Ikenna Azuike
The political feather shredder of Africa
Interview by Justus Bruns
Edited by Hannah Fuellenkemper
Son of a Nigerian father and a half German, half Ukrainian Mother, ex-lawyer Ikenna Azuike is tearing African politics to pieces with his own satirical show, “What’s Up Africa”. With tens of thousands of views per clip, the show is now being co-distributed by the BBC. Azuike: “I feel that I’m about five years behind where I want to be now”.
This is What’s up Africa:
A man on a mission
Can you tell me why you’re doing all this?
Well, I think I can play my part in making a difference for ordinary — I don’t really like the term, but you know what I mean — poor, Africans. There’s such huge inequality and often, the rich, political and powerful intimidate the ‘normal’ people from asking political questions. I hope that by making fun of these politicians, they will seem less intimidating and people will ask more questions.
That’s a very serious mission. You’re also taking on very serious people that might not like what you’re doing.
I hope they don’t like what I’m doing! I have to ruffle feathers in order for this to work.
Have you ever thought they might come after you? What if you want to go to a country in Africa in which you’ve made someone angry?
I’ve received a few threats on social media but they don’t seem very serious. An organisation also once asked for me to adjust a presentation I was going to make in Angola, but I didn’t mind taking out a few slides for them as they’re the ones based in Angola and the regime there can be very repressive.
It’s a dictatorship, right?
On paper it’s a democracy, but in the last couple of elections, the president has gotten more than 90% of the vote…
As a lawyer
Ok, so this might be a clichéd question, but what would you differently if you could start over? Generally speaking, I mean.
Woah… That’s tough. I don’t want to have major regrets in my life and do think my previous career has been helpful in a way. For instance, I think that studying as a lawyer has helped me to be analytical and argue and build a case, and that’s what I do now. So in that way my career has been helpful. It also gave me an international outlook on life. If I’m really honest though, I feel that I’m about five years behind where I want to be now. Basically I think I started my broadcasting career five years late. But it’s 100% what I love. I know it is because I’m the same person when I’m in front of the camera — well, actually that’s not completely true — but when I’m there, in the studio working, and talking now, it’s me, there’s continuity. In my old job, I was a different person when I walked through the office doors. And I didn’t like that person.
So you decided to do this because you felt you weren’t ‘you’ as a lawyer?Correct, yeah. There were lots of reasons that I decided to change career of course, but that was definitely a big one. I was unhappy because I didn’t feel myself when I was at work. I didn’t interact with people like I do now. I cared about different things. I found myself apathetic towards political issues, I just cared about where my next holiday would be, what my next present would be to myself when I got my next paycheck. I didn’t like being that person.
Do you know how you became that person?
Well there’s the philosopher Epicurus who says you need three things in life, friendship, freedoms and an analysed life. The analysing parts are the moments you stop and look at your life and in my previous career, I was on this conveyer belt, all the time going forward, only ever talking to other lawyers, accountants and businessmen, and I never got the moment to sit and ask what I was doing with my life. In fact, you avoid those moments; you don’t make the time for reflection because you’re fearful of the truth. But then I had the opportunity to really think about it all and that’s when I became aware of the person I had become.
How did you finally manage to find the time and the guts to really analyse yourself?
Well the guts came from having lots of support. My partner, Mette, was extremely supportive of me, telling me that materialism was overrated. She told me we could give it all up, that it didn’t matter. And to be honest, being in New York where I made the decision really helped. The self-belief that city gives you, that feeling that you can start from the bottom — it’s a really powerful place.
So why are you now in Amsterdam instead of New York?
Who knows what the future holds. New York did its job — it set me on a different path. And, as far as I’m concerned, the right path. Maybe that was the moment I was meant to be in New York. I’m happy here in Amsterdam and very happy to be able to travel to Africa, but who knows, maybe one day I’ll go back.
