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Tag: Tayo Fatunla

  • The World of TAYO – outdoor cartoon exhibition holds at Limoges International Airport, France

    The World of TAYO – outdoor cartoon exhibition holds at Limoges International Airport, France

    Renowned cartoonist Tayo Fatunla, once a Punch cartoonist and contributor to New Nation, is an alumnus of Lagos Baptist Academy, which will celebrate its 170th Founders Day in October. Tayo’s journey as an artist began early; while still at Baptist Academy, his very first cartoon was published in APOLO, a children’s magazine from Modern Publications Limited. This company was owned by Bisi Onabanjo, the first executive governor of Ogun State, who was also an alumnus of the Academy.

    As a teenager, Tayo contributed cartoons to several Nigerian newspapers, including the Daily Times, Daily Express, Lagos Weekend, The Concord, and Punch. His talent soon caught the attention of international audiences. He went on to create cartoons for London-based magazines such as African Concord, West Africa, New African, and BBC Focus on Africa, as well as for the Guardian UK. Tayo’s work reached US publications too, including the Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, and the New York Amsterdam News.

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    The Cartoon Festival of Saint-Just-le-Martel has teamed up with Limoges International Airport in Bellagarde, west-central France, to feature Tayo’s cartoons in the airport’s concourse. These works, which Tayo drew from a diaspora perspective, and which address global themes, will be on public display. Tayo has shown his art at the International Press and Humour Drawing Exhibition in Saint-Just-le-Martel, France, for 25 years. It was at this festival in 2001 that he won his first major international honour: the “International Press” Porcelain Pencil Award for his contributions to press drawing.

    At a show in Rouen, Normandy, arranged by French publication Courrier International, Tayo met Gérard Vandenbroucke, founder and president of the Saint Just Le Martel cartoon salon, who then invited him to exhibit at the festival. Now, after years of creative achievement, Tayo’s unique cartoons will be showcased at the airport.

    • The “World of TAYO” exhibition at Limoges International Airport runs from 29 September to 30 October 2025.

  • International Awards for Cartoonist Fatunla

    International Awards for Cartoonist Fatunla

    Former Punch and Omoba cartoonist and New Nation contributor, TAYO Fatunla was honoured with the ARA Award 2024 on a night to remember for delivering on a promise full of chilaxation, with inspiration speech by Prof Grace Mbabazi on the theme AFRICA ARISE! and networking opportunities. The Building Blocks Initiative, organising the annual Achievement Recognition Awards in its 21st year announced winners including TAYO awarded the award for Professional Creative cartoonist of the year.

    The BBI’s annual Awards has become a much-anticipated event within the Black and Minority Ethnic business and social calendar in the UK, bringing about community and industrial recognition, professional networking opportunities, social celebration and a spirit of togetherness. Among dignitaries also present were Councillor Naima Ali, the Worshipful Mayor of Southwark past Southwark Mayor Concillor Michael Situ while Cllr sunny Lambe the current Deputy Mayor of Southwark played the co-host with Ms Priscilla Nwikpo. The evening event did not fail to deliver on its promise of providing an entertaining night for all. The annual autumn ARA Awards is organised by the Building Blocks Initiative (BBI) a charitable community voluntary support organization founded in 2001 with a mission for promoting ‘community development and empowerment’.

    In another development, this year’s w3 Awards, which recognises creative excellence on the web, awarded the animation by the US based Action Against Hunger charity, “How Conflict Disrupts Communities and Drives Humanitarian Crises” with two awards: a Gold in the category “General Video: Non-Profit” and a Silver in same category. This is a huge achievement for Tayo who produced the illustrations and all those who were involved in the animation titled Conflict is the Main Driver of Hunger showcasing creative excellence and storytelling on the web in the non-profit category. The animation was launched this year in June 2024.

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    Says Tayo….I am elated and truly thrilled to be recognized as part of the next wave of excellence in digital creativity and thus video being selected as a winner in the 19th w3 Awards.

    The video’s story is about displacement camp in Somalia featuring the main character Fatima and about how Action Against Hunger works to save lives and help children grow strong. The w3 Awards is sanctioned by the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts (AIVA), U.S., an invitation-only body consisting of leading digital marketing and creative experts and all-around luminaries.

