Artist Laolu Sebanjo’s “Sacred Art Of The Ori”

Body Artist “Laolu Sebanjo’s” latest work is perhaps his biggest yet. The leading entertainment story this past weekend was centred on worldwide release of Beyonce’s 6th studio album “Lemonade” which starred Sebanjo’s “Sacred Art of the Ori” and this has got the passionate 34-year-old artiste talking.

Senbanjo hails from Ilorin, Nigeria, born to Yoruba Parents and based in Brooklyn, NY.  He’s a Visual Artist, Musician, Human Rights Lawyer and Activist.  His motto is:  “Everything is my Canvas” and this he takes to heart.  He puts his art on everything from canvas, to shoes, walls and buildings and to clothing and “body” with his Sacred Art of the Ori.

After seeing his prolific use of lines and Yoruba traditional artistic expressions; ‘Sacred Art of The Ori’, Sebanjo was tapped in December 2015 to work with arguably the biggest pop artist in the world. The information given to him was sparse, but he was told that Beyonce wanted to work with him. Days later, Laolu met up with Beyonce and her team in New Orleans and after being briefed on what they wanted to achieve, he got to work putting his signature painting on her dancers.

It is double success for talented Sebanjo, as on Friday, June 24, the Grammy Museum in partnership with BET International, will be recognizing his work in their “Sounds of Africa” exhibit in Los Angeles. The exhibit will run through Fall of 2016.

Sharing his thoughts towards this big news, Sebanjo took to Instagram and wrote: “The only thing better than winning a Grammy is having your art in their museum.”

On how it felt working with Beyonce on Lemonade, Sebanjo said:

“What I connect with about her is her thoroughness. I’m pretty much like that in a way; like a perfectionist. She’s the first person to get on the set and she’s the last person to leave. She’s doing everything repeatedly. She’s like you can’t afford not to be on your best. You can see she’s at her best, so everybody is working real hard around her. Everyone’s very charged when she’s there. Very charged. She’s awesome. When you see somebody at that level doing that, you’re like, ‘wow.’ I got back to New York super charged, extra energy. I know she’s super, super busy and yet, she commits so much to her craft.” 

Laolu-Sebanjo

The talented-passionate artist has had other successful collaborations as well. This includes sports wear maker, Nike, which saw him as one of the Masters of Air at the recently concluded AirMax CON and luxury fitness brand; Equinox’s “Committed” social media campaign. But in all, it seems none of these compare to having the opportunity to share his Yoruba influenced art with the world-while-beautiful-vocals of Beyonce.

Laolu Sebanjo’s collaboration with Nike

It is quite obvious that Sebanjo’s “everything is my canvas” Motto has got him some good fame thanks to Nike, Equinox and Queen Bey Beyonce’s Lemonade. With this, we can’t wait to see what’s next on the canvas boy’s agenda.

See more of his works below:

Watch Beyonce’s video ‘Sorry‘ featuring Sebanjo’s artistry after the cut: