themes of human experience that drive his creative work.
The Revolutionary Spirit and Cultural Mission
Beautiful Nubia’s artistic vision extends far beyond entertainment to encompass a comprehensive philosophy of social transformation rooted in individual change and cultural restoration. His concept of revolution deliberately subverts conventional understanding of social change, focusing on internal transformation rather than external confrontation.
“When I sing about revolution in my music, I’m talking about the revolution of the mind. You cannot have change or progress in society if you don’t fix the people.” This perspective emerges from his observation that political upheavals often fail to produce lasting change because they don’t address fundamental issues of character and values. Historical examples of activists and revolutionaries who became corrupt once in power serve as cautionary tales in his analysis.
His song “Revolution Times” calls for a different kind of uprising that begins with individual accountability and spreads through communities via transformed behavior. The track’s urgent lyrics capture this philosophy: “Gotta wake up now from deep slumber / Break away the chains that hold us down / True freedom does not come to those who sit and pray / Stand up, raise your voice and be heard.” Still, even within this call to action, the emphasis remains on personal transformation as the foundation for social change.
The individual must first change himself, he insists. Only then can we fix society. This philosophy requires embracing the values of truth, honesty, hard work, perseverance, courage, and contentment. Values that he sees as largely absent from contemporary leadership. This theme of self-revolution runs through multiple compositions in his catalogue, including songs like “Are You Ready?”, “Ohun Oju Nri,” and many others that explore different aspects of personal accountability and inner transformation as prerequisites for meaningful social change.
Central to his revolutionary vision is a persistent focus on children and youth as agents of transformation. “No matter what anybody says, if a society truly wants to grow and make progress, that’s where you focus your energy, your attention, your resources.” This isn’t merely about future potential but about recognizing children as active participants in current social dynamics whose development directly impacts societal health.
His analysis of social dysfunction traces many problems to childhood trauma and inadequate foundation-laying. “Many of the people who are now in power, people who create chaos in Nigeria and elsewhere, so-called leaders who cannot think positively and who inflict pain on their own people, go and check their childhoods.” This understanding informs his commitment to creating music that can serve as a positive influence during formative years.
The demographic reality of Nigeria, with its overwhelmingly young population, makes Beautiful Nubia’s focus on children, young people, and youth particularly urgent and promising. “We have energy. We have vision. We have dreams. But instead of encouraging that, we stifle it.” This commitment is reflected in his music, with songs such as “Se’untoose,” dedicated to youth, where he sings “Ọmọ, ọmọ, ọmọ ò bá mà ṣ’iṣẹ́ ọwọ́ rẹ l’ọ̀dọ́ o/Ìgbà mbọ̀ kánkán o ní le làkàkà,” which means “Child, work hard while you still have strength. A season comes when you won’t be as strong.” Similarly, tracks like “Jangbalajugbu” and “E K’omo L’ede” highlight the importance of teaching young ones about values and culture. His concerts, where audiences aged 20 to 25 sing along to every lyric, demonstrate his successful engagement with exactly the generation he believes can transform the country.
Cultural Connection Through Music and EMUFEST
His approach to collaboration reflects these deeper values about artistic integrity and social responsibility. While mainstream Afropop artistes haven’t approached him for collaborations, he remains selective about musical partnerships, basing them on philosophical alignment rather than commercial potential. “I don’t approach music that way. I don’t do music as an experiment.”
The Roots Renaissance Band, his 14-member musical collective, exemplifies his collaborative philosophy in practice. “I always tell my musicians when they join: you’re not session men; you’re not hired musicians. No, I have not hired you. You are my family now.” This insistence on spiritual connection over commercial transaction creates the musical chemistry that allows the band to perform with minimal rehearsal while maintaining complex harmonies and arrangements.
His concerts function as laboratories for the kind of society he envisions through music. The design deliberately eliminates VIP sections and social hierarchies, creating spaces where diverse audiences come together in a shared musical experience. “That’s the vision: a space where young and old, Christians, Muslims, traditionalists, the wealthy, the struggling, people from all walks of life can come together, mingle, and become one.”
The annual EniObanke Music Festival (EMUfest) extends this mission by creating platforms for both legendary artistes and emerging talent, though the festival’s name has often been misunderstood. Some people believe it celebrates “Emu,” which means “palm wine” in Yoruba. Beautiful Nubia clarifies, “Of course, we have palm wine at all our shows, but the festival has nothing to do with palm wine. The name is simply a contraction of EniObanke Music Festival to form ‘Emufest.’” More significantly, he reveals that the name EniObanke itself represents another of his linguistic innovations. “There’s also this misconception that the name is some old Yoruba name. No. I created it. It didn’t exist before.”
The revelation that EniObanke is his own creation speaks to a deeper pattern of cultural innovation in his work. “People should go online and check. If you know how to do research, go and see if anybody was called EniObanke before I used that name for my company in 1997.” What began as a potential stage name—“Originally, I was going to use it as my stage name. You would have been talking to EniObanke now, not Beautiful Nubia”—became the identity of his record label instead.
This practice of inventing one’s own name is not unique to Nubia. Multiple award-winning author Chimamanda Ngozi-Adichie revealed in a 2021 interview with Ebuka Obi-Uchendu for Bounce Radio Live that her parents did not christen her with the name Chimamanda; she created it herself. Similarly, the cultural impact of EniObanke extends far beyond his personal brand. “The beauty of it is how people have accepted it, adopted it, and embraced it. Today, there are thousands of people with the name EniObanke.”
This organic adoption represents a form of cultural creation in real time, with Beautiful Nubia’s invented name becoming part of the living Yoruba naming tradition. His perspective on this linguistic legacy reveals historical consciousness: “Many have taken it up, and that’s fine, I don’t need credit for it. But for history and record-keeping, I think it’s important that people know,” he says.
EMUfest itself emerged from Beautiful Nubia’s growing connections within Nigeria’s musical community after “Jangbalajugbu” elevated his profile in 2002. “The idea came when I thought it would be nice to have a platform where we could celebrate legendary musicians, because I was beginning to meet a lot of them.” These encounters with musical giants, such as Fatai Rolling Dollar, who would tell him, “I’m your biggest fan” before passing away, along with legends like Chris Ajilo, Jimi Solanke, and Orlando Julius, inspired the festival’s dual mission.
Started in 2010, the festival has showcased over 400 artistes across its sixteen editions, with the event held annually; this year’s edition is scheduled for November. “The idea has always been to create a space for both legendary voices and new talents, including musicians, spoken word artistes, and performance poets,” he shares.
The success of these gatherings, where strangers become friends and diverse audiences unite in joyful celebration, offers tangible proof that his vision of transformation through cultural connection is practically achievable. In a country often divided by religious, ethnic, and class tensions, Beautiful Nubia’s concerts stand as small but significant examples of what Nigerian society could become when guided by the values he promotes through his music.
His artistic mission ultimately seeks nothing less than cultural renaissance, a recovery of African dignity and possibility combined with universal values of love, honesty, and community responsibility. Through songs that serve as both entertainment and education, Beautiful Nubia continues to build the foundation for the revolution of consciousness that he believes must precede any meaningful social transformation.