SOLA, THE INTERVIEW

This interview was conducted in New York City, NY in NoHo on March 18, 2023 at 5:40 PM. Our conversation hinged on time: the past, the future, and right now. Sola is the son of Nigerian immigrants and the quintessential New Yorker. New York’s Native Son. In our time together, I got the sense that he was a renaissance man with a strong understanding of his roots and he’s been growing here for so long, others see it too. He has stories about everywhere in the city. Fellow New Yorkers recognize him as we walk the streets. He has many thoughts about the direction the city is working towards. He loves where he is. He will not leave. His distinct style leaves little room for projection. What you see is what you get and he's a lot. He’s a historian, a photographer, an archivist, a promoter, a messenger, and a city planner amongst many other things. Although his eyes are always on the past, his mind never leaves our future. Oluwanisola Olosunde and I consider heritage, history, change, NYC, being cool, yearbooks, desire, and the will to be more. 

May we always become more. 

Najee AR Fareed: Who are you? How old are you? What do you do? Where are you from? 

Sola: My name is Sola. I’m 27 years old. I’m a Nigerian from New York City, born and raised. I’m a city planner and photographer. You can call me a historian. 

Najee AR Fareed: What was the first thing you fell in love with? 

Sola: Probably, clothes maybe. I have loved clothes since High School. Since like 8th or 9th grade. I loved trying to figure out ways to get clothes. 

Najee AR Fareed: What were you wearing back then? 

Sola: My go-to, I’d say when I was younger, was really streetwear. I liked BBC [Billionaire Boys Club], I liked Bape, I liked wearing Jordans, I liked Stussy. I liked a lot of the brands that were out back in the day. Growing up in NY and going to the city and SoHo, there used to be a lot more streetwear brands and smaller stores. Yellow Rat Bastards. A lot of stores you could go to and buy certain things. It didn’t even have to be a name brand, it just needed to look cool. 

Najee AR Fareed: You’re a lot cooler than I was in ninth grade, I didn’t have none of that shit. How about now? How has that shifted, with clothing and expression? 

Sola: I was really into the streetwear stuff because it was different to me at the time. When I was growing up, a lot of people were wearing different stuff. At least if you were from Brooklyn or Uptown or something. People had a real style out there and if you were going to the city, you had a certain style. I was just going off what I was first exposed to. Over time, by my senior year of high school, I decided to make a change because I was just tired of dressing in a more trendy way or in a way that a lot of people wanted to dress even though I was doing it on my own. I still wanted to be very different so I stopped wearing a lot of streetwear stuff. There were a lot of things that were happening at the time. I didn’t want to support big businesses. I didn’t want to dress like everyone else. I wanted to have an original style. I wanted to dress in a way that when I became 30, 40, 50, I wouldn’t look back and be like, “what was I wearing?” So, when I was 16, I changed everything. I started dressing the way I do. 

Najee AR Fareed: At 16? 

Sola: Yeah, it kinda started around then. When you’re 16, you don’t have much money. It took time, by 19 or 20, I was dressing how I wanted in a more consistent way. 

NAF: Quick word associations. I say a word, you say one back. First thing that comes to mind. First word: New York City. 

Sola: Home. 

NAF: Home. 

Sola: New York. 

NAF: Street. 

Sola: Pavement. 

NAF: Brother. 

Sola: Wole. That’s my brother. 

NAF: Tribe. 

Sola: Called Quest. 

NAF: Love. 

Sola: Hate. 

NAF: History. 

Sola: Everything. 

NAF: Style. 

Sola: Expression. 

NAF: Great, I definitely wanted to get into history and that being everything. Did you pick up on history in school or was it more like a family thing where you were interested in your roots or was it a communal thing where you were curious about how life came to be shaped the way it is? Where did it start, in the books or in life? 

Sola: I’d say it started really with my Dad. He used to talk a lot about how New York was when he first got here, which was around 1986. He would take me everywhere with him. All around Brooklyn, all around Manhattan. He would just talk to me about how the city used to be. It made an impression on me because it was very different. It was different even from then and this was like the early 00s when he would talk to me about it. He would be like, “oh, this place used be dadada and this that and the third and it wasn’t that anymore.” That was the first time he was in America and he would just talk about getting used to being in America. That led to me doing more research for myself. When I got to high school, I started tutoring and I ended up really liking it. That’s what made me want to go school for history, although I was teaching math. I knew I really liked history and I wanted other people to like history because it didn’t make sense to me that other people didn’t like history because I know mad people who don’t like history. So I said let me try to go to school for it and be a teacher or a professor. 

