I’m proud of my Yoruba background –Adunni

by Akeem Lasisi 

   

Adunni Adewale

Adunni Adewale is the lady behind Date Gone Bad, a new comedy skit making waves online, AKEEM LASISI writes

White girl’ of the Nigerian movie industry, Adunni Adewale (aka Adunni Ade), is starting the New Year on a bright note. Her video skit, Date Gone Bad, released on Youtube about 10 days ago, has attracted so much attention that it has recorded over 100,000 hits.

That sounds very cool for an actress to entrench herself in aiming the Nigeria’s star-studded movie industry. The two-cast skit, featuring actor and producer Joseph Jayeoba and Adunni herself, was directed by Lagos-based Sanjo Adegoke, who has been involved in several other related projects.

In the comic film, the guy makes a deadly mistake on sighting a lady of Adunni’s complexion.  The colour of her skin portrays her as a white folk, who cannot understand Wa n pa o – the term Yorubas use in describing anyone who does not understand a single word of the Yoruba Language.

But Adunni is Yoruba-born of a Nigerian father and an American mother. This is the intrigue she plays upon in Date Gone Bad. The guy in the skit is an opportunist who wants to lure her to bed – and, indeed, rape her.

He invites her for a date. In the course of their conversation in English, the goon makes a phone call in which he boasts – in Yoruba -  to a friend that his trap has just caught an oyinbo girl. He swears that  he is going to unleash his manhood on her as soon as they leave the restaurant where they are meeting.

Unfortunately for him, Adunni understands everything he has said. After a slight suspense, she thus gets enraged and launches a Yoruba verbal war on the predator. The surprise here is bound to beat any viewer’s imagination and make them laugh profusely.

“I must say I am shocked at the kind of attention the skit has got,” she tells our correspondent in an interview. “I knew it would be good, but I did not imagine it would get up to this level.”

The success of the production, which Adegoke, otherwise called SOJ, also describes as exciting, has spurred Adewale on to do more in the sub-genres. Adegoke is also a music producer.

Adunni first attracted attention when she featured in Saidi Balogun’s movie, You or I, Fred Idika’s Behind the Cloud (a TV series), Dereck Obasi’s Babatunde Diaries and  a new film by Desmond Elliot – Rosemary Roses. Besides, the graduate of Accounting from the University of Kentucky, USA, also featured in Sound Sultan’s music video, Kokose, while she did same for Ice Prince last September.

Born in New York, USA, she grew up in Lagos where she attended Chrisland Schools and The Bells Secondary School, Ota, Ogun State. It was after her secondary education that she went to study at Kentucky, only to return to Nigeria a couple of months ago. She has no intention to practise accounting.

She says, “Entertainment has always been part of me. Even when I was young, I would stand in the front of a mirror, acting out the fashion part of me. I never wanted to be a lawyer or anything. God blessed me with a lot of talents.”

She adds that though her Lagos-based father, who she describes as a ‘big and well successful businessman’ inspired her to study Accounting, neither he nor her (Adunni’s) mum has any problem with her love for show business.

“My father supports me 100 per cent. My mum is very proud of me. Americans don’t care about this kind of thing. They support their children in whatever they choose to do. So, I have no problem building a dream in the entertainment industry. The fact is that I have never been a copycat. I am not looking for the fastest way to limelight. Rather, I want to express myself. My ambition is to be recognised worldwide. But I want to be known for what I have done. I want to be successful through hard work.”

While Adunni says she does not give attention to men when they make suggestive moves to her – say, on location – she enthuses that everyone welcomes her at work. But when asked emphatically if men have been making all kinds of advances to her, she says, “Obviously!”

On how she became fluent in Yoruba, Adunni explains that from day one, she has always been a fan of culture.

“I believe you must embrace who you are. I don’t understand why anybody will want to say, ‘I try to run away from who I am’. You have to be yourself. You have to be proud of yourself. That is why I want to speak Yoruba at every opportunity I have – even when I am in the US.”