There must be things that you’ve learned on your path that, if someone came up to you, currently a lawyer at Clifford Chance say, who was seriously considering starting their own satire show or a green brand — what would your advice to them be?
What I’d do is to encourage anyone starting up an NGO to really think commercially. To think how they can create a self-sustainable, self-financing business model that achieves good and that gives you independence. There’s absolutely a time and a place for subsidies, but I can see in other situations, not necessarily with Strawberry Earth, that NGOs do develop a fast reliance on subsidies and in the time of budget cuts and so on, they suffer. There are lot of organisations doing good things but suffering because of small budgets. You should make sure to be the master of your own destiny.
Is there anything you learnt during your time as a lawyer that you would apply to Strawberry Earth?
What I’ve learned is more from over the last 5–6 years whilst establishing Strawberry Earth as a brand and a network. I learned by looking around at our peers both here, in Africa and North America and just by reading.
On success
If you look at the people you’ve met in your life, is there anyone who you would say had a direct influence on you?
I’ve definitely come across many inspiration people in my journey in broadcasting, both on the sustainability side and on the Africa side. For instance there’s a journalist called Komla Dumor, a BBC journalist who presented Focus on Africa who just passed away unfortunately. More on the sustainability side, a couple of my heroes are Bob Crébas, the founder of Marktplaats [Ebay subsidiary]— this is a guy who’s extremely commercial but extremely authentic in the belief that we are ruining our planet and that we should create sustainable ways of living, and he created a very successful business and is also a really nice guy — Anne-Marie Rakhorst is also a really nice person. Then there’s loads of people who I’ve shared the stage with at TEDx events in Rwanda, Nigeria, Burundi, people who have started orphanages during periods of conflict; who have rescued 100,000 children. All these people have affected me in positive ways.
How would you define success? Is what you have, success?
Oh man, I don’t know. On one level, I know I should count it as a success. And let’s be honest, the most important thing is to be healthy, happy and to have friends and family around you that care about you. I tell myself this every single day. On paper, you look at Strawberry Earth and it’s a huge success. But I live too much in the future. So on one level it’s more than successful, I’m happy, healthy, I have work that I like… but I want to keep pushing. I don’t believe the compliments I get. Someone might say it’s successful, and I’m there thinking ‘oh not really, there’s X., Y, Z still to do…’ And just look at the amazing stuff that John Oliver is doing… But I know that if one day if I develop my skills enough to be his level, then I’m sure that even then I’ll be critical of myself.
But isn’t that a contraction? You say your ambition is to make things better and better. And at the same time, you think you should live less in the future. How do you live with that conflict?
It’s a daily battle. My head’s a mess. I’ve tried being off social media etc. but it’s hard. It’s a daily challenge. Almost hourly in fact.
Why can’t you just say you don’t want to live in the present moment?Because I realise the stress that this gives me. And there’s less enjoyment. I have so many things to be extremely happy about, and mindful of and peaceful about that are happening right now, today, but I can’t enjoy them to the most of my ability because I’m thinking about six months time. It’s a disease.
Why is it a disease? It’s brought you to where you are.
It’s a disease because I can’t enjoy the now. I’m always thinking of what’s next. Others can enjoy, they tell me it’s good… I have to get better at finding the balance. Even having conversations like this, is very therapeutic. It’s very useful for me to verbalise what I need to do. After I read this back you’ll see me on a heap in Dam square bawling!
So, to wrap that one up, you don’t feel successful yet?
I don’t know. It’s about balance. If there are enough moments in the day that I can be fully present and say, ‘Oh wow, look at the richness around me, look at the work that I’m doing, the people I’m interacting with, my health’. IF I can enjoy that, and there are enough moments in the day for me to plan the future, then it’s ok. That would be success.
Earlier you mentioned Epicurus who talks about doing things with the people you care about. He also talks about doing meaningful work. But if I look at those things, isn’t it what you’re doing already?
I said it earlier, I agree. On paper I tick all the boxes.
Maybe you just need time for a little more self-reflection then? Sorry, I don’t mean to come across as a psychologist…
Not at all!
African Culture
Moving on — can you name a couple African fashion designers that you love?
There’s this Nigerian guy behind Orange Couture and he’s really good. I really like Laurence Airline and Afriek.
Who else… If you want to be pimped out really well, Oswald Boateng. One day I’ll be able to afford his stuff. I do like the Stromae shirts, too. They’re pretty cool.
What’s his brand called again?
Mosaert.
Do you consider yourself as having anything in common with Strommae?
[Laughs] No! Were half African, half European I guess. Both in the creative industry… but that’s where the comparison stops. This guy is a mega star! [Laughs].
And what about music? I went nuts for the Azonto you told me about
Yeah it’s great right? So Sarkodie is one of the artists you should listen to. I’m really into Nigerian Afro Beat. Artists like Wiz Kid, J Martins, Tiwa Savage and the the Naija Artists…
Mentoring dictators
So suppose tomorrow there’s an enormous force that tells you that you have to stop everything you’re doing professionally. What would you do? Where would you start?
Oh man, I don’t know. So I can’t do anything on video?
You can but you can’t do anything to do with what you do now
Well I probably would look to do something… Can I do satire still?
Don’t you have a deep desire to become something like a carpenter? Something totally different but that you can still see yourself doing
Something with sports maybe. Something completely left field. I’d do something that got me outdoors a lot.
So that’s not the case now?
No, I’m usually in my studio or behind my laptop and I’d love something to take me away from that. No social media. To be outdoors, to be fit, healthy, maybe working with kids. Yeah — I think I’d like to be a football coach for a kids’ football team. Yeah, I like that idea. I like the combination of sports, outdoors, coaching, mentoring.
How do you do mentor now?
I don’t really have a mentoring role in my show. It’s more when I interact with people. When people come up to me and ask what I think, want advice, how I did it. I’ve given a couple of workshops so there were also opportunities to mentor there.
You like to motivate people don’t you, especially when it comes down to people following their dreams
Yeah, I really enjoy the idea that people are unsure about their abilities and that I can convince them that they can do it. That gives me a sense of achievement and I hope that person will go on to do something super cool.
This is very interesting because there’s a big need for an entrepreneurial mind-set. That you can change things. To be the change that you’d like to see.
Yes I think so too. There are a lot of initiatives in this area, people doing good things, impressive motivational speakers, the TED Talks culture — there’re a lot of ways to motivate people.
You have this holy trinity when you set up a country that runs itself well. Infrastructure, health, education. And there’s a lot of need for it in developing nations. Would you move your ambitions to politics? Would you ever join the side of the people you make fun of?
I don’t see that in my future, no. I’m too impatient to be a politician. I’m not strategic enough, not politically savvy enough. I would just get impatient. If I could be a dictator than I might be interested [laughs].
What do you make of Buhari [newly elected president of Nigeria], are you hopeful?
I think it’s a good sign elections were peaceful. I’m hopeful, yeah.
Ok, so tomorrow Buhari calls you and asks you to be his assistant and tells you that you can make as much fun of him publicly as you want but that you can also help put the country on the right track. Would you accept this offer and what would you say to him?
First thing I’d say would be thanks but no thanks. You can’t be a satirist and be in bed with politicians. I try to avoid even seeing these people. So I don’t see that happening. If there were an opportunity to work in Nigeria, I would seriously consider that. Maybe to at least spend a few months a year there. But that’s not there now.
What annoys you the most in your business?
Practical things. Filling out travel documents. If I could eliminate that, that would be excellent.
Finally then, last question is yours — is there something that you’d like to ask yourself that you find difficult to answer?
I’d come back to the success thing. Why do you constantly feel the need to think about the future? Understanding that is the key to unlocking my soul.
I’m going to quote that!
[Laughs].
Disclaimer: Ikenna Azuike is a client/friend of Bruns & Niks
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