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| Gboya with lovely wife, Toyin (Nee Kuti) |
In this concluding part of our super
exclusive encounter with celebrity cinematographer Gboya Soji Frank in Lagos,
the well travelled film maker told us the story of how his father’s action
towards him as a young lad of about 11 years pushed him to the outside world
where he learnt and grew fast.
He equally shared a bit of his romance life with
us and how he met his wife at the Redeemed Christian Church of God and what
makes her exceptional among other women that have come across his life. Gboya
also told us candidly how young people can achieve success in their endeavors
and what it takes to equally sustain success. It was one lifetime sort of
coaching for the feeble minded ones only on your African Number one celebrity
encounter blog asabeafrika. Enjoy!
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| Gboya at the Beach |
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| Gboya the man |
to tell us more about his wife and family and this is how he began “My wife
is Lagosian and I met her here in Lagos
in 2002 during one of my homecoming trips to Nigeria. I came to Lagos for some
important projects and you know I grew up in the white garment church setting
(Celestial Church of Christ) and I think somehow people believe we from that
background are the most talented people and I agree we are indeed talented. So,
since I am into video production I was contacted by a particular Redeemed
Church then, of course I do the same thing in my local church but nobody
appreciate it but when I did the same thing for this Redeem Church as at then,
2002, they gave me N2000 and to me it was a big cash. It was like big boy in
town and that kind of got me stuck to that church. And they have an engineer in
that church that comes whenever he likes.
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| Gboya Communicating with his Camera |
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| Gboya with Rave of the moment Yoruba Star Rapper, Olamide |
On this particular day this engineer
was away as usual and two ladies
approached me and said ‘brother, since you understand one thing about
engineering and about the sound system, could you be coming around not just to be
doing your video alone but to also operate this engine and all that. And my
wife happens to be one of those girls that actually approached me but my eyes
was never on her, I was more interested in the other girl. I was looking at the
other lady really, I was eyeing her and I approached her and she was like ‘you?
How much do you have in your account? And like the Yoruba adage says “Ta’a ba rigun, ao fo’obe jebo” I just
switched to the second girl, that is my wife and I said ‘hey, I love you’. And
she was like ‘I have never dated anybody in my life, what do you mean by you
love me, just tell me your mission’ and I told her straight away, “I want to
marry you”, I said it to her in 2002 and I got married to her in 2009. Her name
is Oluwatoyin
Rasheedat Kuti she is a Lagosian; a Muslim converted to Christian.
Today we are happily married with a beautiful daughter”.
“As an entrepreneur you must think out of the box. We have several laws in cinematography. Our last law in cinematography is “Brake the Rule”. But the laws and the rules have stages. The first stage is “know the rule”, the second stage is “Master the Rule” and the last stage is “Brake the Rule”… the last law is ‘break the rule’ that is the law I work with. But mind you, don’t break the rule when you have not known and mastered it. Know it, master it and break it”.
cinematographer to define his wife and he went thus “Like one of my friends
will say, that is Kayode Aderibigbe, he will say my wife is not quite, she is
silent. And she never for once gave me any problem; I just saw someone as calm
as a dove. With my kind of work, I mean a creative mind is a mad house of ideas;
we are eccentric in most cases. In fact people see you as not normal; so, it
takes someone who is calm to bind with our kind otherwise there will be crisis.
And that I saw in my wife which really balances my personality. She is the kind that if she is here now you
won’t hear her say a word till we leave here. But when we get home, she will tell
me, ‘ah, you made a mistake here, you made a mistake there or don’t you see the
way that woman was dancing? In fact my wife taught me how to dance Azonto and so many Nigeria dance steps
yet you will never see her say a word or dance outside. She is very quite,
cool, calm and collected. She studies things and addresses them accurately”.
