#6: Taslemat’s Sisi Eko collections are a welcome splash of colour in the NFT space

Follow the rise and rise of a black woman tapping into her family roots to create her own renditions of youth and beauty.

The title Sisi Eko when translated means a lady who hails from Lagos, but this probably tells you nothing about why the Sisi Ekos drawn by Taslemat are so special. 

The typical Lagos girl—or Sisi Eko—is a beautiful, sexy, flirty, flighty, sexual, fun, resourceful, tempestuous, steady, independent, big money spender. As someone who was born and has lived in Lagos all her life—but who cannot claim to be a Sisi Eko—the collection quickly caught my eye, for many reasons: The story, the collection, and lastly, the creator—Taslemat—whom I consider the embodiment of her own collection; a Sisi Eko to the core.

Barely 12 months after releasing their first NFTs, Taslemat and her sister have grown to become part of the established Nigerian artists in the space. Before NFTs, Taslemat sold vegan beauty products while she studied law at a prestigious university in Nigeria. But in less than a year, her NFTs have been collected by many prestigious collectors including Twitter–-yes, TwitterInc. Esther Eze reached out to Taslemat to tell her story and was very delighted when she agreed. Her story is an embodiment of the sensation that is Sisi Eko. 

Taslemat and her sisi ekos

I once told my twin sister, Taesirat, that our combined childhood experiences taught us to face new hurdles in life. Preparation meets opportunity. If we hadn’t been prepared, we’d have missed the opportunities NFTs presented. All the little pieces of art we made definitely contributed to our growth.

Navigating the world together as scholars

Taesirat and I were set up to be creative geniuses from childhood. We spent our time reading the storybooks and novels our mum got us. While we didn’t interact with many people at first, we got creative very quickly. Our primary school also supplied us with a functioning art room. 

If there was one thing I knew about my future, it was that I wanted to be independent and fend for myself. I liked learning new stuff and testing them out. By the time I was 13, I had picked up poetry. At 16, I learnt how to apply makeup on people’s faces. I was also a caterer. From the age of 18, I became a social media manager. I still do all these things to date.

While I was in school, one of my poems got featured in an anthology, Wreaths for a Wayfarer. I performed my poems twice at the University of Lagos’ Law Ladies Day in front of a lot of important people like Waje, Toni Tones, Niniola, Tomike Alayande, Shaffy Bello, and Polly Alakija.

I tried a couple of things after secondary school to become independent. Around 2019, I started a small lip gloss-making business. The next year, my interest in art was piqued, and I started painting. In 2021, I posted the first human I drew on Twitter and it got a lot of responses. 

Getting into the NFT space

NFTs changed my world and the way I saw the art industry. All of a sudden, people from across the world could see and buy the artworks I painted.

Everything moved so fast. I first heard about NFTs through Taesirat. I didn’t understand what it was, but I would retweet her post anytime she tweeted about dropping one art as an NFT. It didn’t concern me—I was focused on pushing my cosmetic business. 

Until she made a sale. 

I reached out to her to ask what NFTs were and then went on YouTube to do more research. I saw videos about OpenSea—one of the largest NFT marketplaces—and other different markets. So, I asked Taesirat what market she was using, and she said Foundation. I tried to get on, but I needed an invitation to ‌use it. 

Taesirat recommended I should begin with OpenSea, so I went back to YouTube to watch a tutorial video, set up my Metamask, and signed up. The account-opening process was easy if you followed the steps. The minting part was a bit complicated, but I saw another YouTube video and learned how to do it.

When you’re minting on OpenSea, you're required to pay a fee to conduct a successful transaction on Ethereum, especially when it’s your first time. Gas fees were really high then, so Taesirat and my partner sent me money for it. I think I paid ‌$300. I didn’t know then that the price wasn’t static; they vary depending on the time you carry out a transaction! I made my first sale eight days after I minted.

Sisi Ekos 2

Making sales 

Nobody has a working formula for how to make a sale in the NFT space. One of my works stayed on OpenSea for five months. If I wasn’t doing something else, I would have starved.

In order to succeed, I had to change my mindset. Even though I had a strong support system—filled with love from my family, my partner, and the community I grew online—I came into the space on my own. I had to push myself to start creating, grow my social media, build my cosmetic business, and do other side gigs to earn some consistent money. I was either sleeping at 2 a.m. or not sleeping at all to keep this running.

Soon, it was obvious something had to change about my process.

I was in my hostel when I first heard about Clubhouse. It was a platform that provided the right space I needed to learn more about the NFT community. Clubhouse was my first chance at growing my connections, and I made it work. I was hopping on rooms and tagging people on my tweets about my art. 

