Nigeria’s Hottest Magazine Speaks to Fashion’s Global Future

2020 has been a year of seismic change, and the publishing industry has not been immune. The ongoing pandemic has caused numerous magazines to shutter, halt production, or rethink their strategies to reflect current concerns. For many, the old way of doing things has felt tired. For Seni Saraki, the cofounder of Native magazine, the year’s challenges presented an opportunity for reflection. “You can get so caught up in the right now without seeing the bigger picture of why what you’re doing is important,” shared Saraki on the phone from London. “I want people in 15 or 20 years to be able to see that during the pandemic of 2020, this is what Africans were listening to, watching, and interested in—this is what happened in Nigeria.”

If any publication was poised to do that, it’s Native. Currently sold in fashion capitals like New York, London, Paris, and Lagos, Native is in a unique position to cover not just Nigerian fashion and culture but also contemporary Black issues globally. The magazine provides an overview of Africa’s brightest talents: the designers, models, musicians, and performers who are shaping culture on the continent and beyond. Launched in 2016, it was among the first to introduce stars like Burna Boy, Odunsi, and Davido to audiences in the States. It’s consistently been on the pulse.

Cross-cultural relevance unites the issue’s cover stars; there is Mowalola Ogunlesi, the British Nigerian designer set to head up Kanye West’s Yeezy x Gap collaboration; Tems, the Nigerian singer-songwriter who topped SoundCloud’s list of artists to know in 2020; and Naira Marley, the chart-topping Nigerian rapper. All three have sizable international followings and enviable style, but each embodies celebrity differently. According to Saraki, Ogunlesi’s tenacity allowed her to pursue the right opportunities instead of accepting whatever was offered. “She’s one of the most intelligent and strong-willed people I know,” he says. “She’s killing it in London, but everything she does is so big in Nigeria. I’ve seen her turn down things others would jump at because it wasn’t the right moment.”

Marley, whose social media presence and unpredictable public persona consistently make headlines in Nigeria, was a different kind of muse. “Naira became the most popular artist in Nigeria last year, but he had been making music for a while,” says Saraki. “He had to come home and fully immerse himself in his [work] to take over the game with his breakthrough.” Similarly, Tems, the current It girl of the nation’s alt R&B scene, felt like a future superstar. “I’m enamored with the concept of breakout stars in music,” says Saraki. “To go from speaking to 10 people to speaking to the entire world, as a publication, you can almost relate because I remember when Native had two followers, and now there are thousands.”

Native’s growth spurt occurred in part due to its visuals. Its specialty is evocative editorials focused on youth culture, and they stand in contrast to the glossiness associated with traditional fashion photography. For Saraki, this current issue’s portfolio focused on Tems was especially meaningful. “We put together a team that was just pure African talent,” he says of the shoot by photographer Isabel Okoro and stylist Morinsola Hassan-Odukale. “This was Tems’s first cover shoot; Isabel and the stylist are also very young, so it was this young team who just made it happen. It feels good when you’re working with new photographers or people getting their first big placement. Some shoots are essentially [about] talent training. If we don’t give a photographer like Isabel an opportunity, who is going to?”

Showcasing up-and-coming talent is one part of the mission. But Saraki hopes the magazine will serve as a time capsule for Nigeria in the 21st century. “As a publication that is based in Africa and focused on African identity, I feel that we have a duty to crystallize this moment and document what’s happening,” he says. “One of the reasons hip-hop and African American culture have survived is because they’ve been documented so well. You can go online and see Tupac’s first interview after leaving jail, Beyoncé’s first photo shoot, or hear Dizzee Rascal’s first song.…I’ve been humbled by the fact that people read Native around the world, and the main feedback we get is that people want to see and know more about African culture on the continent and throughout the diaspora. People want to know about Ghanaians in Boston, Ethiopians in Paris, the full range of what is going on. Now is the time for us to tell our stories.”