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| Add caption |
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| Gboya with Veteran DJ Jimmy Jatt |
who swell his client list, Gboya goes philosophical “There is a
particular verse in the Bible that says a man’s talent will make a way for him
and that a man that is diligent in his job will sit before kings and not before
ordinary men”; the first thing that stands me out is creativity. As an
entrepreneur you must think out of the box. We have several laws in
cinematography. Our last law in cinematography is “Brake the Rule”. But the
laws and the rules have stages. The first stage is “know the rule”, the second
stage is “Master the Rule” and the last stage is “Brake the Rule”. So, who says
you must put your camera straight at someone and just record them the normal
stand straight manner?, who says that? Who says you must have your wedding on a
Saturday? Who says you can’t do something in a new way? So the last law is
‘break the rule’ that is the law I work with. But mind you, don’t break the
rule when you have not known and mastered it. Know it, master it and break it.
Someone like Presidential spokesman Reuben Abati can afford to break
the rule; if someone like Abati makes
a grammatical blunder or someone like Seye Kehinde or someone like Dele
Momodu of this world, we see it as an effect, we will say “Ara lo fida’a on dara ni. O mo nkan to se. O mo’omo n dara ni” (He knows
what he is doing, it is not a mistake) why? Because they know the rule, they
have mastered the rule and now they are breaking it. They can do what they like
with it. So, first thing is know it, this is it, master it then do whatever you
like with it. But if a leaner or a baby journalist records a grammatical
blunder, people will say “Orie o tepe, ki
lon ko? O o lo wo nkan tonko”
(What do you think you are doing etc?)
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| Gboya having his super aboard a flight to Los Angeles |
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| Gboya on picnic |
borders
Gboya
to tell you the country that catches his fancy most among the countries
of the world he has visited is like telling a kid to recite an old poem “I can
never forget Paris. Ooh, you need to be there. You need to be there to see and
feel what I mean” he says with all sense of sincerity before he revealed his
many lessons about the image of Nigeria outside our borders. “Another funny
thing I learnt from my traveling in the last twelve years is that our image
abroad has been so dented and we need to revive it. But whenever I travel, I am
always a proud Nigerian. I have about four passports (Of other countries) and I
have work permits that also look like a passport but when I am travelling I put
those work permits in my bag; I have about three of them but I always chose to
flag my green passport. Wherever I go to I say ‘I am a Nigerian and at times
they still delay me’. Even when I say I am a journalist, they still delay me at
the airport, they still behave funny but I remain a proud Nigerian anytime any
day.
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| Gboya is also good on base guitar for leisure |
Something happened in 2008, I was going for a study in Mexico and there
was no Mexican embassy in Nigeria at the time. The only two Mexican embassies
we had in Africa, one is in South Africa, one is in Morocco and I was supposed
to get my visa from the one in Morocco because I wanted to see what is
happening in Morocco, Libya, Tunisia and that side of Africa. So, I tried to
use Morocco as a gateway; I applied for a Moroccan visa and it took them three
months to grant my visa, I mean Morocco, just Morocco an African country. They
didn’t even ascent to my visa until the foreign body I was working for in
Geneva, Switzerland intervened. There is this organization I send pictures to
and they intervened by calling them here in Nigeria saying ‘what is wrong with
you?, do you know who you are denying a visa? And that was when action was
taken and even when I got to Morocco, you need to see what is happening to
Nigerians there.
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| Gboya in a relaxed mood |
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| Gboya Soji Frank |
Because when I travel to any foreign country the first
assignment on the second day is to first of all look for where our embassy is
located and to go and tell them ‘hello, a Nigerian is in this country; and I
came into this country legally and I will be leaving legally’. Any country that
I don’t have a resident permit or the right to stay for long, I don’t stay. So,
when I visited Nigerian embassy in Morocco, some two Benin guys came to the
embassy for something and when we approached the security guy who is a Moroccan
he drove us like a dog, he asked us to go away. And I had to beg him to just
give me a pen and a sheet of paper to write something. And I wrote there that
‘My name is Gboya Soji, I am a journalist from Nigeria, I am in Morocco’ and I
gave him to go and give the Ambassador. And he took the message to him and when
he (Ambassador) saw it, he came out himself to welcome me and he deeply
apologized. He said it was the habit of Nigerians to come there everyday to beg
for food and all sort of help. He said a lot that made me so shock.
