Glam Africa: The Revolutionary Edition (2019)

COVER STORY
OVIE SOKO
Colouring Outside
"
t
THE LINES
Interview by Mika Abraham
Story by Eniafe Momodu
When Ovie arrived at the
Glam Africa studio in central
London, I wasn't too sure
what to expect. On the one
hand, I'd spent the better
part of my summer holiday
glued to my TV screen, shamelessly caught up in the
Love Island media storm. On-screen, Ovie was a pure
delight. You could hardly open your mouth to criticise
him. But that was a little while ago now. Back then, he
was just Ovie Soko, your average, 6 foot 7, unfairly
good-looking basketball player. Now, he was Ovie, a
national treasure with millions of fans across the UK and
beyond, so could we really expect him to be the same
person we'd seen on screen earlier on in the summer?
Plus, there were some strange rumours circulating in the
Twittersphere that the Love Island producers had done
some creative editing to make Ovie appear slightly more
pleasant than he always was.
But none of that mattered now, because suddenly, Ovie,
once a figment of my TV screen, had materialised at the
top of the staircase, followed closely by Gemma, one of
his managers. He made his way downstairs, lowering
his head as he walked, to avoid hitting the ceiling.
Welcoming him warmly, I offered to help him with his
suitcase. He politely refused, determined to pull his own
weight for those final few steps. Later, he would ask me
where he could find a bin, and subsequently decline my
offer to dispose of his trash for him and insist on doing it
himself. It was admirable, if not supererogatory. After all,
he was the star, the man of the hour, the guest of honour.
But it quickly became clear that any form of special
treatment was not on his agenda.
A true gentleman, he took his time to greet everyone
in the room, from the Glam Africa interns to the
photographer and the stylist, charming them all along
the way. He struck me as the kind of person who would
be popular anywhere he went. He must have known
going into the Love Island villa that he would become a
viewer favourite. And yet I wondered if he could have
ever really known just how much of a sensation he
would become in the days and weeks that followed his
entry. "I had no idea about the public response because
I was in there for so long. I wasn’t expecting anything
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