By Olaoye Oluwapelumi Peace
NCB: Good evening Oluwadamilare
Oluwadamilare: Good evening
NCB: How are you doing?
Oluwadamilare: Very well. Thank you.
NCB: Tell us who Damilare is.
Oluwadamilare: Wow. Deep question. Well, Oluwadamilare is a Young man currently pursuing a degree in Literature in English at Obafemi awolowo University. Outside the classroom, he is a craftsman and his works spans Food, Voice production, Self portrait photography, creative writing and DIY arts. He considers these art forms as a means of change for himself and the world. He is the Founder of the Beans Faculty, that Innovative and creative food brand on Campus. In all of these, his faith is his guiding light. Ta-da
NCB: What inspired you to study literature?
Oluwadamilare: Well, truthfully, I wasn't inspired. I didn't pick Literature, Literature picked me but it's being amazing since then.
NCB: Wounded lawyer?
Oluwadamilare: That's what they call it. I don't have any scar, so I don't think there was a wound in the first place.
NCB: How has your academic background influenced your creative pursuits outside the classroom?
Oluwadamilare: Interestingly, it has been somewhat in the background of every creativity I am currently exploring. I have always been curious and sometimes ago in secondary school, I remember salivating food described in stories and this really sparked my love for food before I started exploring the visual appellation in food photography. If we look deeply as we know that nothing exists in a vacuum, I may not be able to say I picked up every of my creativity from this particular place or my academic played a role in this particular Way but I am sure it has. Though there are lots of media that I explore and academics is just one of them, so yes, I believe it is an influence. Every fragments makes the picture mosaic come together.
NCB: You said your creativity didn't just come from one particular place. Can you tell us about one of the earliest memories that birthed your creative journey.
Oluwadamilare: This just popped, Literature really was the first place I explored creativity. I remember when I began writing my own poems after studying like 13 poems in preparation for WAEC... I don't know how I survived that phase because my literature teacher made sure we memorized and recited every one of them. I didn't quite regard this as a form of creativity basically because I was chasing something else. What do you mean about poem writing when my friends were playing musical instruments, debating with excellence and going to cowbellpedia. I was writing anyways but it didn't count until the day that I was the only one out of 48 literature students who got featured in the valedictory Yearbook... that's when creative writing finally became something to me.For photography, I literally looked at images and I started playing with my camera and for Voice-overs that I do, it came from playing on words with "Mrs Domiteli asked me to put on the tele ..." And some said do you know you can do Voice-overs. To be sincere, I think my creativity began with literature. It's funny how this is coming to me now.
NCB: Which of these creative side now do you connect with most deeply and why?
Oluwadamilare: All of them sincerely. That's why I now prefer to call myself a Craftsman other than a multipotentialite because to be a multipotentialite would be to be curious and wanting to explore much more but I think I am now in the level were this all connects with me. Well, taking the word of a mentor, Austin Kleon, he said "don't worry about the unity from piece to piece, what unifies them all is that you made it". In summary, I connect with them all, even though I might not be putting everyone of them on my social media like I used to do, I do hone them in my bliss station.
NCB: You mentioned earlier that your faith is your guiding light. How has it shaped you?
Oluwadamilare: Yes, I did. Thank you for this question. Being creative for me came with great struggles, I had to first fight the idea of not being talented. I mentioned where I didn't count creativity as a thing until I graduated school. When I began to discover myself, I started getting pulled in opposite directions because now I was dabbling in creative writing, photography, drama , even data analysis and people on the outside thought it as cool which it actually was but then Pride began to set in about finally arriving but my faith has helped me climb my ladder of becoming gradually and with humility and rather than answering the are you talented question, I see an endowment that God is shaping. Now, people may say pride goes before a fall is a universal law but I'd ask them where it first appeared, it came from the Bible...clock itttttt. So, in essence, my faith is helping me to share my creative expression with the world with an humble heart.
NCB: Tell us the story behind the birth of beans faculty.
Oluwadamilare: Hmmmmmmm. Okay, Beans Faculty baby. Beans Faculty came from God in all simple and complex sense of it. During the convocation that happened when I first became a student of this alma mata, I saw the way food brands put out their sales and everything then I casually said to my friend that I was going to start a food business before I graduate school and then I would have thought I will be selling Jollof rice but look at me selling the best Ewa agoyin on OAU campus. Then in part three second semester, I knew it was time to start something and that was when God helped me look in the jotter I used in a chef conference (chef conference 1.0) earlier in the year 2024 and I already mapped out a food business strategy from the discussions I heard there, so I just picked it up and niched down to Ẹwà Agoyin. That's how Beans Faculty started. Now, thanks to everyone who has patronized the business, we are therefore growing.
NCB: What are the challenges faced in running your food brand as a student of literature.
Oluwadamilare: I don't think my challenge is really connected to being a student of literature or even being a student at all, if at all it's of little magnitude compared to the way Nigerian student buying psychology works. Starting a business, maybe because it's a food business made me to start growing muscle in some skills that I had just some basics like customer service, branding, marketing, customer retentional, brand voice and brand positioning and lots and lots of convincing to do. I think the book "how to sell to Nigerians" was really necessary. That book is a gem. So, selling to Nigerians is quite the challenge but I'm overriding it now.
NCB: If your life were to be a food what would it be and why?
Oluwadamilare: Ẹwà agoyinnnnnnnnn. Really. Because it's scrumptious, tasty, it's ambitious, people love it, it's nostalgic and emotionally relatable. And that's what I am really. I'm ambitious and tasty in expression and people love me.
NCB: Before we conclude, a quick shout out.
Oluwadamilare: Shout out to My Family, shout out to amazing friends God has blessed me with on this campus and have being really great support in my art of becoming and how far Beans Faculty has come and finally shout out to NCB for believing I have a story to tell. Muah.
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