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| Gboya in France |
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| Gboya on picnic |
And one of
the things that really marveled me, I was to pick my Mexican visa in Morocco
and when I went to the Mexican embassy in that country to tell them that I am
travelling to Mexico, they told me that I will have to go and book appointment;
that I cant just come and pick a visa. So, I thought it was the usual Nigerian
style that you will have to wait till thy kingdom come before they issue you
your visa. But lo and behold I was shocked when the lady told me I can book my appointment
there and then and come for the appointment the next day. I booked my
appointment that same day and I went back for the appointment the following day
and the lady said since I wanted to go and study there I will need a residence
permit; that same day I got a residence permit for 5 years; multiple entry in
just one day. Just a day and I got a five years visa for my journey. And these
are the same embassies you apply for in Nigeria and it takes you forever to get
things done. In fact it marvels me that people even go out in churches to say
‘praise the Lord, I have been believing God for an American visa, aah, won ti
fun mi Oluwa o seun’ and people will stand up and shout and start jumping; and
even pastors will be saying ‘Oh, raise up your passports’ my brother, these are
basic things. If this country is great, nobody will be seeking to go abroad and
sit down. Nobody will waste his time looking for one visa and queuing up at
embassies for some minors”.
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| Gboya in Madrid with some white admirers |
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| Gboya with a female fan on picnic |
who hail from a family of all 4 boys in Ondo state, South West Nigeria
and the third in line changed his mood when we told him to tell us something
about his father; his countenance did not only changed but his mood fired up a
different expression and this is how he expresses it “I am sorry I don’t like
talking about my dad, I don’t like him. He sent me out of the house at age of
eleven. He said I don’t look like him. That he is not sure he is my father and
for that reason I decided to find my path in life so early and that is why I
will want you to change the topic and let’s not talk about him in this
interview”
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| Gboya on a foreign trip |
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| Gboya with his article of trade |
we asked the celebrity cinematographer to talk about mum and you could
instantly see the light of enthusiasm that glowed over his face “Oh my mum?
Kudos to her, kudos for her, her name is Beatrice Tileola, she is from Ilaje-Ese-Odo,
from Apoi in Ondo state. She is alive, the house she lived in I built it. I
built a house for her in Ketu here in Lagos. I love her because she is my
pillar of support after God. She is the best mother in the world and I am very
proud of her” On how soon he is settling
down in Nigeria, Gboya said he lives 60% of his time in Nigeria and 40%
travelling around the world “I am actually based in Nigeria really but I tour a
lot. Let me say 60% of my time is spent in Nigeria while 30% percent is used
travelling around the world, working and studying and 10% percent with my
family”.
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| Gboya’s lovely daughter Ademide |
advice on success to Nigerian youths. Hear the celebrity cinematographer who
took his source of inspiration from his own experience “First and foremost,
money is not everything. Money is not everything; if you have a talent, if you
know you are good at something and you really want to charge ten million for
that thing and you want to convince people that you can really do it, do it for
free first. If you tell me you are a good journalist, you can write, if you
tell me you are a good photographer and for people to believe in you that you
are a good photographer, do one or two free jobs. Do free jobs, from that free
job I can bet you when people see the value you have given for free, you won’t
need to tell them to pay premium for it. I shot Bella Adenuga’s wedding
and I was the only videographer there. I have shot many high profile events and
I can tell you right now that I only do high profile events. I do just high
profile events and the reason is simple, I have done this free in the past so
if I am charging premium for it now, there is a reason for it”.
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| Gboya with Inyanya |
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| Gboya with late highlife maestro Fatai Rolling Dollars |
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| Gboya with late Yoruba Rap star, Dagrin |
