The Cover King remixes himself

As I enter Lemi Ghariokwu's studio in Shomolu, a bustling Lagos suburb, I find him crouched over what looks like a large American flag, on which Barack Obama's face (one of the iconic campaign images) is superimposed.. I watch, fascinated, as he sprays a single black stripe across the flag, to replace one of the seven red ones. Lemi is busy, reinventing the most famous, most intimidating flag in the world.

Reinventing Lemi

But it is more than that. It is, in effect, a self-reinvention. Lemi re-inventing Lemi. The completely self-taught "Lagos Afro-pop art exponent/Afro-visionary artist" gained worldwide fame as the designer of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti's album covers; and between 1974 and 1993, he produced 26 of those, apart from hundreds of covers for musicians like Bob Marley, Kris Okotie, Osita Osadebe, James Iroha, Gilles Peterson, Miriam Makeba, and Lucky Dube. In addition, for about a decade, from the early 1980s he was a consulting album cover designer for Polygram Records in Nigeria, designing more than 200 covers for them.

Now I find him preparing for exhibitions of work arising from the new phase of his art, a marked departure from the kind of art to which his renown is tied. He tells me he has just shipped 17 pieces for an exhibition, "Afro-Pop Art: Politics, Life and Lyrics" at London's Arc Gallery (October 15, 2009), and that he'd be travelling in a few days. At the same time he is preparing for the Lagos showing, for which the works piled up in a corner of the studio (fifteen in all) are intended.

Quiet celebration

The overriding focus of the new set of works, is a celebration of black heroes. "I'm a pan-Africanist, so I'm interested in any progress that is relevant for the so-called Blackman. So, I'm interested in celebrating our positive attributes." Which explains why many of the pieces focus on two black heroes who have caught the attention of the world in arguably unprecedented ways: Barack Obama and Michael Jackson.

And then of course, there's Fela. One of the works, titled ‘Ah-Free-Can' shows Fela, his trademark wrap of ganja between his lips, framed by the index and middle fingers of his left hand, which form a conspicuous V-sign. But it is not a painting, it is digital art. "I take a picture and break it down digitally and then start to colour it," Lemi explains.

The minimalism stands out. The images for which Lemi made his name are typically done in full, riotous colour; heavy on slogans and realist in expression. The Fela album covers, for example, are visual replications of the wild energy of Fela's sound. But this new phase of Lemi Ghariokwu is marked by its muted colours, the contemplativeness of its characters (Obama, Jackson, Fela), its contemplation-inducing mood and above all, its heavy symbolism. And the medium, the ‘canvas', is the plastic sheets popularly used by sign writers in advertising.

Meaning for sale

Redemption shows a cross-section of a typical slave ship, its occupants crammed together. At one end, of the image, stands Barack Obama. The Obama image Lemi employs is the inauguration photo; Obama in a knee-length winter jacket, one hand in the air, the other on a Bible. At the other end of the image, a black slave is crouched, peering into the slave ship. Obama, on the other hand, has his back turned to it. On the image, as a watermark of sorts, is what appears to be an excerpt from a slave trade-era advertising bulletin, proclaiming "NEGROES FOR SALE."

"The black man has been redeemed," Lemi tells me, triumphantly. So is he thinking of taking Obama over the way he took Fela over?, I ask. His answer is an emphatic ‘No'. "Not at all, I'm not even interested in that..."

"Comet" is an image of Michael Jackson, assembled from hundreds of tiny squarish shapes, and across which are two streaks of blue, rising from the bottom left corner of the ‘canvas' into the upper right corner. The title is from the lyrics of ‘Gone Too Soon', a 1993 Jackson single.

"Biometrics" consists of "biometric data" from Lemi's passport, across which red and black lines of barbed wire run. Of the work, Lemi says "It's about the immigration thing, curtailing human freedom."

There are also the verbal puzzles cum optical illusions, waiting to be parsed into subversive sense. "Jazz", which I predict will be one of the most loved, is a celebration of sexual passion that brilliantly refuses to descend into pornography.

Old Lemi, new tricks

So what - or who - inspired the change of direction in Lemi's art? A couple of names come up. His British manager who in 2004 told him that art had gone beyond "painting and drawing." The curator, Bisi Silva, who in 2007 told him, "You don't have to be drawing on paper every time, think of something else." Alex Nwokolo, the Nigerian painter who, by using cards to create symbolic art "did something fresh; cut and paste."

And Patrick Koshoni and Ade Sokunbi, proprietors of Artistic License (the Lagos-based gallery venue for the showing of the Lagos works), who in 2008 gave him a generous grant and commissioned him to produce a new style. "We don't want [the] Lemi that the whole world [knows], we want something revolutionary..." is how he says they explained it.

It wasn't that easy though, to chart a new course, Lemi admits. "To teach an old dog new tricks, ah, it's tough. My bones are stiff man!" The first set of works he produced, within the three-month time frame given to him, ArtisticLicense was turned down. "I was scared, if they asked me for their money back - I'd spent the money." Then they did something for which he will ever remain grateful. They told him they'd let him have a year, and that they were considering the money they'd given him as "a long term investment."

The future in the past

That set his mind free, to explore new ideas and "[soak] up things." He found that the future he sought lay in the past. Over the years he'd done plenty of commercial art by the side, "to survive" - "plastic signs, billboards, van displays, banners." While meditating, he says, it occurred to him: "Remember those plastic signs you used to do, how about if you combine it with digital [technology]."

Which is precisely what he did. "Realising now [that] these [are] the days of branding, I now realised that I was the chief brandsman for Fela, so now I can brand Obama, I can brand Michael Jackson; I'm a brander."

Revolution vs Evolution

It is the spirit of the Age, a reflection of the times in which we live. "The revolution is on holiday right now. Evolution has really taken over," Lemi declares. His tone is one of realism, not regret. "There is a time and season for everything. In the 70s it was brimstone-and-fire. ‘Ah, burn down Babylon.' Today, if you say ‘burn down Babylon', they will say ‘what's this one doing?' and think you're a terrorist."

The Art of ‘muted' in the Age of Merry

Art of course has imitated life. "These days art too has gone minimalist... it's the age of Merry we are in, all the youth are talking about boobs [and] bling..." He is well aware of the difference between his old and current work. "It's commercial art now, but in minimalist form just to have a freshness [to] it," he explains. The creations of this new phase are "political in a subtle way, [they are] not aggressive like these ones" - by which of course he means the album covers, a selection of which line the walls of the studio.

If these were the old days, he says, his Obama images would have contained scenes of riots in America, and of slogans like "Niggaz with Attitude," not the ones that he has now produced, work that will not look out of place hanging in offices and banking halls.

But no one should be deceived into thinking the ‘politics' and the angry energy have fizzled away. Only the style and the medium have changed. In a sense, therefore, this evolution is no more than a devolution.