Akin Alabi celebrates 20 years in entertainment industry

Nigerian music video director, photographer, and entrepreneur, Akin Alabi has commemorated his 20 years in the creative and entertainment industry, while charging other artists to never lose hope.

He emphasised the need to preserve equipments and tools used in the past so that the younger generation can have examples of what life looked like before their arrival.

Speaking at A Photo and Vintage Exhibition by Akin Alabi, titled Makoko through my Eyes in Lagos, he said diversification has kept him going 20 year later.

“I can leave music directing for instance for six months or one year and when I come back, it becomes fresh,” he said.

On his Makoko works, he explained that when he went there, the simple life of the community inspired him to take over 200 pictures.

The exhibition had pictures he took during his trip to Makoko. Other items included were vintage Vinyl Players, rotary telephones, televisions, car among others.

Comparing shooting music videos in the past to now, he said that previously, there was no money but people worked based on passion but now there is money so people do things more for money than passion.

Alabi added that technology has brought its advantage to the industry making things a lot easier.

He added that he had been painting since he was small and more officially 15 years ago.
Asked how he balances photography and film making, he said he views them as one entity making it easy for him to navigate.