worldwidelove:
Popular fashion designer Tayo Oloko is back again. In the early 2000s he was the king of customising. Born with striking good looks, a composure and a sexiness that rivals Adonis the Greek god, he could easily have been a Hollywood actor, he is a blend of Denzel Washington with the swagger of Puff Daddy. Oloko has the physique of a 1990s male model when muscles were a priority in the model world. He is highly articulate and has the brains of a genius; talking to him is an enlightening experience. Oloko speaks with Biodun Abass, Head Entertainment and Style of Vast Magazine about his return to the centre stage of customising in Lagos State and Nigeria and his new music career.


Vast: WHERE HAS OLOKO BEING , ITS LIKE YOU DISAPPEARED OFF THE FASHION SCENE

OLOKO : I Did not disappear at all , I’ve been customising all along and all this while. The only difference is I no longer have the same type of publicity I once had. Pasting of posters was banned in unilag in 2006 and I was apprehended by an overzealous unilag security man for even distributing flyers on campus and was in the security post till a friend of my family saw me and spoke to the security men to let me go. It was an extremely shocking experience. Unilag has changed so much that doing publicity there is too expensive and too restrictive. There’s a law that only residents of a hall can enter a hall, in my unilag days anyone could enter a hall. Male students can no longer enter female hostels. With those types of restrictions it made sense for me to do more off campus business.


Vast : WHAT PROMPTED YOU TO GO INTO FASHION ?

OLOKO : I’ve always been visually creative and I started drawing at age three , I have always being fascinated by fashion and would read fashion magazines of my elder brother. I liked the colours a lot. I started customising two years after I left secondary school as a way to make money and also I saw that it was easier to sell customised designed clothes than sell paintings. I used to draw on paper and canvas and saw how difficult it was to sell them, Nigerians appreciate fashion more so I decided to delve into fashion. When I gained admission into unilag I was extremely fashionable and was the best dressed boy in the entire school. I did not have a car to drive so I compensated with clothes. I spent two hours every day shopping for clothes ; then one day it dawned on me I was a clothes addict . I customised in my university of Lagos days and wore my creations but I also wore ralph Lauren, tommy Hilfiger, Gucci, Armani. I just loved designer clothes then. I only wear oloko designs now. That has been the case for the last 15 years.


Vast : I REMEMBER IN MY UNIVERSITY DAYS WHEN YOUR BRAND WAS EVERY WHERE AND ON EVERYONE IMPORTANT IN UNIVERSITIES BUT THIS IS NO LONGER THE CASE, WHAT WENT WRONG ?

OLOKO : Thanks for this question, like I said earlier the Lagos state government banned pasting posters in the state while the university of Lagos state authorities banned posters, banners and hand bills ; that slowed down my business a lot ; advertising played a major role then. Also there are now thousands of people customising clothes. When I reigned there were just 10 people customising in Lagos state so it was easier to have a very large market share. A lot of people still wear my oloko customised clothes. Also I’m working on getting more exposure for my brand. I’ve been doing a lot of late to get me ready for a larger market share. Being the ceo , coo, marketing director, financial director means I have to do it all. The good thing about doing it all is you are more accountable and you know the true status of the company’s health.


Vast : WHATS CUSTOMISING LIKE AS AN INDUSTRY THESE DAYS. YOU WERE A PIONEER OR AS THEY SAY FOUNDING FATHER.

OLOKO : Thank you very much for the compliment and recognition, it was a major sacrifice to start customising , it was a huge risk since I had no entrepreneurial experience, all I had was huge amounts of talent and not wanting to waste my talent and the desire to make a mark. I’m extremely glad customising is now a job and a means of livelihood in Nigeria ; zobo was very popular when I started customising but its two decades later and it’s rare to see zobo. Ovation magazine and the like were extremely popular when I initiated customising but that genre of magazines has disappeared and has been replaced with fashion magazines. I’m very happy a lot of Nigerian youth got into customising, I made so many sacrifices to start customisation and am glad people are carrying the touch and burning bright. The high number of people makes it easier for me to make more money now. A lot of people thought the designs would wash off after the first wash back in the day. Getting people to trust customising was very hard back then.