NAF: Where did your Dad move from? 

Sola: He’s Nigerian. 

NAF: I mean what city or village or whatever. 

Sola: He lived in Lagos. He kinda grew up in Lagos. He’s from a small village in southwest Nigeria. He basically grew up in Lagos because he was living with his brother for some time. Then he left and he was living in a few other countries. Germany, Belgium, then he came here. 

NAF: Is your mother also Nigerian? 

Sola: Yeah, she’s from the same tribe. Same area. 

NAF: Which tribe? 

Sola: Yoruba. My mom came later, like early 90s. 91 or 92. 

NAF: They met here? 

Sola: They met in Nigeria then he brought her here. 

NAF: We were talking earlier about how you lived here your whole life and about how being a New Yorker is a huge part of your identity. I know with me personally, being from East Atlanta, knowing the history and repping where I’m from was such a big deal to me. EA, Zone 6, the whole nine. I made it such a large part of who I am. I had a campaign going to fight gentrification on the East Side of Atlanta. There were a lot of things I was doing that was so specific to my space that when I had to move to NY, I had sort of an identity crisis. I had to figure out what I was without my place and I hadn’t even lived in East Atlanta for my whole life but it was where I was for so long. I felt as though I had ingrained myself in the city. I guess my question is, with New York being such a big part of you, how do you feel like you’d adjust if you had to leave for whatever reason? Who would you be if you were in a different physical place than New York City? 

Sola: I just don’t think that’s possible for me. 

NAF: Moving? 

Sola: Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to leave. I sincerely don’t think there is another place for me. I’d always find a way to live here. I can’t be kicked out of New York. There’s always somewhere to live. Even if I live way uptown, in the Bronx. I don’t mind. I already live on the edge of New York. I already live on the edge of New York, in Far Rockaway. 

NAF: I don’t necessarily mean kicked out. I just mean if you had priorities elsewhere. Like a professor job at an esteemed university that isn't in NYC. Just a situation where you had to uproot yourself, not being forced out. I don’t think I was forced out. 

Sola: Oh okay, well in that case, I don’t know. I’d miss it, definitely. I haven’t thought about it, to be honest. I’d really have to adjust. Like learning how to drive. That’s a big thing that’s making me stay. One of the reasons why I like living in a big city, public transit. I don’t like cars. I don’t like the idea of having to drive this big machine and I have to worry about my own life and I’d have to worry about the lives of others. That’s the leading cause in America, car accidents. That’s crazy. I’d have to at least learn how to drive, then I could expand my mind and think about where I could move to. I automatically “X” places out because I can’t drive. 

NAF: That’s real, I’d say New York is definitely the only walkable city in America. Maybe you’d have options if you moved out of America but that’s a whole different game there. I think the three closest cities to New York as far as remotely competent public transit are DC, Chicago, and San Francisco. And even those are nowhere close to NYC. 

Sola: Yeah facts. 

NAF: I have been trying to subscribe to the idea that I carry East Atlanta with me, a little bit? This idea that East Atlanta isn't a place but a people and a way of living. I’m trying to keep people of that like and that POV around me. How do you feel about that, assessing New York as a POV? 

Sola: I think there’s some truth to that. If you are from a certain place, you’re going to have a certain perspective. If you’re from Florida, you’re going to think differently than someone from up here. I think there is a state of mind when it comes to being a New Yorker but I also think that there are a lot of different states of mind. 

NAF: New York has like a million different worlds in one place. 

Sola: Exactly. It all depends. But I do feel like there are some common denominators. 

NAF: When you said state of mind, the Nas song immediately flashed through my mind. How would you say New York has directly influenced your thinking? 

Sola: New York has made me a lot more open to a lot of things. There’s an endless flow of inspiration that comes from New York. You will meet so many different types of people. You end up meeting different types of people without even leaving the city. And I think you become more tolerant of people because you will encounter so many different people. New York allows you to be expressive and you become more respectful of how people express themselves and where they’re from. You can live your whole life here and be familiar with a lot of cultures. That’s one way New York has influenced me. There are so many things here. 

NAF: That’s something I love about New York too. There are certain pockets where no one speaks English and there aren’t many cities like that in America. The opportunity to be exposed to so many perspectives is special. I grew up in sort of a mono-culture. I’m used to everyone around me looking like me. 

Sola: Even the black people here. 

NAF: Yeah, I remember when I first moved here, someone asked me where I was from. 

