This story, like all stories, begins with Omotayo Banjo’s parents, who left Ogun State for Washington, D.C. They would have a child during a wave of immigration to the West from Nigeria, seeking opportunities for a better life. As with most immigrant parents, the plan was to return home, but home would become a contested concept for their children who grew up in the United States without ever visiting the Motherland.  

Nearly four decades later, it seems that the Motherland has found its way to them in the States instead. This project was inspired by Dr. Omotayo Banjo’s curiosity about the impact of Afrobeats music and Nigerian popular culture on American’s understanding of race and Black diasporic American’s understanding of themselves. In collaboration with a transnational scholar, narrative change researcher, a few directors and producers, Dr. Banjo forged a team of creatives who would capture her story as a Nigerian-American and her aspirations for her American born Nigerian child.