Griot Hub- Am I Uniquely Positioned?

Recently I volunteered at the #live2lead2022 event designed by AB Strategic Leadership Annet Baingana , where Fred Swaniker was a guest speaker. Listening to him sharing his leadership journey and the creation story of the African leadership University. While he spoke, I got three questions to help me define my moment of obligation, whose responses I share with you.

1. What experiences have made you unique??

You tell your most powerful story in your authentic self and voice from a comfortable hot seat. I love business stories. Business owners tell and have the most original stories (at least, I believe so ). But one thing that excites me about every business story is its creation story. It captures many stories in one, and as a business owner, if you don't tell yours and the sub-stories well, your business doesn't sometimes exist. Or exist but have no audience.

There are so many experiences that I'd share with you as we move together in my journey, but one stands out, a lab tech by day storyteller by night. I didn't feel the same way in the laboratory, the way I felt on stage or towards a performance.?

Before a performance, I feel nervous, challenged, and expecting, and every time I perform, I share a part of me that excites me but allows people to connect with me. That scares me because I never know who is in the crowd, but the lessons learned and the joy of expressing myself in a manner that allows people to find their own stories felt better than being in a lab.

We, humans, are alike in so many ways; while I am struggling to integrate my two stories, many creatives have lived a single tale of being bankers who are guitarists but never play. Bankers who live double stories; bankers by day, guitarists by night.

We all love a disruptive story but never when it comes to the people we love or us. There is always the fear of sustainability which being a business student has allowed me to explore. Your bank has a successful story. Just like a business, it has you sharing in creating and telling that story.

You being a storyteller means some experiences inspire you to express yourself. Please let me show you that difference and how the Griot Hub will support you.

2. Are you passionate about it?

One of the famous writer Chimamanda Ngozi A.'s ted talk, is titled the danger of a single story, but beyond that, I fear the regret of an untold story or the effects of a wrongly told story. I want to tell my story. I don't need to tell you that most of my biology books have poems on the back pages. I wrote before I could speak and read one million books. That is not true; I did not do any of those. When I started writing, my paper would have 20 recurring words because that was all I knew.

The one thing that matters to me is expressing myself and making money.

I love business and storytelling, and the one way I don't live a double life is through the griot hub.

3. Is it bigger than you?

When I started writing, I only truly wanted to express myself. I enjoyed performing poetry and was far happier than when I sat in the lab dissecting dead animals as a biochemistry and molecular biology college student. With a few friends in Cameroon, we started The Griot Hub as a safe space for creatives to express themselves and asked Kamga Tchassa if we could use the name, Griot night since he already ran one for I.Y.A. Buea. Since February 2020, we have organized Griot nights for 70% of the last Saturdays of each month.?

I got accepted into the African leadership University to study business, and my dream to create safe spaces for storytellers earned me a scholarship.

The Rwandan and? ALU community has allowed me to engage with several creatives, artists, and innovators. I have had incredible conversations with them. Conversations that inform the questions,?

1. Are you genuinely creative if you don't express yourself for self or other reasons?
2. What does expression mean to a creative, and what spaces exist that support creative expression?
3. What is a safe space for creative expression?

I thank you, @DianaMpyisi, and King Ngabo , for the work done for creatives in #Rwanda through Museum Ingabo and #SpokenwordRwanda.

Please follow The Griot Hub to keep up with our journey.?

Please reach out if you are a creative, creative enthusiast if you want to;

• Tell your story?
• Please support us?
• Have any Questions for me?

Thank you, Testimony Adeyemi , for helping to edit.