Sola: Like what’s your background? 

NAF: Yeah exactly. Like where my parents are from. And I tell them my parents are African-American. And they’re like, “where else are they from?” 

Sola: They’re just Black Americans. 

NAF: Exactly and she was shocked for some reason and she told me she never met anyone who was just a Black American. And I was like, “okay that can’t be possible.” But she is African or maybe the street she stayed on in Harlem was only other African folks. 

Sola: But still, I was from Brooklyn initially and Brooklyn was very West Indian. But when you go to Harlem, there’s a lot of Americans and Africans, there aren’t many West Indians uptown. 

NAF: Yeah, I don’t know. Almost everyone I knew growing up were Black Americans so to hear someone say that was jarring. Maybe because I’m Muslim, I knew more Africans than most Atlanta niggas would know but it was still mainly Black Americans in my daily life. It was strange for me. I got into the habit of asking where people’s parents were from, whenever I met someone from New York and I was never that person. I’m not going to say she was onto something, but out of maybe hundreds of black people I’ve asked since I’ve moved here almost two years ago, maybe five said “I’m Black American.” Maybe not even on both sides. 

Sola: It’s black people from all over the world. If you only know black people, you’re going to know black people from Jamaica, Nigeria, America… from everywhere! 

NAF: What’s a tidbit of history that’s been wanting to share? Something you love to tell people? 

Sola: I’ve been trying to do more African stuff. Obviously, I’m Nigerian even though I grew up here. I have been here my whole life, I haven’t really left New York for more than a month but I’m still Nigerian and I do want to do a lot more African history and share a lot of that. But I need a new laptop. I’m trying to buy a new macbook. I just want to do more Nigerian history and explain how the country came to be how it is today. Why it is and how it is. A lot of people are beginning to see Africa as a place… like a cultural hub. People are going there for vacation. 

NAF: There’s been a crazy surge of that, I see a lot of people going on vacation to Ghana or Nigeria. 

Sola: Yeah, mainly Ghana and Nigeria. I think a lot about that, because ten years ago, it was not like that at all. No one really cared about what was going on in Africa. I think now will be a good time to share more history, since people are more interested in it now. Like, “okay, now I can go ahead and do more of that.” I know a good amount of Nigerian history but I want to know a lot more before I really speak on it. That’s the reason I speak so much on New York history because I’ve been here my whole life. I can speak on it with extreme confidence. I’ve only been to Nigeria once. I feel like I need to do a lot more research before I could really speak on it. I still consult books when I learn about New York history but I don’t need a book because I have my lived experience. I don’t have a lived experience of Nigeria, that’s the only issue. I’m trying to get everything together so I can figure out some threads to do on Twitter. 

NAF: What was the first place in your lived experience in New York that made you go, “I have to share this”? 

Sola: You mean in terms of the stuff I’ve learned? 

NAF: The first thing you learned that had you excited to share. 

Sola: Maybe when I was doing research on Harlem at the turn of the century. I found out about this guy, his name was Phillip Payton. He was a real estate developer. Around the time when Harlem was going up, it was a place for white middle class people. He was a black realtor. There was a lot of speculation. A lot of times, these real estate guys would come in and develop these apartments. That is why a lot of New York looks the same. You’ll see rows and rows of the same house because people decided to build a bunch of houses at the same time and make a bunch of money. They did that uptown but they did too much of it. It was overdeveloped. They created too many houses for the demand. The A Train also started to go uptown. So Phillip Payton comes in and buys some of the developed buildings and sometimes he would kick out the white tenants and start renting to black tenants. Black people needed somewhere to live too. A lot of people were coming from the south and the West Indies. It became a thing, more realtors did it too, a guy named John Nail was part of it. They are one of the reasons black people started having houses in Harlem. It was a whole thing. White tenants banded together and made this racial covenant to not sell or rent to black people. It was too late by then. Little Harlem history. 

NAF: I recently read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, like a few months ago. I knew a lot of the information in the book but it’s around 450 pages so of course there were little tidbits for me to pick up on. The way he described how Harlem made him feel is a feeling I’m still chasing. It was when he moved… 

Sola: When he came out of prison right?

NAF: No, it was before he went to prison. When he was living with his sister. Detroit Red era. He dropped out of school after the eighth grade, that was in Michigan. 

Sola: Then he moved to Boston. 

