SPOKEN WORD ARTIST, TV STAR, INTEL-NIGERIA SPOKES-POET + CIVIL ENGINEER TITILOPE SONUGA (MF GALAXY 082)

MF GALAXY

The “brain drain” from Africa’s 55 countries is the cause of much lamentation—sending legions of doctors, engineers, and other professionals to serve the West at the exact moment they can lead economic growth at home.

But Titilope Sonuga is part of the unheralded but very real “brain train,” the expatriates who are moving back home with education, skills, and networks they’ve gained abroad.

Sonuga has ridden that train. She’s lived on two continents, had a career in Canada as a civil engineer, co-founded Edmonton’s thriving Breath In Poetry performance collective and hit stages with her work across the country, relocated to her family’s home country of Nigeria, become an Intel spokesperson to encourage women to use information technology, performed her verse at the inauguration of Nigeria’s president, and ascended to television stardom in Nigeria.

Not bad for a thirty-year-old, huh?

In today’s episode of MF GALAXY, Titilope Sonuga discusses:

• How she came to perform at the presidential inauguration for a country of 180 million people
• Her approach to rehearsals for spoken-word poetry performances and how she addresses anxiety
• The purposes of Intel Nigeria’s campaign She Will Connect, and why the tech giant asked her to be its spokesperson
• The many reasons that artists should embrace science and technology, and how her engineering mindset lives in her poetry aesthetics, and
• The perks of getting famous by being a star on one of Nollywood’s most beloved television shows.

Sonuga spoke with me by Skype from her apartment in Lagos, Nigeria on November 15, 2015.

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