The Courier

© Hegel Goutier

Just 34 years old and already he has a career as an architect, model, actor, journalist, singer, writer and creator of rare books to his credit. Author of the bestseller, Black Beauty, he has just published his latest book as ‘creative director’ – coordinating the work of other famous ‘creatives’ – that is devoted to soccer legend Pelé. But it is doubtful if many Courier readers will be able to treat themselves to this jewel of the Gloria Publishing House. With a limited edition of just 2,000 copies, they sell for €2,500 each. And for the wealthiest of collectors, the 150 copies of the de-luxe ‘carnival’ edition were snapped up in the first weeks following publication at the price of £4,500 a copy. Some of these are now changing hands in Asia for up to £10,000.

For the general public, Ben Arogundade is the author of Black Beauty, already acknowledged as a reference work. The original edition published in 2001 was revised to coincide with three BBC programmes on the book.

But when we met, it was painting, not books, which Arogundade began to talk about. We had arranged to meet at the Tate Modern Museum to visit the exhibition devoted to Congolese artists in one of the wings presenting the museum’s permanent collection entitled ‘States of Flux’. He then turned to the second book-objet d’art to be published by Gloria he is currently working on, which will be devoted to yachts. This will be followed by a third, still at the very early stages, that about the Big Apple itself, New York City.

It was ten in the morning at the Tate Modern, on London’s Bankside running alongside the Thames. Street artists, who spend long hours posing as statues, and the crowds may well be passing by a Ben Arogundade’s building on the Southbank, a mark of his former life as an architect.

A day in the life of Ben Arogundade is a chance to discover how this public figure who seems like an extrovert from a distance is in fact rather reserved. He’s doubtlessly at ease in society circles but comes across as almost shy. Our day began well before the Tate, at 6.30 for his daily 5-mile jog around the municipal playing field in Wandsworth before going back to his home in Battersea for breakfast.

After the Tate and a quick lunch, Ben Arogundade was to interview one of the many yacht owners he has to meet before later dropping in at Gloria Publishers in Kentish Town, North London, where a small team of 10 designers are looking for his guidance on these luxury vessels. At the end of the afternoon he will return home to work on a film scenario based on his unpublished novel, Loveless, in cooperation with Hollywood actor Laurence Fishburne.

It was of all of this, of his life as a model and of his talents as a singer that the public man spoke very privately to The Courier, with a modesty that is in marked contrast to his popular image as the extrovert star.

“Eclectic identities”

I am a born and bred Londoner via Nigeria. I would like to think that I have the dual consciousness of an Englishman in a Nigerian guy’s body, or something like that. My name’s Nigerian and a lot of my values are from there. What’s interesting is the struggle to be two things. Are you English completely, are you from the home country entirely, or both of those things? That is the big cultural/racial question now for minorities and a lot of other places, too, especially since 9/11 and 7/7 attacks in London.

How much you are prepared to shed your culture is something which every individual himself has to decide. A lot depends on what you do for a living. If you’re in certain professions; the media, music business or any of the creative fields, there won’t be the same pressure to conform. In fact, difference is what is requested in those areas. But if you’re in banking or any of the more conservative industries then there’ll be even more pressure to assimilate values, the aesthetic and cultural ones of the dominant people in those industries.

Simply a celebrity in the British media?

The press is only interested in where I’m from in the normal biographical way. People don’t usually interview me about my ‘Nigerianess’… In a way it’s good for people simply to be concerned with the issue on the table. When you’ve written a piece of work as with Black Beauty, people are interested in where the focus of the book comes from, not in me as a Nigerian.

Black Beauty

I think the problem of image for black people is acute everywhere. I focussed on US black stars because readers could relate to them... If you talk about representations of beauty by using Sidney Poitier as an example, or Halle Berry, etc. this garners more interest. The message reaches more people than if you talk about people you don’t know. All of the things I talk about in Black Beauty through the prism of celebrity are the same things that happen to black people on a day-to-day basis everywhere.

Lack of self-confidence amongst some migrants

You’ve hit on something that is very important, the correlation between a lack of a particular aesthetic confidence in schools and in the workplace. If you look at the position of women in general, they’re squeezed more. Take black women… they’re being squeezed not only by white male culture but also by the black male culture.

Continuity between Black Beauty and Pelé and architecture and writing

Pelé in a way is a completely different kind of proposition and yet similar in another. Pelé was one of the first guys who began to realise that sportspeople could be as powerful as politicians and this is even more the case today; Michael Jordan in basketball, etc. Sportspeople people now have the power, influence and money of politicians and some leaders of industry. I had to produce this book with a team of people and research the best material. For me, it’s an extension of architecture… The creative mechanics of what I’m doing are the same… Pelé was like building a tower block in terms of volume. It is very architectural.

Loveless movie project

This was a departure from Black Beauty and I wanted to do something that would take me out of what I had been associated with before… The novel is currently being finished along with a screenplay of the same project… It’s about the whole culture of dysfunctional relationships within modern London, a psychological relationship drama.

As a fashion model and a singer

Modelling was something that I did to help me financially when I was writing Black Beauty… and also to be in a position where I could get to grips with the aesthetic hierarchy in modelling and way that aesthetics determined who got what work… and use these to understand the politics of the industry.

I have been very interested in singing for a long time and am interested in doing something lyrically as much as vocally. I don’t have too many ambitions in this area right now even though I’m drawn to the idea of doing something musically creative.

See more on the website

Ben Arogundade, Black Beauty, Pavilion Books Limited, London 2000
www.pavilionbooks.co.uk