It would be impossible to discuss Nigerian music and art history without addressing the renowned “Twins Seven Seven,” whose real name is Omoba Taiwo Olaniyi Oyewale-Toyeje Oyelale Osuntoki. Known for his exceptional aptitude and unusual background, he was known as “Twins Seven Seven” since he was the only surviving kid of his mother’s seven sets of twins. Twin Seven was a musician, painter, and sculptor from Nigeria.
Prior to starting his artistic career, he was a traveling singer and dancer. In 1964, he attended a Mbari Mbayo workshop in Osogbo led by Ulli Beier and Georgina Beier. One of the most well-known musicians in Nigeria is Twins Seven Seven.
The famous Chief Nike Davies-Okundaye, sometimes referred to as Nike Okundaye, Nike Twins Seven Seven, or Mama Nike Olaniyi, was his wife. The renowned Nike Art Gallery, which has locations in Lagos, Abuja, Kogi, and Osun, was founded by her. But in the end, their marriage ended in divorce. He was born in Nigeria as Omoba Taiwo Olaniyi Oyewale-Toyeje Oyekale Osuntoki to a Christian mother named Mary from Ogidi, Kogi State, and a Muslim father named Aitoyeje from Ibadan, Oyo State. Nigeria has the greatest twinning rate in the world, and the name he was given refers to the fact that he was the only surviving kid of seven pairs of twins born to his mother.
To secure her child’s survival, a babalawo advised his mother to drink water that was considered sacred by the river goddess Osun. Twins Seven Seven was therefore thought to be a reincarnation of his great-grandfather, Osun-toki, whose name translates to “Osun is worthy of worship.” In order to guarantee his permanence in the physical world, the babalawo would make tiny cuts on his face with special medicinal herbs because he was frequently unruly to his mother as a youngster and threatened to “go away” to the spirit realm once more. Even as an adult, the etchings persisted on his face.
At the age of sixteen, Twins Seven Seven was introduced to the arts through dance rather than painting. He danced on his mother’s behalf because of a Yoruba tradition that said a woman who had given birth to twins should dance around the streets for money. Although he did well academically on his exams, he hated the classroom system and developed a greater interest in art and music. He attended elementary and secondary school as well as a one-year stint at a teachers’ training college.
Twins Seven Seven met Ulli Beier, a German editor and scholar who lived in Oshogbo at the time and operated an artist’s workshop with his wife Georgina Beier, when they performed at the Mbari Club.The Oshogbo school took pleasure in the fact that it offered chances to validate the many artists’ unique visions rather than instructing them. Seven Seven was provided with simple equipment and little guidance during his creative processes at the Beier workshop. Seven Seven was able to develop his own distinct painting technique as a result. Twins Seven Seven crafts a fantastical world of people, animals, plants, and Yoruba gods, drawing inspiration from traditional Yoruba mythology and culture.
The segmentation, division, and repetition of his compositions visually resemble Yoruba carvings; theoretically, this influence is reflected in the work’s emphasis on change and balance, as well as its expression of dualities like the spiritual and the worldly, the past and the present, the abiku (devil child) and the orisha Osun are two examples of Yoruba cosmology and mythology that are referenced in early works like Dreams of the Abiku Child (1967). He made an effort to keep himself away from other painters who might have an impact on his own painting style. “No, I don’t want to risk being influenced by anyone else,” he said when he declined to go to a Picasso show during his first trip to the United States.
I already do all of this within myself. I’m not going to spend time in a studio learning how to blend colors like a painter from Europe. Twins Seven Seven taught in the United States in 1972 at the Haystack Mountain Crafts School in Deer Isle and at Merced College in California. In the early 1970s, he taught with Barbara Bullock and Charles Searles, whom he influenced, at the Ile Ife Black Humanitarian Center in North Philadelphia. His name would be Osuntoki II, and he was destined to become King of Ibadan. But first he had to take charge of Mogaji, his clan. Twins Seven Seven was chosen by his family to succeed the elderly Mogaji after his death, however, the coronation was repeatedly postponed, and he passed away before he could take on this role.
He survived an vehicle accident in July 1982, but after being rescued unconscious from the damaged vehicle, he was given an artificial hip and kept in bed for 18 months, leading to a false radio broadcast that he had died. Major exhibitions of his art took place in Spain, Finland, Mexico, the Netherlands, England, Germany, and the US during the 1990s.He also purchased land in the village of Sekola at this time with the intention of converting it into a park and tourist attraction with a Yoruba theme called “Paradise Resort,” but this project was never completed.
He relocated to Philadelphia in 2000 with the intention of settling there permanently, but he was robbed, forced to leave his home, and dismissed from many low-paying jobs. In 2005, when he was at his lowest, George Jevremovic organized an exhibition for him at a little cost and provided him with a workspace. He was employed here until 2008, when he returned to Nigeria due to financial difficulties. Among his honors were Nigerian chieftaincy titles, such as the Atunluto of Ibadan and the Ekerin-Basorun, which he acquired in January 1996. He received the title of Obatolu of Ogidi in December 1996. On June 16, 2011, Twins Seven Seven passed away in Ibadan at the age of 67 due to complications from a stroke.
Twins Seven Seven’s grandsons are BJ Ojulari, an edge rusher for the Arizona Cardinals, and Azeez Ojulari, an edge rusher for the National Football League’s New York Giants.
