Jimi Solanke: The Indestructible stands as both biography and cultural monument. It restores to the record a man whose contributions to Nigerian theatre, music and storytelling were profound, and it does so with grace, intelligence and a palpable sense of gratitude. Sutton has produced a work that honours its subject without mythologising him, and in doing so, she has given Nigerian cultural history a gift of lasting value.
THERE are artists whose names become shorthand for an era, and there are others whose influence is so widely diffused that it becomes almost invisible. Jimi Solanke (4 July 1942 – 5 February 2024) belongs firmly to the latter category: a performer whose voice, presence and creative generosity shaped the cultural consciousness of post‑independence Nigeria, yet whose legacy has rarely been accorded the formal documentation it deserves.
Oluwatoyin Sutton’s Jimi Solanke: The Indestructible (2022) is an attempt to correct that imbalance, and it succeeds with admirable clarity, warmth and scholarly diligence.
Sutton approaches her subject with the seriousness of a cultural historian and the affection of someone who understands the emotional terrain of artistic labour. The result is a biography that feels both intimate and expansive. It is not merely the story of one man’s creative life, but a portrait of a nation’s artistic evolution told through the eyes of one of its most versatile practitioners.
Solanke’s career, which spans theatre, music, storytelling, television and visual art, is presented here as a kind of cultural tapestry. Sutton traces his early years in the ferment of the 1960s, when Nigeria’s artistic scene was alive with post‑independence experimentation. His collaborations with Wole Soyinka and Wale Ogunyemi are handled with a light but assured touch, offering insight into the creative networks that shaped modern Nigerian theatre without lapsing into hagiography.
Sutton is particularly strong on the intellectual and political energy of the period, capturing the sense of possibility that animated the Orisun Theatre and other pioneering institutions.
Where the book is most affecting, however, is in its treatment of Solanke’s work as a storyteller. For many Nigerians, his baritone voice and folkloric performances were a fixture of childhood television. Sutton treats this legacy with the seriousness it warrants, arguing persuasively that Solanke’s tales were not simply entertainment but a form of cultural pedagogy. Through them, he transmitted Yoruba cosmology, communal ethics and a sense of imaginative wonder to generations of young viewers. Sutton’s analysis is both affectionate and precise, and it is here that her prose is at its most lyrical.
The biography’s structure – ten parts spread across more than 350 pages – allows Sutton to dwell on the nuances of Solanke’s creative life. She is attentive to the fragility of artistic memory in a country where institutional archiving remains limited, and her book becomes, in effect, a counter‑archive: a deliberate act of preservation. The narrative is enriched by her decision to situate Solanke within a wider constellation of artists, many of whom have also suffered from historical neglect. In doing so, she offers a broader meditation on the precariousness of cultural labour in Nigeria.
Sutton does not shy away from the more difficult aspects of Solanke’s journey. The financial instability, the institutional indifference, the emotional toll of sustaining a creative life in a challenging environment – all are handled with sensitivity. Yet the tone is never despairing. Instead, Sutton presents Solanke as a figure of remarkable resilience, whose commitment to his craft remained undimmed even in the face of adversity. The book’s title, The Indestructible, feels less like a flourish and more like a statement of fact.
If the biography has a limitation, it lies in its occasional reluctance to interrogate Solanke’s international engagements in greater depth. His performances abroad and the reception of his work among diaspora audiences are touched upon but not fully explored. One senses that this is a story still waiting to be told. Yet this is a minor quibble in a work that otherwise offers a richly textured and deeply humane portrait.
Sutton’s prose is measured and elegant, drawing on her background as a poet and educator. She writes with a clarity that will appeal to general readers, while offering enough historical and cultural detail to satisfy scholars of African performance. The book’s emotional register is finely balanced: admiring but not uncritical, celebratory yet grounded in the realities of artistic life.
In the end, Jimi Solanke: The Indestructible stands as both biography and cultural monument. It restores to the record a man whose contributions to Nigerian theatre, music and storytelling were profound, and it does so with grace, intelligence and a palpable sense of gratitude. Sutton has produced a work that honours its subject without mythologising him, and in doing so, she has given Nigerian cultural history a gift of lasting value.
For readers unfamiliar with Solanke, this book offers an illuminating introduction. For those who grew up with his voice, it is a homecoming. And for the broader literary world, it is a reminder of the importance of documenting the lives of artists whose influence, though widely felt, has too often gone unrecorded.