GAB Opens at Thought Pyramid Art Centre in Lagos

Griots and Bards, GAB, a monthly village square of Spokenword poetry, visual arts, other forms of arts expression and culture conversations will open at Thought Pyramid Art Centre, Ikoyi,  Lagos, every Thursday of the month. The first edition of GAB will be on the 29th of November, 2019 by 6PM.

 The event curated by Adebola Afolabi (REZthaPoet), a poet and business consultant, and Temi Ogunmokun (ChocolateOnAir), a broadcaster and logophile, is a project of Beige and Crow, a content marketing and management firm. GAB hopes to rekindle the culture of storytelling, history, culture and entertaining performances with a fusion of real-time social discourses developed on the backdrop of poetry. GAB is a platform for enlightenment on the question of identity, governance and current realities both in the real and digital spaces.

The curators of GAB noted that GAB sets its monthly sessions to encourage bonding and relaxation within a space of meaningful content. REZthaPoet said that art, culture and social conversations give room for openness, diverse solutions to social and national discourses, as well as a collaborative zeal for social change. Through its monthly events, GAB hopes to go beyond conversations by putting to use the creative, mental and strategic resources garnered from its audience to effect the needed cultural shifts and to archive future solutions to emerging problems for generations.

REZthaPoet is a aficionado in the SpokenWord scene in Nigeria. His Spoken Word Poetry is crafted to engage different cultural and artistic shifts that serve as an enabler for social conversations across social divides. Adebola Afolabi (REZthaPoet) is the author of Beautiful One (2018), a poetry chapbook of bold sensual metaphors in a space of cultural silences. Exposit (2016), a Spoken Word album, which brings to fore a hybrid of language, traditional folklore and Pop culture in an accessible style. REZthaPoet has performed at the Kwani Open Mic (Nairobi, Kenya), The Central Library Poetry Project, and the Grounding Sessions (Cape Town, South Africa), and Spoken Word Paris (France). He has also shared his works in other countries as well. In his home country, The bard performed at the Common Ground Concert alongside singer, Isaac Geralds, in 2016 and 2017 at the Renaissance Hotel, Lagos. He was also the co-host of OutSPOKEN, an initiative of the Revolving Art Incubator—a platform for poets and lyricists. REZthaPoet was the curator of ‘The Exposition’ Concert in conjunction with Alliance Francaise, Heritage Bank, TravelStart, among other organizations. He has been a guest poet at the major art and culture festivals in Nigeria.