NAF: Exactly, he moved to Boston with his older sister. He got a train job in Boston and he sold weed to customers on the train on the side. He said the moment he got off the train from Boston to NYC, he’d immediately throw on his zoot suit and run up to Harlem. He said he was so excited he’d be off the train before the first passenger. That’s how excited he was to get to Harlem. The way he talked about it as a black man’s heaven, it was like something I don’t think he necessarily understood at the time. I think he found that in reflection, after prison. But even without that clear knowledge of home and self, the emotional feeling of home and heaven is a powerful thing. I realized a lot through that. I love places where the residents have a strong sense of pride and belonging and purpose. I love being around people who love where they’re from and I get that in New York. 

Sola: I am the same way. 

NAF: That’s why I can’t stand many people from Gwinnett County. Some of them be trying to fake it like they’re so hood and they’re from the nicest part of town. It’s not like you have to be from the coolest place, you should just take pride in your home because it's you. Caring about where your feet are at and where they used to be is so important. Hearing you talk about Harlem’s history was very illuminating. 

Sola: They were trying to create a place for themselves. When you were talking about Malcolm X, there weren’t too many places like that. There just wasn’t. You’re talking about from 110th to 155th. That’s 40 something blocks. You live in Harlem so you know how big them blocks are. River to river. Just straight black people and some Puerto Ricans and stuff on the east side. Then west and central Harlem are straight black. The whole thing. It was just a black space where you could be yourself, you’re talking about damn near 100 years ago. 100 years ago, people were still being lynched. But you can go up to Harlem and have some fun and listen to some Jazz. You can really be yourself and people will see you as a person. I can see why Malcolm would love going to Harlem. That’s probably why he ended up staying there. He lived there until the day he died. [EDITOR’s NOTE: Malcom X and Betty Shabazz moved to Long Island once they began their family but Malcolm X maintained a strong presence in the Harlem community and his offices remained in Harlem].

NAF: He died there. 

Sola: Exactly, I get it. 

NAF: I have one more question about Harlem and then I’ll move on. I spent the first years of my life in Kansas City, Missouri. It’s a lot blacker than most people think, I didn’t really see white people growing up but it is fairly country. For some strange reason, unknown to me at least, most of the houses there are built with big porches. And people loved sitting on porches. It was the thing to do. When I moved to Atlanta, there weren't as many houses with porches. And then here, space is harder to come by. You have to be really rich to have a porch here and even then it would be a rarity. I guess I’m trying to say sitting on the stoop reminds me of the Kansas City porches and I was wondering how it became such a big thing in NYC. There is a group of old men who live in my building and no matter what time of day it is and no matter they weather, they’re standing outside or on their way to stand outside. 

Sola: Hanging out. 

NAF: Looking, walking. When I first came here, it was so strange to me that people did that. In Atlanta, people don’t just stand outside for no reason. They might go to the park but they’re just gonna stand outside. I might walk past a corner at 2 AM and it’s loaded with like five niggas. 

Sola: Just standing outside, chilling. 

NAF: Exactly. I had to relax myself because in Atlanta, five niggas standing outside at 2 AM means trouble. You would want to avoid them in Atlanta. But in NYC, that’s just life. Do you know the roots of that, the stoop sitting and the corner standing? I am on the money a little bit? 

Sola: It is a big part of how the city is set up. That’s a big reason I got into urban planning, just seeing those types of things and how they affect lifestyles. The city was built at a time when that was the style of architecture. Everything was close together. You used to walk to get groceries and do everything. A lot of the city was built around that time. There was a high demand of people. That’s why NYC isn't one county, but five counties. It was originally one county but Manhattan got so congested they had to take the other four counties and make them into one city. People lived in an even more congested way than we do now. People would live with two families in one room and hang outside during the summer. We are talking about when a lot of neighborhoods were still pretty white. A lot of European immigrants were coming over. They would sleep outside, sleep on the roofs, sleep on the fire escapes. This was before air conditioning. They’d play stickball in the streets. All types of stuff. We have parks and we have green space but there was a lack back then. People often used the sidewalk and places like that to congregate. Even grilling on the street. That’s always been a thing. I grew up in an apartment building. You just go outside and hang out and play with your friends. You’re outside in the courtyard of your apartment building or in the front of your apartment building. You may not leave the block but that’s regular. I like it though. I encourage it though. It encourages street life, that’s what makes New York so lively. 

NAF: Although I wouldn’t say I disliked it at first, I was just confused. I’ve grown to appreciate them being out there. The moment I get home for work at 8 AM, they’re coming out of the elevator to go stand outside.    