Vast : WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR FASHION IN 2018 AND BEYOND ?

OLOKO. My plans are very simple to expand my customising label very rapidly and very cheaply. I’ve done a lot of ground work to lay a expansion foundation I’ve been doing underground work now I’m doing the ground work. I’m grateful to God its going very well and better than I planned. That’s the marketing and publicity side I was talking about. I’ve gone into footwear. I make shoes, slippers and shoes. I also make glasses, spectacles, sunshades. I also make wrist watches but in very small quantities. I am self-financed so it all takes time. I’ve also gone into beach wear. But 2018 is for customising of clothes and launching my foot wear line.



Vast : WHY DID YOU GO INTO MUSIC ?

OLOKO : I’ve always had a love for music and have always had a good ear for music. I used to rap a lot around the house and my elder brother called me “ kid mantronics “ I’ve always loved music and could tell which song would be a hit and which song would be a flop. One of the reasons I took up music as a career now is because the standard of music in Nigeria is very low and the acceptance of music is very high. So being a musician in today’s Nigeria is very easy, also I own my own record label and I’m going to sign a lot of youth talent. I am also in talks of signing some old talent, musicians who were huge in the late 90s and early 2000s. I am going to bring back a lot of old forgotten artists to the limelight again.



Vast : THERE WAS ALOT OF CONTROVERSY ABOUT YOUR MUSIC VIDEO OUT OF CONTROL ALOT OF PEOPLE LOVED THE VIDEO AND SOME PEOPLE CALLED FOR ITS BANNING AND ALSO YOUR BANNING.

OLOKO : well I guess it proves the old adage you can’t please everyone still holds. There is a lot of hypocrisy in a lot of people. People watch things for free and complain bitterly. The video was never given to a Nigerian television station to be aired but was placed on the internet where it was watched and viewed, it was placed on sites, the people in the video being fully clothed so anyone who watched the video entered one of the five sites the video is on, so you can see the high level of hypocrisy, anyone who called the video pornography must have. You go into sites to watch a music video of clothed people and then start shouting pornography. The video is highly sensual, sexy and erotic but everyone in the video is fully clothed. People should use the correct terms to define things. You can Google “ Oloko Out of Control “ to view the video yourself.


Vast : HAVE YOU HAD ANY SHOWS YET ?

OLOKO: I have had two performances since I commenced singing ,they were birthday parties, one in Banana Island the other in Lekki. I was invited for a concert in Abuja but I declined the offer. I only stay in Lagos and do not travel out of Lagos. I’m very big on my personal security. I know everywhere in Lagos so I’m secure in Lagos. I’m born and bred in Lagos. To live and die in Lagos, it’s the place to be.



Vast : WE NOTICED YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE LOLOKO OLOKO SAYS YOUR RELATIONSHIP STATUS IS SINGLE.

OLOKO : Yes I’m very much single. Finding a woman is hard. I’ve found out a lot of women are proud and stuck in their ways no matter how much you love them and gently correct them with kindness, gifts and presents they just can’t change. I’ve found out even using the bible to point out how men and women are to relate with each other does not work at all with a lot of women.


Vast : ITS VERY CLEAR THE STANDARD OF CUSTOMISING HAS FALLEN DRASTICALLY FROM THE EARLY DAYS OF OLOKO, LAZE AND HYPNOTISED, WHAT DO YOU ATTRIBUTE THIS TO ?