    Tayo is artist behind he Fela Kuti image  prominently featured in Burna Boy’s mega-Afrobeat hit song “Ye” and also  the illustrator behind the pictorial Black history walk map on a lectern that guides the walk in Camberwell, South East London, U.K. He has also done Projects for the BBC, the Guardian UK, the British Museum and Smithsonian – National Museum of African Art, Washington D.C., U.S.

  • Tayo Fatunla: Artist behind Fela’s image in Burna Boy’s hit video makes waves

    Tayo Fatunla: Artist behind Fela’s image in Burna Boy’s hit video makes waves

    Award-winning editorial cartoonist, Tayo Fatunla, who has contributed cartoons in The Nation newspapers, is the artist behind Fela Kuti’s image featured in Grammy-winning Burna Boy’s mega-hit anthem music “Ye” which is accompanied by an official YouTube video with millions of views. He has been speaking on his links with the star.

    In his OUR ROOTS series, Fatunla has also featured Afrobeat musicians Wizkid, D’banj as well as Burna Boy.

    Burna’s music is heavily influenced by Fela’s Afrobeat music and vocals and has triumphed globally with his “Afrofusion” pop music. Fatunla sees it as an honour to have his work featured in Burna Boy’s “Ye” video.

    He said: One thing led to another and as the image was liked, we agreed to its continuous use for the ‘Ye’ video. The vibes from “Ye” could easily have been composed by Fela. I could see him blowing the saxophone to the music and singing it. So, I guess Burna is the only musician to acknowledge visually his thanks to Fela and Afrobeat musicians; to actually appreciate Fela for giving Afrobeat to the world, just like Bob Marley gave Reggae music to the world.”

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    “The visual artist’s role is to enhance the video and bring it to life; to know the mind of the musician and put his thoughts down visually. Musicians are storytellers. They can perhaps only sing so they need an artist to come up with a visual for their video or CD/album designs.

    “My good friend and colleague cartoonist, Ghariokwu Lemi, who illustrated and designed most of Fela’s album covers, explained to me how he would go show Fela his concept album design for his approval.

    “With my drawing in the “Ye” video, there were ray power lines around Fela’s fists as takes on superpowers of a comic superhero and, in this case, indicates Black Power (that aspect was not added in the video).

    “Burna himself when he was a young boy used to draw comic books. His “Twice as Tall” album was accompanied by The Secret Flame, an animated comic by Burna charting his journey to stardom and showing his love for comics and working with comic artists.

    “I also did the Jay Z Magna Carta & Holy Grail Draw My Life animated video for Hattrick productions, London and Hooked for BBC.

    Fatunla has also done projects for the British Museum, Royal Borough of Greenwich, London, and Hattrick productions in the U.K.

    From drawing cartoons in Nigerian newspapers and magazines, where his career began, Fatunla has been producing distinctive cartoons and images on black history, particularly Afro-Caribbean history, including the publishing of a series of illustrated features into books titled ‘OUR ROOTS.’ He had a four-page illustrated OUR ROOTS documenting Nigeria’s history 60 years after independence in The Nation newspaper.

    The focus of his works has been to bring about awareness of Black, African, and Caribbean cultures through the medium of individually illustrated images supported by short texts. OUR ROOTS continues to document the achievements of famous, and not so famous, Black people in the diaspora who have made significant impacts in societies and communities and to history.

    Fatunla has held exhibitions and workshop sessions in the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Finland, Ethiopia, the U.S., Egypt, Ireland, Israel, Belgium, South Korea, Algeria, Italy and South Africa

    He began his career drawing for Punch, Daily Times, Concord, and the Nigerian Herald newspapers. He was the London-based West Africa magazine’s resident artist, designing the covers for ten years with a weekly cartoon column that ran from 1989 up until 1999. He is a member of Cartoonists Association of Nigeria (CARTAN).

