VOICE & VIDEO

My lifelong love for storytelling manifested, very early on, in my ability to speak. An example being this satirical campaign for CIPLA where I played a phoney doctor spouting conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 vaccine. This video was done in collaboration with Douglas Abbott and Jason Sewnarain. My words here are completely off-the-cuff (unscripted) and we made about a dozen of these.

Despite my very introverted nature, I have a natural talent for public speaking which I have utilised at Radley Private School, which I attended from Grades 4 - 12, through speeches in class and MCing the 2017 Talent Show. It also helped me in the occasional speech at my childhood church, Sandton Bible Church, where I read my own, my sister's and my brother's testimonies before each of us was baptised. 

My speaking ability helped me with acting, going back to my joining Kidz Take Over Drama Academy when I was 12 years old, which culminated in a play at the Old Mutual Theatre where I played an abusive Martian King. It was fairly minor role that I took seriously and earned me an award from the academy (That I attended, not the Oscars). 

I would later extend my theatrical skills to Sandton Bible Church, where I would volunteer at the yearly Holiday Bible Club event. Each year would have a theme and the theme would come with a play, which was used to enhance the message. With each passing year, I played more an more important roles: A bully (2015 - minor), a bushman (2016 - minor), Raging Rufus (2018 - Secondary antagonist, a jester with a skeletal face and uncontrollable rage) and Jesus Christ himself (2023 - central character and my favourite role for obvious reasons. It was also the first Holiday Club since 2019, after COVID-19 shut everything down).

Three years before I was given the honour of portraying my Lord and Saviour, I got the voice acting kick. With no knowledge of how to even enter the industry at the time, I decided I was going to do my own thing in the meantime, create a portfolio for myself, not unlike this one. This lead to the creation of Voluminous Talks, a podcast hosted by the mighty Master Voluminous who is one the three mascots of my brand, Mortiferous Arcadia. 

The podcast also served as a perfect platform to promote my books and encourage listeners to check them out. The Master is a jaded, sarcastic and somewhat cynical observer of the events in the stories and is usually the narrator of the books as written. Each episode of the main series, Voluminous Reads would start and end with the Master's commentary and on the chapter  with the real meat being the narration. Have a listen to the very first episode featuring the first chapter of my second ever novel, Phinki:

The story of Phinki was intentionally lacking in dialogue and was carried by its narration, so when I moved on to my third book, Rufus The Clown (a story I felt compelled to write after playing Raging Rufus at Holiday Bible Club), I was presented an opportunity to play different characters. One of my favourite reads was Chapter 2 in Episode 12:

The first original story on Voluminous Talks was Kurisstac Chronicles, a Halloween Special in 2021, designed to delve into the mythology of the Mortiferous Arcadia Universe and reveal a little of the Master's backstory:

My vocal talents were called upon when Artmiabo tasked me with creating the promotional video for the first ever Artmiabo International Art Festival in Lagos. That's right, I said creating. My time time in Vega, during my Digital Design course, helped me hone my skills in video editing, which had been an interest of mine of already going in. 

Here is the promo from 2022, Remake The World. This festival centred on turning recycled objects into art, a hallmark of festival host Miabo Enyadike's work, which was highlighted by the celebration of Prof. Bruce Onobrakpeya's birthday:

The festival was an incredible success and so I was called to do the 2023 promo, Afrobeat of Art  which was about honouring greats in the African music and art scene such as Obi Asika, Ed Keazor, Lemi Ghariokwu and many more:

With 2023 being an even greater success than it's predecessor, it was only natural that I would do the promo for 2024, Sculptors Odyssey. This one sought to bring light on the art of sculpting in Africa, equal parts underrated and influential in the African art scene. It saw the honouring of legends and legends in the making: the late Prof. Ben Enwonwu, Dr Adeola Balogun, Pius Waritimi, Adebisi Adebayo and Dotun Popoola:

This was the most successful festival yet at the time, with the largest number of eyes from the public, the Nigerian government and mainstream media outlets such as CNN. It was surpassed by 2025's Artconomy:

It was important to capitalise on the growing popularity of the festival and the phenomenal people we were featuring, which led to the creation of the AMIAF Podcast:

This podcast presented a unique opportunity to develop my presenter and interview skills. I chose to ask open questions, giving the guests a chance to talk at length about themselves and the African art scene so that the audience could be properly educated.

With that we conclude this part of my storytelling portfolio. If you'd like to work with me on any projects of your own, please reach out via email at mortiferousarcadia@gmail.com.