Biography:
Born in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria ‘1984, Inua Ellams is a Word and Graphic Artist, a writer with a style as influenced by Classic literature as it is by hip hop, by Keats as it is by MosDef. Rooted in a love for rhythm and language, he crosses 18th century romanticism & traditional story telling with contemporary diction, loose rhythm and rhyme. However, his first love was visual art; the first time he toyed with a pencil, he fell for the magic of line and form. He works extensively as a graphic designer / visual artist and also tries to mix the old with the new juxtaposing texture and pigment with flat shades of color and digitally created designs. He works in online and print
Related Podcasts & Events:
One life.
One life.(for Matthew, Eska and the Choir)In a farm in Mexico, a grain of corn is armed with faith. Half covered with soil it trusts the wind will guide it water, waits as sunlight plaits itself into photosynthesis, germinates and listens for the world's pay.Words play out. Two men squabble over price, harsh language like rubble tongue-tumbles, the argument bursts, bullets pop like corn till blood waters the soil. Worms wade in the reddened wet earth. A sudden shadow. A swallow swoops. Blood speckles the beaks of birds, they feed their young who grow now, towing this murder's song that's chirped from spring to summer long.One hundred people learn this wrong, so speak yesses like locust swarm, askthat changes come. But cameras only turn for the spectacle of spectacle, nothing of great importance comes, nothing for the fallen ones who subtract from tolerance, add to outrage.Simple maths gets harder with age;multiply hand-grenades with an album fullof families, the sky by missiles, the ground by death, divide by oil flares and it'll equal this: where charged hearts lead to fahrenheits in foreign heights, chains to blindfolds, hoods to shackles, light turns to a torturous thing that burns memory, blackens thought, churns to a vengeful melting pot. What becomes us when peace is scarred, compassion is barred and simple as to love is hard? Yet love makes strong.It comes even in the murder song, we breathe it in mouth-fulls, filter out withlungs, a finer gust we trust to blow long, that whiles by silent, whooshes by wrongsswells and falls in this chimera of a poemformed where condom rappers split, Haitiburns, someone scarpers, a match box rattles by Downing St. A gossip magazinerustles rubbish, an alarm blips, two lovers grip, an orchestra plays a song of soiled strings, a choir outcries, a fat lady sings.Against these unordered odds, one wish drives us all, the only one that's ever been, the hope, that through these torrid thingsagainst such careless hate and hostiles, a new born braves for a borderless world;and one life wins.
Check out other Badilisha artists:
Ivori • Evans Nganga • Evolution • Uche Uwadinachi • Isabella Motadinyane • Obanya • Lebo Mashile • Karyl Huggees • Jeff Plumbline • Greg Ritallin Frankson • Onokemi Onojobi • Rustum Kozain • Native Son • Afurakan • Jessica Horn • Desiree Bailey • Paulination • Thobekile Mbanda • Roché Kester • Omnyama • Coco Putuma • Quentin Lindsay • Maakomele Manaka • Erin Bosenberg • Efe Paul Azino • Tanya Evanson • Siphiwe Ka Ngwenya • Dolapo Ogunwale • Bongiwe Dlamini • Malika Lueen Ndlovu • Hugh Hodge • Raul Alves da Silva Calane • Keith Gottschalk • Kemba King • Jenna Mervis • Charlie Bobus • Osaze Dolabaille • Pamella Dlungwana • Patricia Schonstein • Toni Stuart • Queen Lariuskus • Lionel Murcott • Kaie Kellough • Wangari Ngugi • Phyllis Muthoni • Cornelius Eady • Ameera Patel • Mukoma Wa Ngugi • The Mighty Third Rail • Sininho Paco • Bernedette Muthien • Tina Mucavele • Mark Espin • Kelwyn Sole • Simric Yarrow • Natasha Tafari • Karin Schimke • Ari Sitas • Tracy K Smith • Genna Gardini • Antjie Krog • Ngwatilo Mawiyoo • Ewok • Mbali Kgosidintsi • Rantoloko Molokoane • Natalia Molebatsi • Stephen Derwent Partington • Olumide Popoola • Jacob Oketch • Muhammed Muwakil • Moses Serubiri • Chantel-Fleur Sandjon • Anthony Joseph • DéLana Dameron • James Matthews • Kokumo Noxid • Chiedu Ifeozo • Camille T. Dungy • Patricia Smith • Epiphanie Mukasano • Muhammad Muwakil • Bassey Ikpi • Sam Umokoro • Chenjerai Hove • Roger Bonair- Agard • Julian Curry • Togara Muzanenhamo • Boonaa Mohammed • Kolade Arogundade • Poetic Pilgrimage • Sandile Dikeni • Jimmy Rage • Lloyd Akin Palmer • Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie • Tinashe Mushakavanhu • Imani Woomera • Mpho Ya Badimo • Bethel C. Simeon • Khadijah Ibrahim • Naima Mclean • Kayo Chingonyi • Segun Lee French • Liesl Jobson • Inua Ellams • Cosmas Mairosi • Avaez Mohammad • Jethro Louw • Kwame Dawes • Anis Mojgani • Blaq Pearl • Mwalim Morgan Peters • Violetta Simatupang • Ruben van Gogh • Changa Hickinson • Antoine de Kom • Odidi Mfenyana • Napo Masheane • Shabbir Banoobhai • Jacques Coetzee • Gert Vlok Nel • Gcina Mhlophe • Ernestine Deane • Gus Ferguson • Helen Moffett • Bulelwa Basse • Winslow Schalkwyk • Jacqueline ‘pretty poet’ Kibacha • Shailja Patel • Hale Tsehlana • Samantha Thornhill • croc E moses • Ben Caesar • Musa Okwonga • D´bi Young • Breyten Breytenbach • Gabeba Baderoon • Omekongo wa Dibinga • Mojisola Adebayo • Zena Edwards • Khadija Heeger • Jitsvinger • Diana Ferrus • Annelie De Wet • Andrea Nomasebe Dondolo • Uche Nduka • Tantra-Zawadi • Seni Seneviratne • Phillippa Yaa de Villiers • Mwila Mambwe • Michael Mabwe • Megan Hall • Mbali Vilakazi • Loftus Marais • Kai Lossgott • Jessica Mbangeni • Tania van Schalkwyk • Jamala Safari • Eric Miyeni • Annie Moyo • !Bushwomen • Emile Jansen • Lemn Sissay • African Noise Foundation • Aryan Kaganof • Warsan Shire • Ngoma Hill • Dorothea Smartt •
