🥤And...scene! Funke Akindele is back!

👋 Good morning. I’m really enjoying Ayra Starr’s rollout. At the start of her career, she branded short skirts, and suddenly every short skirt reminded us of her. Then came the universal Star(r) Girl, which is also the name of her new album. And now, you can’t wear a purple-colored fit without someone asking if you’re an Ayra fan. Fun marketing stuff!

Let's get into it.

In this edition: This week in culture, an interview with an indie game dev, what we know about Funke Akindele’s new film, New Music Friday, and more.

If you’re enjoying this, don’t forget to subscribe and join The Juice community. We’re building this together ♡.

Phrase of the week

Garri wey una carry

🗞️ THIS WEEK IN CULTURE

🎵 MUSIC

Ayra Starr left a voicemail for everyone as part of the rollout for her third studio album, Starrgirl, released today! And the cutest part of it? Zayn Malik was on that voicemail. He is also a featured artist on the album’s 14th track, Heaven Baby. You can find the link on our playlist below.2

⭐ FASHION

German sportswear brand PUMA is the official merchandise partner for Fatimah Gimsay’s Black Market. The cast served colors in a shoot wearing PUMA tees, socks, and kicks, paired with BellaStylitas skirts. If they’re pulling up with 50,000 people to chase a Guinness World Record, they might as well look fabulous doing so. Peep the fits.

📚 LITERATURE

We’re excited to announce that Caleb Azumah Nelson’s debut novel Open Water is set to be adapted into a movie! It’s a story of two Black creatives falling in love in London while the city presses in on them. Filming has started; no premiere date yet, but set your reminders for 2027.

📽️ FILM

We missed Ifeoma Chukwuogo’s debut feature, Phoenix Fury, when it premiered at the 2024 AFRIFF, so you can imagine our excitement that the film is finally coming to Nigerian cinemas on October 30.

And there’s plenty to look forward to: Chukwuogo wrote, directed, and produced the film herself, and its festival run has already earned her Best Director and the film Best Category at the 2024 AFRIFF.

⚡TRENDING

For the first time in 35 years, Nigeria’s Super Falcons didn’t qualify for the Brazil 2027 Women’s World Cup. They initially missed the straight ticket to the World Cup after losing the quarter-final match against Cameroon and also to South Africa during the playoffs.

MAIN SQUEEZE

Tade Ajiboye made a peaceful game in the middle of Lagos

Some games are made to keep you on the edge of your seat. Go North asks you to slow down. Tade Ajiboye is a Lagos-based solo indie game developer and lifelong gamer.

On July 28, he released Go North, a cosy adventure game where players explore beautiful mazes, discover unusual items and help fellow explorers with strange little quests. Beneath its gentle visuals is an emotionally resonant story.

The game has already made waves internationally, appearing in showcases including Wholesome Games, Indie Live Expo and Afro Game Showcase. It has also won first place at Lagos Games Week and Creation Africa Forum, and been covered by IGN, GameTrailers and The Game Awards.

I asked Ajiboye whether making such a peaceful game was, in some way, an escape from the chaos of Lagos. He said his goal was simply to “build a game where players can explore beautiful mazes,” drawing inspiration from games like GRIS and A Short Hike.

In this interview, we spoke about the games he grew up with, what Go North is really about, and the hardest part of being an indie game developer in Nigeria.

Where did you grow up, and what were the games you had access to as a kid? The trailer feels reminiscent of Temple Run

I grew up in Lagos. Most of my life was spent there. But fortunately, I had access to a bunch of different games. From games like Atlantis on the PS1, to Pokemon and Mega Man on the Nintendo Game Boy Advance, and Harry Potter, Assassin’s Creed, etc on PS3 and Xbox. I grew up playing all kinds of games.

You've said you've been making games since childhood. What was the first thing you built, and who played it?

I can’t remember the first game I built, to be honest. But I know I built a lot of different games as a kid. A notable one was this action RPG where you play as Mega Man Zero and fight Sonic (the hedgehog) and dragons.

For this particular game, only my uncle and I really played it because I built it while I was visiting my uncle in Ibadan. By the time I had returned to Lagos, I was probably building another game.

Dara is named after your friend, and she's a Littler searching for a god who'll grant her one wish. When you were building her, whose wish were you actually writing about?

I wasn’t actually writing about any wish in particular. I wanted to spin a narrative around the gameplay, and that was what I came up with. Before coming up with the story, I had settled on what the core gameplay mechanics of the game would be.

But I also knew I wanted to tell a story with the game (because I love telling stories). So I sat down and let the creative juices pour out. Dara and her wish were the result.

What’s the hardest thing about being an indie game dev in Nigeria?

That’s a bit difficult to answer. I think it’s having to figure out a lot of things yourself. The industry is still pretty young, especially in terms of PC and console gaming. Charting those territories without guidance is quite a task.

Aside from that, limited funding and platform restrictions are also large obstacles. By platform restrictions, I mean the difficulty of actually creating a developer account on large PC and console gaming platforms like Steam, PlayStation, and Nintendo.

It's been two weeks since launch. What has surprised you most about who is actually playing it?

There’s a Portuguese player who did a review not too long after launch. What was surprising was just how far into the game he had gone in the few days.

He had gotten to the last world and had likely put in over 13 hours of gameplay. From his review, he mentioned being mostly captivated by the story. And that felt good.