But to progress to the next level, I quickly learned to relate with people as individuals, not as potential collectors or money bags. Little things helped, like turning on post notifications for everyone I followed—even those with small followings—and interacting with their tweets or entering their DMs to check on them if they were offline for a long time. 

My public speaking skills helped me make strong connections in the space. I worked with Umba Daima, the mother company of Black NFT Art, as a community moderator for two weeks. The studio had made a call to people in the Nigerian NFT community and I applied and got the job. I worked with them for another three months after my initial gig. 

I've been a community manager for two NFT platforms: Black NFT Art and Glow Labs, and have created my own brand, NFT Fridays—now Non-Fungible Frenz (or NNFrenz). Today, I have over 10,000 followers on Twitter who I interact with regularly. I try to be true to myself. I care about my reputation in the space a lot, and I try not to be associated with any project out to scam people. I also stay in contact with people I connect with.

Throughout my career in the NFT space, I’ve always wanted to work with people making moves in the NFT space because making art alone isn’t sustainable. I don’t just want to promote my work to make sales; I also wish to work with the likes of Metamask and OpenSea.

Sisi Eko: Lagos Babes

My Sisi Eko NFT collections were inspired by my mom. Sisi Eko in this context means “a classy person”. My mom grew up on the island, and in her time, people that grew up on the island in Lagos were seen as high-class babes and rich children. They were “happening babes”. If my mom shows you her throwback pictures, you’ll know that this woman was a woman about town. She and her sisters are all still Sisi Ekos to me. 

(L-R) Her mother, the original Sisi Eko; and Taslemat

I didn't want to title my collection a plain name like “woman”. I wanted it to have a touch of my own culture. If people saw it, they should be able to tell I’m a Nigerian and a Yoruba babe. I wanted that connection. And I tried to achieve that with my first Sisi Eko drop. The pieces in the collection follow this system: they all have Yoruba panegyric names like Asake and Atoke. 

I released my first drop on OpenSea in 2021: 22 Sisis with a proper description and detailed explanation to portray what they meant. Each had inscriptions like “Asake is a Lagos babe who lives on the island.” 

Even though I was still a growing artist, I was glad about the response I got because the first and second drops sold out. 

For my second Sisi Eko drop, I tried to explore, try out different things, and drop more art as NFTs. I released the collection on OpenSea on International Women’s Day 2022 on March 8th. The collection had 50 Sisis. 

With my second Sisi Eko collection, I tried to tell a story with my work and create something to show my progress. If you compare the art I was doing last year with the ones I have put out this year, you’ll know that I have grown compared to when I was drawing with my phone and hands. You can see that the art and highlights are different. The third—a collection I dropped on Foundation—was the only one that took a while to sell out.

The inspiration for my other works is not very different from that of Sisi Eko. I create what I like. I want my work to make people smile and happy. I use bright colours to lift people’s moods. I just want more people to see black women’s and Africans’ works on the blockchain. 

I’m a little anxious though. I don’t know how this current drop will go. I’ve just listed it on OpenSea, and it’ll go up for sale before the drop party. The listing is another stress because I have to do it individually for fifty items.

Giving back

My idea of community is a group of people who believe in what you’re doing, and whom you connect with. Non-Fungible Frenz is a community I’m building with NFT artists and crypto beginners. We’re trying to educate about Web3 and all the opportunities it brings. I feel like Web3 is the future, and I’m trying to build a space where people can be comfortable enough to grow and learn more. It’s one of the ways I hope to give back to society. But there’s more.

Last year, in 2021, my twin sister Taesirat and I found that the standard of everything in our primary school was dilapidated. No one had been paying proper attention to the art section. We were so disappointed because a lot of kids grew their talent through the program. 

So, she decided to start an art fund for this cause. We donate art supplies frequently to the school to motivate the kids. That way, they can figure out their talents early.

We’re also considering helping some Nigerians in the NFT space fund their first mint and maybe pay for gas fees. Money is a major barrier for most Nigerians that want to hop on the NFT space because of the naira-to-dollar exchange rate. Gas fees are expensive because of the rates. Even we had to save what we could to afford it.

My sister and I are just two people trying to build and utilize all the opportunities and resources we have, even with our 9-5 jobs. We believe over time, we’ll build on the resources we have and make a powerful impact on the community.

We really enjoyed writing Taslemat’s story and we hope you enjoyed reading it as well!

We couldn’t get Taslemat to divulge all her secrets, but she did share this one song with us which she describes as the soundtrack of her life right now. 

Please check out our other stories like the Artistic phases of LethaboHuma and The evolution of tayodamnshoes.

Till next time,

Wagmi from FOW3. 💛