OLOKO : That’s a nice question, it’s always like that during a boom. When laze and I started customising we had to work extremely hard to prove made in Nigeria was as good and even better than imported fashion. In those days we spent a lot of time on each shirt to make them look amazing to make sure students embraced customising. The Nigerian society as a whole has embraced customising so the need to work hard is less. Take Nigerian music for example look at how hard Tuface Idibia worked with his first album, look at Morachis songs. Look at Ginos Farabale , look at how hard Dbanj ,Don Jazzy and Mohits worked. There are musicians like Cartiar and his hit Owo Ati Swagger who changed the game. There’s Elizabeth Zeal Akinlabi whose music is so iconic and she paved the way for a lot of musicians. Ty Bello”s Greenland is such a timeless song. There’s Kush with Make We Live Together. There’s Paul Play. These are the founding fathers of what we have today. Today’s music is an all comers affair so it is with customising. You can even see the same trend in phones. In 2002 nokia , Motorola , Sony , Samsung were the key players ; the standards of phones were very high even made in France Sagem struggled and never gained large acceptance. Tecno is the father of china phones in Nigeria today since they smashed the door down. Now there are scores of china owned phones that have gained ground. Sad to say a few have poor build quality but people love them; I even own a few of the poor build quality ones. So when a boom comes acceptance rises and standards fall.



Vast : THERES A RUMOUR YOU WERE ROMANTICALLY INVOLVED WITH TINUKE ADEROMBI THE HOTTEST WOMAN IN BANANA ISLAND WHOSE STATISTICS ARE 44 26 46 . SHES THE TALK OF THE TABLOIDS WITH SOME ALWAYS PUTTING HER IN THE BIG BREASTS IN NIGERIA , BIG ASS NIGERIAN WOMEN,NIGERIAN WOMEN WITH BIG BREASTS OR SEXY NIGERIAN WOMEN CATEGORY .

OLOKO : Ha ha ! Tinuke and I are just friends, where did you get that from ?! We are just friends. She’s the nicest person on earth extremely nice and humble. Despite all her beauty, physical attributes and family wealth she is so humble and genuinely kind. Whoever she marries would thank God morning noon and night. I’m yet to meet anyone so genuinely nice.


Vast : YOU HAVE BEEN SPOTTED WITH TINUKE AT ALOT OF PLACES IN LAGOS LIKE SHERATON HOTEL, EKO MERIDIEN HOTEL ... A LOT OF PLACES, A LOT OF PEOPLE SPECULATE ITS A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP . YOU ARE A VERY LUCKY MAN.

OLOKO : Na wa ! Lagos is extremely small. Every time I’m out with her it’s like the whole of Lagos stops to look at us or at her. People take her picture all the time. It’s so bad that if we go to the market traders start shouting and taking her pictures. It’s bad that she has an amazing fashion sense so she looks like a video vixen. She had a cameo in my out of control video, She’s the woman in the all-white outfit walking down the road. The Sheraton and meridian sightings of both of us have to do with her visiting her classmates who came visiting Nigeria. Tinuke loves me tagging along with her. She knows I don’t like going anywhere so I guess she thinks ill behave myself. She loves moving to places. I enjoy her company a lot and our conversations are about any and every thing. She’s an extremely intelligent person and she is amazingly humble, she always asks questions, reads her bible and always googles things. Despite being from a wealthy home she has no airs and graces at all. Iv escorted her to some run down houses in surulere where she dyes clothes for her fashion business which she exports and you have kids in just playing pant calling her name and she knows their names, she gives them biscuits and genuinely plays with them. She sees people’s souls. There are times when she refuses to use the family Mercedes e class and goes around by taxi, she wants to go around in buses but is scared of all the attention her body creates. We’ve done bus three times. Her father wants her to use one of his s classes but she refuses saying she does not want much attention on her.


Vast : WHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE PLANS IN FASHION MUSIC AND RELATIONSHIPS ?


OLOKO : Fashion wise I’m doing great and it’s going to get better . A major challenge is our work ethic is poor and my staff love travelling home for holidays. It’s cultural and mental so there’s little I can do. I’m doing great things in 2018. I’ve worked extremely hard to get to this point. Musically it’s just the beginning. Relationship wise only God can tell.


Vast: THANK YOU FOR GRANTING THIS INTERVIEW.

OLOKO : The pleasure is all mine. Thanks