  • 30 years of drawing Our Roots – Tayo “Omoba” Fatunla’s HIS-story

    Our roots has been a Black history cartoon column featured as a series cartoon panel for 30 years and has featured Nigerian history makers as well. It was first published in the UK’s Voice newspaper based in London in 1989. Tayo Fatunla has been drawing history of the Black race through his journalistic drawings after discovering the need to educate Black History to children of African heritage internationally. Our Roots is a historic journey which originally began as a school project whilst Tayo was a student at The Kubert school in New Jersey, United States. Tayo first created the series which he initially titled African Sketchbook. A few of his tutors helped with the project including the legendary US comic artist Joe Kubert.

    Some years back, Tayo began his cartooning career in Nigeria drawing for several newspapers and magazines including The Punch newspapers where he drew editorial cartoons and the well-read Omoba back page cartoon column and he went on to draw for Nduka Ogbaigbena’s then THISWEEK magazine. Tayo credits Sam Amuka Pemu (Uncle Sam) for giving him the break as a career cartoonist.

    In London, Steve Pope the then editor of the Voice newspaper in 1989 invited Tayo who was residing in Hackney in East London to visit the Voice premise on Coldharbour Lane with keen interest in his idea, hoping for it to be featured in the paper. Tayo’s initial challenge was to research about Black history makers and achievers from the UK and from all works of life internationally. His idea was not to focus on one particular black race but all black races in the diaspora, things, places and events. It worked and the interest in Our Roots began to take shape for the future. Our Roots also has featured in Nigeria’s Sunday Times newspaper under the editorship of Mr. Dapo Aderinola and at the inception of THISDAY newspaper and was titled Our Nigeria.

    Tayo recollects when Jerry Robinson the creator of Robin and the Joker who ran a US based syndicate called Cartoonists and Writers Syndicate, now Cartoon Arts international called him. He showed interest in Our Roots and asked Tayo to have his series syndicated in US newspapers and so it did in such newspapers as News Sentinel, a Fort Wayne Indiana newspaper. Our Roots has since featured in New York Amsterdam News, Chicago Defender, Sacramento Observer and THE Atlanta Voice.

    Nigerian-American painter and art historian and tutor, Professor Dele Jegede (himself a famous cartoonist with Nigeria’s Daily Times in the 70s and 80s) says “Tayo Fatunla embarked on a graphic journey with the creation of his trailblazing and imaginative series, OUR ROOTS. His visual snippets extraordinary works that roll history, art, and journalism into a ball pack highlight the criticalness of acknowledging our ancestry at the same time that they incentivize people to take pride in identifying with inspiring role models.”

    The British Museum so much loved Our Roots series and asked Tayo if he could visually create ten African Kingdom illustrations for its The Wealth of Africa online educational resource. Tayo produced the Benin Kingdom and the Swahili coast to mention a few of the ten he drew. Commissioned formats such as Spirit of Lagos Comic for the Lagos State Government is also as a result of Our Roots. And there are Our Roots comic and books. He has since launched Our Roots book in London and in New York.

    At the Kubert school, Tayo’s tutor, Hy Eisman (Popeye cartoonist) helped with the logo and David Cuccia his classmate helped with the lettering. Tayo wanted to give the illustrations a comic book look to it and also educate with it. In 1987 it would then be published first anywhere in the world, in Flight Africa magazine a Nigerian aviation magazine which was published by journalist Femi Ogunleye, now Kabiyesi Femi Ogunleye, Towulade of Akinale in Abeokuta local government. The first four feature illustrations Tayo produced at school were the initial African Sketchbook drawings in the magazine.

    Tayo first researched Our Roots at Dover library in New Jersey. Apart from drawing, Tayo also reads to research information for his series and bring to awareness sung and unsung heroes and heroines.

    Through the years of drawings, the ignorant and the less informed have been well educated. In addition to Black people in diaspora, children and adults have got to know and learn about, heroes and heroines, sung and unsung, people, places and things in Africa and from Nigeria as well. His feature extends to The Caribbean, New Zealand, Australia, South America, the US and Europe. Tayo has since done and continues to have done, Our Roots presentations in schools, libraries, Museums and Universities internationally.

    In May 2018 Tayo was presented with the ECBACC Pioneer Lifetime Achievement Award (PLA) for Our Roots – Famous Black People in History. He is also the recipient of the Lagos Baptist Academy Award (BAOSA) for professional excellence.