Meet the founder building the ecosystem behind Africa's next creative giants

Africa has no shortage of creative talent. What it lacks, Shola Bamidele argues, is the infrastructure to turn that talent into lasting businesses. Through Loom Rooms, he's building an ecosystem where creators learn, collaborate, and own more of the value they create—one he believes could shape Africa's next creative giants.

• Despite global success, much of the economic value generated by African creatives is still captured outside the continent.
• Shola Bamidele, CEO of Loom Rooms, believes the main challenge is converting creativity into business infrastructure and ownership.
• Loom Rooms focuses on building ecosystems and providing mentorship, business knowledge, and community support to turn talent into sustainable enterprises, especially in underrepresented areas like Egbeda.

Africa no longer has to convince the world that it can create and move culture. The world already knows. In 2021, Wizkid sold out his first 20,000-capacity show at London's O2 Arena in just 12 minutes. Two extra dates followed, selling out in two minutes and thirty minutes respectively. At the same time, Nollywood has also grown into one of the world's largest film industries by volume. African fashion, dance, and digital creators increasingly shape global conversations and trends.

But success on the global stage hasn't always translated into prosperity at home. Africa keeps producing world-class artists, filmmakers, designers, and creators, yet much of the economic value generated by that talent is still captured elsewhere.

For Shola Bamidele, CEO of Loom Rooms, the challenge is no longer visibility. Africa has already won that battle. The real question now is ownership.

"The internet has largely solved exposure," he said. "The challenge today is conversion. How do we convert talent into companies? How do we convert creativity into intellectual property? How do we convert ideas into industries?"

And this is a question that has defined his entrepreneurial journey. As founder and CEO of Loom Rooms, a creative development platform in Egbeda, Alimosho, Bamidele is attempting to build something he believes Nigeria's creative economy has lacked for decades: the infrastructure that transforms creative potential into sustainable businesses.

He wants to build an ecosystem where musicians, filmmakers, designers, broadcasters, software developers and entrepreneurs learn from one another, acquire business skills and develop careers capable of outlasting viral moments. For Bamidele, Africa's next globally significant companies may emerge not only from fintech or manufacturing, but from creativity itself.

Talent has never been Africa's problem

Bamidele's conviction was shaped long before Loom Rooms opened its doors. His early years in communications at Red Media Africa gave him a front-row seat to storytelling, branding, and the business of shaping public conversations. But it was his travels across the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Malta that changed the way he thought about the creative economy.

What stayed with him wasn't the museums or the beautiful architecture. It was the extent to which creativity had become embedded in the wider economy.

"Art wasn't treated as decoration or entertainment," he said. "It was part of education, urban planning, tourism, business, technology and national identity."

Coming home made the difference even clearer. It wasn't talent that Nigeria lacked. Talent was everywhere—in musicians recording songs from bedrooms, filmmakers stretching impossible budgets, photographers, designers and artists whose work could stand proudly anywhere in the world. What it lacks are the systems that help those individuals commercialise their work, protect their intellectual property, access funding and build enduring enterprises. The numbers support his argument.

According to UNESCO, Africa's cultural and creative industries generate tens of billions of dollars annually while employing millions of people, particularly young Africans. Nigeria's entertainment sector has become one of the country's fastest-growing non-oil industries, driven by streaming, music exports and digital content. Yet many creators still struggle with financing, contract negotiations, publishing rights and long-term business development.

Building what artists rarely see

For most people, infrastructure means roads, bridges, airports, or power plants. Bamidele thinks the creative industry needs a different kind of infrastructure.

Sometimes it's knowing what you're signing before you put your name on a contract. Sometimes it's understanding intellectual property before your song becomes a hit. Other times, it's reliable internet, mentors who have walked the path before you, affordable workspaces, access to business knowledge, and a community that pushes you to grow.

"Buildings don't build industries. Ecosystems do," he said.

That idea sits at the heart of Loom Rooms. It isn't designed for just one type of creative. A filmmaker might find themselves learning from a software developer. A fashion entrepreneur could pick up new ideas from a photographer. Lawyers teach creators how to protect what they own. Broadcasters, designers, musicians, and entrepreneurs all share the same space because Bamidele believes the best ideas often emerge when different worlds collide.

