Collyde Prime, real name Adedapo Adesugba is an illustrator, character designer, graphic designer, comic book creator, graffiti enthusiast and rapper from Lagos, Nigeria. His hip-hop inclinations feature heavily in his art, which is unique, angular and in the words of Leslie Williams of Layrz (now Ovalay),  “the sort of bold, all-bets-are-off illustrative designer whose input is often pixel gold.”

Collyde Prime is the founder of Awonda Comics under whose umbrella he has published Misfit, Adura, Ebola Man and Officer Shola. He has a new comic planned for February 2020 called Oya. Collyde has a keen interest in the Yoruba god of thunder Shango, and has made several comic strips featuring him. Sometime in 2014, OJ Okosun animated his characters in the shortlived Sango & Friends series.

We spoke about his latest illustration series, Naija Cyberpunk on the first episode of the Space Squid Podcast (listen here). In 2017, Collyde was the lead illustrator on Farabale’s Art Beat 100 artbook.

Besides his unique hip-hop inspired art style, Collyde Prime has an exceptional sense of humour that bleeds off his comics. Additionally, he has a no-nonsense, get-things-done asap social media personality that makes you fall in love with his art over and over again. Think of Collyde Prime as the Gary Vaynerchuck of Nigerian digital illustration. You should check out some of his very important rants when you can.

In July 2015, Collyde started his own drawing challenge, similar to Jake Parker’s Inktober challenge. He called it the 50 Days of Character Design Challenge. The challenge saw the likes of Mohammed Agbadi, Stanley “Stanch” Obende and Collyde submitting. Check out some of the art for that challenge here.

Back to what you came here for. Enjoy the furious, gangster and imaginative world of Collyde Prime below.

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See more of Collyde Prime’s work on Instagram, Behance, Wacom Gallery and Facebook.

Bahari Blue is Squid Mag’s Kadi Yao Tay and Kofi Sydney Asare’s and illustrator Bolaji “Art Nerd X” Olaloye’s scrapbook of favourite African (including the diaspora sometimes) artists they love, are inspired by and believe the whole world needs to know about.

So far we’ve featured Alfred Achiampong, Venus Bambisa, Malcolm Wopé, Simangaliso Sibaya, Kofi Ofosu, Ifesinachi Orjiekwe, Kudzai Ngundu, Salim Busuru, Rodney Tawanda Ngundu, Juni Ba, Poka Arts, Natasha Nayo, Hanson Akatti and Bertil Toby Svanekiaer.