Disney is facing towards the future with its new miniseries, Iwájú (2024-). And quite literally, as in the Yoruba language, Iwájú translates to forward facing. With the assistance of pan-African media company, Kugali, Disney has helped imagine a vibrant, Futurist, hyper technotopia in the Nigeria’s capital Lagos, where the tale takes place.
Iwájú is a first for Disney. Never before have they collaborated with an animation company outside of their organisation. Just a few years ago, Kugali Media was raising a £25,000 Kickstarter to create a pan-African comic collection and now they are co-creating a multimillion miniseries with Disney! How did this happen? In a 2020 interview with the BBC, Kugali cocreator and animator, Hamid Ibrahim, said that they wanted to kick Disney’s ass! Days later, Kugali were approached on LinkedIn by a Disney employee who liked the interview, and it turned out they both wanted to create a show from an African cultural perspective. The rest is history.
Iwájú is a miniseries that intertwines elements of cyberpunk with Afrofuturism. The premise is about a ten-year old girl named Tola, who lives on the affluent Lagos Island. For her 10th birthday, she begs her father, Tunde, to take her to the mainland where he grew up, but he refuses. Instead, he gives her a pet lizard. Disappointed, she is consoled by her friend and family gardener, Kole, who promises her adventure. What ensues is a classic tale of youth in revolt. The series revolves heavily around themes of class, poverty, technology and imagined futures via a black cultural lens. There is a wonderful balance between an enjoyable kid’s adventure series and a serious critical analysis of our inevitable technological future.
Tola’s lizard, Otin, is one example of Disney’s attention to West African cultural detail in Iwájú. In traditional Nigerian storytelling, agama lizards like Otin are trickster figures, known as Agadzagadza. Without too many spoilers, Otin is representative of the potential for change within humans, and can signify rebirth too. She may seem to be on the margins of the plotline, but Otin is fundamental to the fate of Tola, Kole and Tunde.
Throughout Iwájú, there is frequent use of pidgin English and the Yoruba language alongside English. Kugali co-founder Olufikayo ‘Ziki Nelson’ Adeola insisted that Disney used native Nigerians for all the voice acting roles in the miniseries. He has stated that language is essential to his company’s values of authenticity. Tunde’s voice actor, Dayo Okeniyi, recently explained in an interview with Semafor that authentic Yoruba voice actors such as himself helped create natural variations between the three languages and that it helped ascertain the correct usage of particular colloquialisms. This makes Iwájú yet another first for Disney as it is the closest they have come to creating a nonEnglish language animated film or series.
However, don’t worry if you are not familiar with Yoruba or pidgin English, these languages don’t completely drive the narrative, they are complementary and add a wonderful extra layer for Yoruba speakers and the wider West-African diaspora across the globe. You are not an olódo! But if Kole was here right now, just as he jokingly says to Tola – ‘Abeg, make you no speak Yoruba again!’
Despite the keen attention to some details, Disney has still managed to create its own obstacles. Believe it or not, Disney+ isn’t even available in Nigeria! Although in recent developments, due to popular demand, Kugali cofounder Tolu Olowofoyeku tweeted to confirm in late April, two months after Iwájú’s release on Disney+, that the series is now available on the Disney Channel in 50 African countries.
Since 2020, Disney have promoted their ‘Stories Matter’ campaign as a way to create a wider array of stories from previously marginalised communities in the United States and further afield from across globe. It has also been a way to grapple with their deeply problematic history as an animation company when it comes to representation. There is still work to be done, but with releases in recent years such as the Marvel blockbuster, Black Panther (2018), the empowerment from celebrating African narratives is being felt across the globe. Ziki Nelson was partly inspired to create the miniseries after visiting a Comicon for the first time and is delighted that Iwájú now offers a wider variety of black Disney characters for fans to cosplay as! He is also happy that the miniseries provides the opportunity for viewers to learn and to have empathy for other cultures.
Iwájú is a beautifully crafted miniseries and really makes us hope that the team at Kugali will have the opportunity to collaborate with Disney again in the future. And when we say miniseries, it really is a MINI series. With just five episodes that are each 15 minutes in length, there is no excuse not to go home and binge Iwájú tonight!