"Everyone is creative," Bamidele said. "An engineer is creative. A mechanic solving problems with limited tools is creative. A tailor is creative. Innovation begins wherever people solve problems."

By broadening that definition, he hopes participants begin to see themselves less as freelancers chasing opportunities and more as entrepreneurs capable of building institutions.

Changing the map of opportunity

That thinking also explains why Loom Rooms is in Egbeda instead of Lagos' usual business hotspots. When Bamidele announced the location, many people were surprised. Why not Lekki? Why not Ikoyi?

His answer challenged what he sees as a deeper assumption that opportunity only exists in a few privileged postcodes.

Bamidele sees it differently. Alimosho, Lagos' largest local government area, is already full of musicians, designers, entrepreneurs, artisans, and young people with big ideas.The talent has always existed, Bamidele argues. What has often been missing is access to mentorship, professional networks and environments where creativity can mature into enterprise.

So choosing Egbeda wasn't an accident. It was the point.

"If we genuinely believe creativity can transform economies," he said, "then we have to invest in the communities where creativity already lives."

It's a philosophy that's becoming more common across Africa's startup scene. More founders are beginning to realize that the next great company may not come from the city's wealthiest neighbourhood—it may come from the places that have always had the talent but rarely the attention.

From creators to companies

The idea is already beginning to take shape. Loom Rooms has partnered with organisations such as Sarz Academy and Africa Women in Entertainment Business, while its wider ecosystem, DaCircles, has collaborated with Warner Music Africa through its film and documentary arm, Left Eye Productions.

For Bamidele, these partnerships demonstrate that international organisations increasingly evaluate ecosystems rather than individuals. Instead of asking who the next superstar will be, they want to know whether a community can consistently produce excellence. He believes Africa should adopt the same mindset.

"We should be asking, 'What systems are we building that will produce the next thousand?'"

That's why Loom Rooms doesn't judge success only by how full the building is or how much money it makes. Those things matter, he said, but they aren't the real measure. The real test is whether people leave with bigger ambitions than they arrived with.

He points to creators already beginning to do just that. Emerging artist GEEXEN is earning industry recognition. Music from SVNTN D-I has reached listeners in more than 70 countries. Broadcaster Uduak Faith Abasi now presents programmes on Eko FM after coming through the ecosystem. Videographer Snow of Africa is building his own company while preparing to mentor younger creatives.

Those outcomes matter because they multiply opportunity. "When someone stops asking, 'How do I succeed?' and starts asking, 'How do I help others succeed?' you've created something far more valuable than an individual success story," Bamidele said.

The next frontier

Bamidele is equally optimistic about the rise of artificial intelligence. While many creatives worry that AI could replace artists, he sees it differently. Every major technological shift, he argues, has changed the creative industry. Photography changed painting. Streaming changed music. AI is simply the next chapter. What it cannot do, he believes, is replace human experience.

"AI cannot understand what it feels like to grow up in Alimosho. It cannot inherit African memory, humour, spirituality or oral tradition."

That is why he's more interested in what sits behind creativity than the spotlight itself. The continent's greatest opportunities, he believes, lie behind the artists themselves—in publishing, rights management, gaming, animation, creative technology, immersive media and intellectual property ownership.

For Bamidele, Africa has already proved it can shape global culture. The next challenge is making sure it owns more of the businesses, platforms, and systems that create, distribute, and profit from that culture.

"Communities build culture," he said. "Institutions preserve it. Businesses scale it."

For him, Loom Rooms is one attempt to build one of those institutions. Whether it succeeds will be measured not simply by the artists it helps launch, but by whether it contributes to a broader shift in how Africa thinks about creativity itself—not as entertainment alone, but as infrastructure for economic growth.

Because, in the end, Bamidele isn't chasing the next Wizkid or the next blockbuster filmmaker. He's trying to help build the ecosystem that produces thousands of them—and ensures that more of the value they create stays in Africa.

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