You've talked about wanting African players to value locally made games. What would have to change — price, platform, payment rails, something else — for this to happen?

I think we just need to build better quality games. There are many barriers to African players valuing locally made games, but these same barriers exist for African players to value global games in general.

Purchasing power, platform restrictions, and general exposure/interesting in non- mainstream games are all barriers stopping African players from being large consumers of (non-mobile) games.

So, in my opinion, the thing that differentiates their appreciation of global games from local games is just the quality (and quantity) of games produced here.

The game is available for download, and you can check it out here.

POLL

🔪 THE PEEL

And…Scene! Funke Akindele is back!

The discourse

On Tuesday, award-winning filmmaker Funke Akindele shook the internet with the official announcement of her new film, The Four. It’s scheduled for release on December 11.

The Four is being publicized with grand, engaging content, including a magazine-like rollout and a relay race amid the typical Akindele dancing and singing. We did not anticipate it, yet we were not surprised, as such announcements are the norm with Akindele. 

With The Four on the horizon, filmmaker Akindele is ready to beat her own highest-grossing film, again. But what do we know about The Four? 

Peeling it back

Akindele is not new to the movie-making scene; she began by acting in several movies, including shows like I Need to Know (1998), comedy film Jenifa (2008), and Maami (2011), which contributed to her recognition. 

In 2019, she picked up her directorial hat with Your Excellency, which grossed ₦186 million. Then, Omo Ghetto: The Saga in 2020, which grossed ₦636 million at the box office. After a two-year break, Akindele returned to everyone’s screens with Battle on Buka Street, which grossed ₦668 million in total. 

Her movies currently hold the top three highest-grossing Nigerian films of all time positions with Behind The Scenes (₦2.7B), Everybody Loves Jenifa (₦1.8B), and A Tribe Called Judah (₦1.4B). 

Funke’s very original annual rollout 

Her recent rollout looks more expensive and organized than usual. The first promo video visualizes the FAAN (Funke Akindele Network) Blockbuster Relay with actor Richard Mofe-Damijo acting as the host of the race. 

In it are cast members (all embodying their characters) from her previous releases, representing teams like Behind The Scenes, The Return of Jenifa, and A Tribe Called Judah, engaged in the race. A new unidentified team later won the race, and that was the first unveiling of The Four. 

A photoshoot release revealed the cast dressed in well-tailored adire, ankara, and aso-oke attire, along with dramatic African hairstyles, as they posed in a magazine-style shoot. The BTS of the FAAN Blockbuster race was also shared. In a vibrant promotional video filled with colours, Akindele donned a red-and-yellow Ankara dress with a glamorous gele as she welcomed her fans and the train that brought forth The Four. 

Akindele continued with the promotional dancing skills she has perfected over the years and was once shaded for, while also revealing that we’ll be getting “action, humor, emotion, drama, music, and fashion.”

In another teaser video, the cast described their characters in three words. Esosa (played by Waje) is intense, psychotic, and friendly. Todun (played by Bisola Aiyeola) is fun, the life of a party, and fashionably “Odu,” the community where the movie is set. Lastly, Labake (played by Akindele) is courageous, determined, and a fighter, while Chioma Akpotha’s Somto is loyal, persevering, and dedicated.

What we know about The Four

While we wait for the official trailer, here’s what we know. Accompanied by the tagline “No One Fights Alone,” The Four centers the Odu community. We have the character Esosa and three other women in the community who share friendship, resilience, love, and motherhood. 

These four women will go ahead to fight for the future of a young man they all love. Their friendship, loyalty, and courage will also be tested.

Akindele’s movie rap sheet is mostly predictable, given the betrayals, conflict, chaos, and deceit that often occur.

This played out in Behind the Scenes and between Lefty and Femi Stone in Omo Ghetto: The Saga. Already, we can already picture Esosa and her friends getting into fights, being betrayed by family or friends, and somehow finding a way to scale through it all. 

Like the Judah brothers in A Tribe Called Judah, they could be a close-knit friend circle united against a common enemy.

Or, their friendship might not withstand the test of time, with one of them (usually the main character) finding companionship elsewhere, much like Ronke did with her domestic staff, Oluchi and Johnson in Behind the Scenes.

As for the visuals, with the promotional videos released during rollout, we know we’re getting a high-quality and more polished production.

The fashion and styling already set the bar, and with what we’ve seen, the filming will definitely look just as refined, which suggests a bigger budget, higher stakes, and naturally, bigger box office gross expectations.

The Core

Marketing doesn't make a movie; the story and acting do. However, as we await the twists and turns of The Four, the marketing has already brought us here.

It has stoked our interest and given us something to anticipate. For now, we hope we are wowed by Akindele and every actor’s delivery. We can't wait to see how December unfolds. 

🎵 PRESSED BY THE JUICE

It’s raining purple on this end! Get your gele ready and crank up your speakers for Ayra Starr’s Starrgirl, and new songs from Bella Shmurda, Rema, Kunmie, and Amma.

We update every Friday! Save, share, and follow our Pressed by Juice playlists on Spotify.

Do you have a song you’d like us to include? Put us on, reply here.

PHRASE OF THE WEEK

“Garri wey una carry” was a phrase Odumodu used while praying for someone on the timeline. From the context, it seems to refer to the opportunities, blessings, or good fortune that someone has to share or bestow on others.