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For years, Eunice Olumide MBE was a twin power in opposing industries. She was recognized for gracing the covers of Vogue and runways of Gucci, however out of the highlight, she was rapping alongside the world’s greatest hip hop stars.
The 37-year-old supermodel, activist and Star Wars actress is bringing her hidden previous to gentle in her directorial debut Secret Lives, which tells the untold historical past of British hip hop. Olumide sat down with PA to share why now could be the time she’s determined to open up.
“In 2023 I used to be presenting a TV present referred to as Edinburgh Unlocked and on the identical time I launched this EP,” says Olumide, who was rapping underneath a pseudonym. “A journalist who labored for [a newspaper] had this EP come throughout his information desk and he recognised that it was me by my voice. It blew his thoughts.”
She pauses, “I pleaded with him to not run the story [about my double life] and simply to run a narrative on the EP, which fortunately, he ultimately did.”
It’s the form of media entanglement most celebrities dread, however for Olumide, it was a tipping level. “Social media was and is changing into larger and greater,” she says, “and so I used to be simply actually acutely aware that this was going to come back out. So both I speak about it myself, or I let another person speak about it who may not do it justice.”
Secret Lives was her reply. A documentary that traces the missed pioneers of UK hip hop, and her personal choice to stay nameless within the scene, whilst her title rose in style. “I actually needed to create a competing ideology,” she explains, “to show that you could possibly do music and achieve success as a feminine artist with out placing your physique first.”
At simply 15, Olumide was found by a scout from a neighborhood modelling company whereas procuring in Sauchiehall Avenue, Glasgow. It was at this age that she additionally launched her first single.
By 17, she was touring and rapping with legends like Mos Def, Damian Marley, Lauryn Hill and Wu Tang.
“What I realized early on […] from main document labels that needed to signal me was that, as a lady, it was not attainable for me to retain my inventive management and my mental property,” she says. “Until I conformed to a unique means of representing myself.”
That means of representing herself was by way of sexualisation, which she didn’t consider was related to her music.
It was a jarring parallel, in a single world, modelling was providing her cash for her picture, and in some ways, hip hop was demanding the identical. “I intentionally separated them,” she says. “I didn’t need anybody to say, ‘She’s solely profitable in music as a result of she’s a mannequin.’”
And so her resolution was to wrap up and shut down. “I used to be at all times like, scarfed up, hooded up, sun shades – trying as unattractive as attainable,” she laughs. “Promoters, managers, labels – they may not perceive it and didn’t prefer it in any respect.”
Regardless of the pushback, her musical friends revered it. “Folks revered me as a result of I had a status for my music and nothing else,” she says.
She fondly recollects how Busta Rhymes as soon as launched her as “my little sister, like, she’s a G.”
However Olumide’s alternative to stay nameless didn’t imply she wasn’t a mainstream success. Again in 2010, she carried out at one of many world’s greatest music festivals.
“Enjoying at Glastonbury as a hip-hop band was simply exceptional,” she says, “so you already know that was such an unbelievable expertise and I form of really feel like at such an early age, [myself, Jamal Edwards and Liam Tootill from SBTV] achieved a lot.”
However the drive behind her movie Secret Lives runs deeper than recognition. It’s about preserving a historical past on the verge of being forgotten.
“There are documentaries saying that hip hop began in 2002 simply because that’s how far again Google goes,” say Olumide, quoting fellow rapper and comic Ben Bailey Smith (Doc Brown), who additionally seems within the movie.
“My factor was about creating an archive of historical past – British historical past – that’s essential to all of us.”
The movie touches briefly on her story, together with a second the place outdated collaborators react to studying she labored in style. “Actually one or two folks within the UK and one or two folks within the US knew,” she says.
One of many few who didn’t want telling was the late British designer Vivienne Westwood.
“She had a capability to learn folks,” says Olumide, “so it wasn’t one thing I wanted to articulate.”
She credit Westwood as a kindred spirit – somebody battling the identical contradictions between artwork and business success, as she navigated being a local weather activist within the style trade. “She cherished me to bits,” Olumide smiles merely.
And whereas style had its contradictions, it was a profession that gave her indispensable instruments too. “I obtained lots out of style – it’s one of many solely industries on the earth the place ladies receives a commission extra,” she factors out, “and positively it’s much less discriminatory primarily based on class.”
It additionally gave her the boldness to current herself in methods she now finds empowering. “I don’t suppose I’d know the right way to current myself now, aside from the apparent hyper-sexualised girl, if I hadn’t labored in style.”
However taking part in these various characters for runways, cowl shoots and campaigns didn’t seep into her life exterior of labor.
“I don’t really feel like I current myself as completely different characters. I really feel like I’m simply me and I simply make artwork,” she says, “however I feel style provides me the power to signify myself to different folks in a means that they’ll articulate and perceive.”
That features utilizing garments to say issues phrases can’t. “Style can be utilized to speak with the world,” she says, citing the late Queen Elizabeth II’s symbolic wardrobe selections throughout visits to Eire. “I’ve seen many ladies use style in a subversive means – to ship a message with out phrases.”
Utilizing style and pictures to ship subversive messages is prevalent within the music trade. Specifically, in Sabrina Carpenter’s most up-to-date provocative album cowl – the place she seems on all fours together with her hair being pulled by a standing man – Olumide takes a breath.
“I feel that our nature as human beings is multifaceted,” she says. “It will depend on the intention. If it’s a lady reclaiming her sexuality in a means that’s empowering to her, then that’s her proper. If it’s achieved for consideration or commodification, that’s one thing else. However I’m at all times extra within the ‘why’ than the picture itself.”
After years of defying business moulds, Olumide’s legacy could also be much less about having lived a double life, and extra about having constructed a brand new lane completely.
“I don’t even actually see something as separate,” she says. “I see life as one steady cycle, and one circle.”
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