20th March, 2024
By Taiwo Okanlawon
Lead character of CBS sitcom, ‘Bob Hearts Abishola’, Fọlákẹ́ Olówófôyekù is set to launch new Nigerian music genre as the series wraps up its fifth and final season.
The actress and producer revealed this in a new interview with Pulse Nigeria, saying that music was her first love and she will debut new songs in May.
Before Fọlákẹ́ Olówófôyekù started playing Abishola in the CBS sitcom Bob Hearts Abishola, music was her first love.
These days, Olówófôyekù spends her time rubbing shoulders with Beyoncé at the Grammys or playing her guitar on The Kelly Clarkson Show.
“I call America my creative liberation,” she told Pulse Nigeria in February. “I was welcomed in a way I’ve never been welcomed artistically instantly.”
“It’s not ideal for one to leave their home and family in pursuit of better in another man’s land,” she said. “It’s been intense.” All those years she got support from only a handful of family members. Her mother was a big cheerleader who supported her career, from when she did basketball, to modelling, everything in between, and finally acting. “She came to a lot of my shows and she would come back to my dad, reenacted for my father before they both passed away,” she said.
For her father, whom she both admired and worshipped, only one profession would have assuaged his appetite, Law.
“The only thing that was respected was Law in my father’s eyes. And all his children, all 18 of us, were expected to follow suit. I have family members who became architects, family members who became doctors, but he still expected them to go to law school,” she said.
It was this love for the Daddy, wanting to play by the Daddy’s rules that led her to acting.
“The trauma that comes with your family, the most loved people in your life telling you that you cannot accomplish something has been heavy on my heart for a long time,” she said. “And that is actually what led me to acting. I was like, OK, maybe if I go into acting, my family would be more accepting.”
In all those years she never gave up on music, but being at the Grammys, rubbing shoulders with music royalty, made it seem both reachable and of the gravest urgency. “That’s the pinnacle of being a musician, going to the Grammys,” she said.
She has already dropped some songs, Ehen Ehen Okay Okay and Melanin No Ni. But as Bob Hearts Abishola wraps up its fifth and final season, she is ready to take her music more seriously.
“I knew from a young age that I wanted to do music. I think I’m a better musician than I am an actress,” she said. “I’m gonna be releasing new music starting in May once the show wraps. My focus would entirely be on music.”
With her music, she wants to spread the good news of love. Coming from Nigeria, a country deeply in its era of discontent, the concept of love can sometimes come with a wicked edge. In America, through therapy, she learned to release by doing the work of mindfulness.
“I remember one of the times when I was in therapy and my therapist told me about how I should construct a sentence to somebody because of how I was feeling and I was like, ‘No one fucking talks to anybody like that.’ And she was like, ‘What? They do?’And I was laughing at her,” she said.
“Look, I’m a proper Naija person. That barrier still exists in my relationship and learning how to communicate and all that shit.”
When her music drops in May, how would she describe it?
“We’re calling it Afrojoy,” she said. “I’m pioneering that genre with the electric guitar and Afrobeats, and Afrorock. Let’s call it Afrojoy.”