Animated series on Legends of Alkebulan debuts
Co-Founders of Tribe Temple Studios Justice Eneje (left) and Emmanuel Adoga with guests.
An animation series that encompasses stories of African gods and history of Africa, ‘Legend of Alkebulan’ has been released for viewing on Youtube. Headed by Tribe Temple Studio, the word ‘Alkebulan’ is a metaphor for Africa and the motivation behind this animation is to portray true stories of the African gods and deities.
At its first private viewing held at ‘The Art Pantheon’ which also featured an existing NFT, collection that inspired the production of the series were on display. Amongst its team are Tribe Temple Studio CEO and Executive Producer, Justice Eneje; Producer, Co-director & Co-writer, Scott Eneje; Co-director, Lead Animator, Creative Director & Actor, Michael Eneje; 3D Animator, Omoyefe Majoroh and actors Kay Dance, who played, King Mansa; James-Chu Jima (Amadioha) and Ari Kelly (Oku Oji ).
According to Scott Eneje, the animated series is centered around historical characters, mythologies and deities, though the perception about some of them in the past has been that they are villains.
“One of the things I understand is that stories are based on our perception. Your perception of anything could become a story. Our animation intends to change the narrative.
“We are not expecting people to go back and worship these historical figures, but we sometimes don’t realise that many of them lived normal human lives, and had normal human experiences. The sooner we get to understand this, the easier it becomes to connect with them and learn from them. But if we continue to demonise them, you will never pay attention to some of the noteworthy parts of their journeys.”
One of the co-founders of the project and director, Tobi Matthew Ezeogu, described the Legend of Alkebulan as an attempt to unite the entire African continent with a single narrative.
“We are telling a story where a united Africa existed. That is basically the idea – there was a united continent, Africa was one empire, and then something happened. Basically, what the story tells you is what went wrong. Why we are divided, why we aren’t united. It then pictures our look as a united continent.”
Noting that it is an ongoing series, Ezeogu said: “It explores with a number of African characters from what you’ve seen so far. It travels across Eastern, Northern and Southern Africa. It spans the entire continent and is not just about Nigeria. Right now, it’s on YouTube but there are other plans to enter streaming services, upgrade the quality with better visuals.”
Ezeogu noted that it took about four days to conceptualise the idea. “This was because I had basically been doing it for about a decade, so it was easy for me.”
He added that the NFT characters makes the project stand out. “If you look at some of the characters, they have unique symbols formed from ancient African texts used before English even came to our continent.”
