A profile on visiting artist and established legend in the world of Album covers, Lemi Ghariokwu

5th Feb 2010

Last week, the Cen­tre of West African Stud­ies (CWAS) was lucky enough to play host to one of Africa’s pio­neer­ing design­ers, Lemi Ghar­iokwu. Best known for design­ing album cov­ers for Afrobeat star Fela Kuti, Lemi has worked as an artist and designer in Nige­ria and abroad for many years. Per­haps one of his most recog­nis­able works is the cover for Fela’s 1976 album Yel­low Fever, which Lemi explained by talk­ing about the title song and how it addresses the trend of skin bleach­ing in Nige­ria. Fela’s lyrics tell how the infe­ri­or­ity com­plex that lies behind this phe­nom­e­non can­not be solved by expen­sive bleach­ing creams, but is one more deeply rooted. In the role of a cover designer, Lemi sees him­self as try­ing to express the mes­sage of the song. His designs are sup­ple­men­tary rather than com­pli­men­tary, they are able to stand on their own and Lemi sees this as the marker of his success.

It was spe­cial to hear  of Lemi’s rela­tion­ship with the leg­end that is Fela Kuti, in which Lemi saw him­self as a son, an advi­sor and a com­rade in arms. Lemi shared many of Fela’s polit­i­cal views, par­tic­u­larly his pan-Africanism. Lemi’s more recent work is markedly dif­fer­ent in style and larger in scale, but main­tains a pow­er­ful artic­u­la­tion of his polit­i­cal views, deal­ing with issues such as bor­der con­trol and child sol­diers. He terms this work as ‘Afro-pop art’ and one of the most strik­ing recent pieces is E-mind-cipation, where Lemi has super­im­posed Barack Obama’s image on the clas­sic draw­ing of an Atlantic slave ship. Lemi’s mes­sage is ‘set your mind free, express your cul­ture and be conscious’.

It is refresh­ing to see an artist who is so excited to share their own work with oth­ers, open about both their process and the recep­tion they have received. He describes him­self as ‘free’ from for­mal artis­tic train­ing and believes that this has influ­enced his eclec­tic style. As inspi­ra­tion for the vibrant qual­ity of his work, Lemi names every­day move­ment, colour­ful envi­ron­ments and inter­ac­tion with fel­low human beings. Lemi says he has tried to become more business-like recently dur­ing his time in the US, but just imag­in­ing him in a gallery meet­ing with a pair of trendy New York cura­tors brings a smile to one’s face. His untainted pas­sion for his work and for peo­ple is a great thing to see.

Writ­ten by Caitlin Pearson