NAF: I always do this segment where I ask, if you could be summoned by four physical items in a magical sense, what would those items be? Cauldron or portal type shit. 

Sola: Physical… some film. My bike or a bike. Maybe some Clark’s. Wallabees. And for the last one, a yearbook. 

NAF: A yearbook? From where? 

Sola: I don’t know, just an old New York high school yearbook. I collect yearbooks. If you knew me personally, you would know I collect yearbooks. 

NAF: Random New York Schools?  

Sola: Nah, like New York schools and predominantly Black high schools and colleges across the US. I’ll get any New York yearbook but I try to go for the Black schools because New York schools are pretty segregated. 

NAF: That is super interesting to think about. It’s a great time capsule and probably really captures what’s cool at the time. As young adults, we don’t care what teenagers think of us but I have always been of the mind that teenagers decide what’s cool or hip or whatever. 

Sola: Oh that’s true. 

NAF: I told that to my older brother and he was arguing with me. When you’re the old fuddy duddy man, you might not care and you shouldn’t care because you’re a grown ass man but they decide when you’re done being cool. Not them. You can wake up one day and not be cool anymore. 

Sola: Literally. 

NAF: Yearbooks are very important. They’re cultural zeitgeists. I actually don’t own a single yearbook of my own. I feel kinda ashamed now that you have so many. 

Sola: Oh, I get it. Sometimes when you’re young, you don’t really care about that type of stuff. But I’m into history, so I really wanted a yearbook. That’s all I did. I didn’t go to my senior trip or graduation. I just wanted my yearbook. 

NAF: Did you help make the yearbook? 

Sola: No, I just made sure I had one. I wanted one because my whole class was in it. Yeah like, this is how my class was. I could point to people and be like, “oh I remember this person and that person.” I used to look at my middle school yearbook and that made an impression on me. You had people writing in them, “yo, I’m going to miss you so much.” Now you look back at it many years later. 

NAF: The only yearbook I had for the longest was my elementary school yearbook. A few years ago, this girl DM’d me, showing interest or whatever. We ended up going on the date and we realized we went to the same elementary school at the same time. She was a few grades below me. I tried to find my singular yearbook and I couldn’t and I was really sad. We were at the same place at the same time everyday 15 years ago. [EDITOR’s NOTE: from the time of the date] and then we went on one date that didn’t go anywhere. Who knows where we’ll meet again in another 15 years. 

NAF: I wanted to talk about photography. How did your interest in photography begin? 

Sola: It started because of history. I was always looking at photos and stuff. I decided I needed to start taking photos of the city because it was changing pretty quickly. I tried to start an archive of how the city looked when I was younger, so people could have a reference of some sort. That’s why I started. 

NAF: I think the portraits you do at the parties are very cool. You’re great at catching people in a natural and candid state. I always feel like I look uncomfortable when people take pictures of me. Those people look mad comfortable with you. Obviously they’re probably just better at taking pictures than me but a big part of that has to be you. It’s so beautiful, I think that whenever it comes across my timeline. 

Sola: Thanks, I’ve been doing that for a while, taking photos at parties. It’s been quite a while. I think I’m done with that. 

NAF: I can understand that. 

Sola: Yeah, I just have so many. 

NAF: What do you look for when you’re selecting people to take pictures of? 

Sola: I just think about how the photo would look. I would look at someone and think, “oh they’d look cool in a photo.” They might look thought provoking. I use to see people on the train or on the street and think, “damn! They look cool” or I’d see a girl and think “she’s so beautiful” and I’d be thinking about her the whole day. I just led with that train of thought. If they look cool or look good. 

NAF: That’s a good thing about New York, I feel like they have a surplus of cool people [EDITOR’s NOTE: or at least cool looking people].

Sola: Yeah, that’s very true. I just kept going and going. At parties people try to look extra cool. 

NAF: So what’s next? 

Sola: I want to finish making this photo book of different photos I’ve done. I’ve done quite a few different types of photos. I’ve done self-portraits, party portraits, I have street stuff. I just want to take all of that and put it in a book just to show people my work in general and then I’ll get more specific with bodies of work down the line. The portraits I do at parties, I wanted to start that as a series. I wanted to do about 400-500 photos but I have thousands at this point. That’s what I’m doing now. And organizing my thousands of negatives. Putting them in slips and binders. I’m trying to make more prints and do books. I’m trying to make my art into a product rather than a hobby of mine. I’m trying to make some money. 

NAF: That’s real.    

published April 13, 2023