Lola Adesioye
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Lola Adesioyeis a writer, commentator, broadcaster and singer-songwriter born in London, England, toNigerianparents.
Biography
[edit]Adesioye attended Rosemead Preparatory School andJames Allen's Girls' School,prestigious private schools inDulwich,South East London. She excelled academically and musically at both, becoming Head Girl at the former and a MusicScholarandHead Girlat James Allen's Girls' School. At James Allen's Girls' School, Adesioye participated in theEuropean Youth Parliamentand competed on the debating team.
Adesioye studied Modern and Medieval Languages (Italian and Spanish) atRobinson College, Cambridge,before changing toSocial & Political Science.She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and was later awarded anhonorary master'sdegree by the university.
At Cambridge University, Adesioye was politically active within her college and theCambridge University Students' Union,holding elected office for two years as Anti-Racism and Ethnic Minorities Officer respectively. She was involved in the creation ofCambridge University's Little Black Book,an award-winning book for students of colour that was used by theUK's Department for Educationand Employment as part of its race relations initiative at the time.
In 2004, she appeared in a primetimeBBCdocumentary seriesBlack Ambition,[1]which followed the lives of eight black Cambridge students in their final year.
Media
[edit]Adesioye is an international writer whose commentary and analysis on UK, US and African society, politics and culture has been published in theNew Statesman,[2]The Guardian,[3]The Economist,[4]BBC,CNN,[5]The Huffington Post,[6]TIME magazine,The Washington Post′sTheRoot.com,[7]ForbesAfrica,The Atlantic,[8]andEbonyJet.[9]She regularly appears as a talking head on TV and radio, including CNN,[10]MSNBC,[11]the BBC, Channel 4 andBET.
Adesioye was one of the founding editors (Deputy Editor) of NBC's African-American news siteTheGrio.comand was a Contributing Editor forAOL Blackvoicesbefore it became Huffington Post Black.
In 2022, she extensively covered and commentated on the death of Queen Elizabeth for MSNBC[12]and has been sourced as an expert in British race relations as pertains to the Royal Family. In 2021, she was featured in "Cleo Speaks",[13]a TV One series dedicated to the lives of dynamic black women which re-aired on Apple TV in 2023.
She has been described[14]as one of "11 black commentators you should be following" and has been named one of Nigeria's top wordsmiths.[15]
Music
[edit]After Cambridge, Adesioye worked in themusic industryat majorrecord companyAtlantic (formerly known asEast West) Records and dance/urban labelMinistry of Sound,before moving into project managing large-scale branded international music events. She was project manager of the team – alongsideLive AidandLive 8producerKevin Wall– behind multimillion-dollar award-winning global music show, Nokia New Year's Eve, forNokiaand MSN before going on to pursue a career in the media. She continues to perform as a singer-songwriter under the name Lola Vista.
References
[edit]- ^Gordon, Bryony (7 January 2004)."People Say: You went to Cambridge?".The Telegraph.London.
- ^Lola Adesioye pageatNew Statesman.
- ^"Lola Adesioye Column Archive".The Guardian.London. 4 June 2008.
- ^"Much still to do".The Economist.14 February 2009.
- ^Adesioye, Lola."Nigeria Needs More Than New Leaders to Change".CNN. Archived fromthe originalon 5 October 2010.
- ^Adesioye, Lola."Lola Adesioye".Huffington Post.
- ^Adesioye, Lola."Column Archive".TheRoot.com. Archived fromthe originalon 14 March 2012.Retrieved11 January2011.
- ^"Lola Adesioye, the Atlantic".The Atlantic.
- ^Adesioye, Lola."London's Burning: As a Brit Living Abroad, Writer Lola Adesioye Shares Her Take on Some of the Issues And Solutions".EbonyJet. Archived fromthe originalon 22 January 2013.Retrieved20 September2012.
- ^Adesioye, Lola."UK activist speaks about London Riots".CNN.com.
- ^https://www.msnbc.com/the-reid-report/watch/search-for-missing-nigerian-girls-continues-247302723739[bare URL]
- ^"Queen's passing, monarchy's legacy could push tenuous commonwealth into collapse".MSNBC.
- ^"CLEO Speaks: Born British, Raised Nigerian…Lola Adesioye Questions What It Means to be 'Black'?".9 March 2019.
- ^The Atlanta Post:11 Sharp Black Commentators You Should Be FollowingArchived31 January 2011 at theWayback Machine
- ^Gausi, Tamara."10 Nigerian wordsmiths you oughta know".AfriPop Magazine. Archived fromthe originalon 11 January 2011.Retrieved11 January2011.