Playwright NSangou Njikam is Bringing Nigerian Tradition to American Theater

NSangou Njikam is here to revolutionize the ways that Black people see themselves on stage. The Maryland-born, New York-based playwright and actor’s theater credits include Henry V at the Classic Theater of Harlem, with Njikam penning a number of plays including RE:DEFINITION, Search For The Crystal Stairs, and I.D., which he premiered at South Africa’s National Arts Festival held in Grahamstown. His latest gift to the world comes in the form of Syncing Ink, a hip-hop theater production written by and starring Njikam. Syncing Ink is drenched in West African spirit and movement – more specifically the Yoruban relationship with Ifa. The play, directed by Awoye Timpo, heads to The Apollo Theater’s Victoria Theater from May 7.

Njikam has spent his creative career telling stories with the intent to bring viewers closer to their identities, leading to personal fulfillment and freedom. He is co-founder of The Continuum Project, Inc., an organization that uses African ancestry DNA testing and theater to advance reconciliation with cultural identity and community. Njikam, a practitioner of Ifa himself, had the opportunity to reconnect with his Cameroonian ancestry in 2010, a life-changing experience he is using his art to activate within Africans across the diaspora. As Njikam puts it, “The reason theater is about to make a shift is, in part, because works like Syncing Ink are coming to the forefront to help us all return home.”

OkayAfrica sat down with the playwright and actor to discuss answering the call to cultural identity, the power that comes with knowing where you come from, and the play he’s spent ten years perfecting.

The interview transcript below has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

OkayAfrica: What about the theater do you believe makes it one of the most compelling ways to tell a story?

NSangou Njikam: Well, we love to watch human beings – whether it's on TV, or Tik-Tok. But, when they’re really in front of us, that hits us in a way that is much more visceral and connected.

I expand theater from what we think of typically in a play to a Beyonce or Usher concert – any form of a live performance is theater. When we see that, we revive and resonate with it in a way that can really produce change. I've seen it countless times, not just with myself but with others. And so when I was first exposed to the medium as a child, I thought, “I can do this.”

What was the first creative decision you made towards bringing Syncing Ink to life?

I think it was when I was a teaching artist here in New York – I worked with kids and particularly Black kids. I saw that they always displayed a genius that was never recognized as genius, and I decided to make a play that would reflect it back to them. So they could see themselves as real geniuses.

Hip-hop is often not looked at as part of the African continuum, and or as a real ability. It's a real culture with real abilities that not everybody can do, or not everybody should attempt. Everybody tries to rap in their basement or in their room, and then some people they knew, they were like, "Ah, I'm going to take this outside of a private space and be in the cipher." So I wanted to recognize our people and connect it to our continuous African genius.

You've spent a lot of time gaining understanding of your ancestry, spent time in Cameroon and you had your naming ceremony. What parts of your experience there inspired you to try to bring that sort of reflection to African Americans who may not have the same experience?

Before I even found out my ancestry, I was able to recognize what they took from us. So, what happens when you get it back? It just seemed like a real easy math problem. If you get it back, then you should start to fundamentally shift who you are and how you understand yourself in the universe. I decided to demonstrate that through storytelling, to let my art be proof of concept. And the premise is when you know who you are, then you know the power you have.

How was it working with director Awoye Timpo?

She's awesome. Awoye, she's the truth. Nowadays, what theater desperately needs is people who have cultural understanding and sensitivity, people who ask the right questions and people who can envision possibilities. When we talk about possibility and a time for new dreams, we're looking at theater as the test run of life. And so she has all of those qualities that Syncing Ink needs to be successful. And that's why we're going to kick some butt in May.

How much of Gordon's story are you reliving personally?

It's not as much as people would think. That's the beauty of storytelling – the truth and the facts are interwoven in a certain way where there are certain experiences in the play that happened, there are embellishments, exaggerations, or they're just a different way of telling an experience I had that wouldn't translate on stage. And some of it is really for the purposes of somebody who is like Gordon, who maybe doesn't know their power yet. And I think that's a common story for just humanity. You start off not knowing, but there's something inside you that feels a certain way and you try something and it kind of works and then you go a little bit further and it kind of works. I think that's so common that I don't have to use all of my personal experience for that.

Each cast member seems to have a very intimate relationship with their character and what they're trying to communicate in the play. How did you go about writing these narratives and how did you nail assigning them to the right people?

Syncing Ink did that. I don't know how much of that I did. Syncing Ink found the people, cast, creative team, producers, everybody. We say, “Syncing Ink called us and we responded to the call.” In terms of the actual characters: I looked at certain art types of hip-hop, certain people who were prominent at different points. Then, I looked at what we see in some of the understandings in the Ifa and Orisha culture and how we tend to understand they're not character traits there, but rather attributes. And so these characters are not Orisha, they're human beings, but they're what we call Orisha kids. They're kids in New York who are into hip-hop, and at the same time have an understanding of who they are, understanding of their connection, except for Gordon. And so what you find is that throughout the diaspora we're very connected. But, I think you listen, and the characters will tell you what the deal is and what they want to say. There have been times when I've written a line and a character would say, “I didn't say that.” I'd be like, oops, let me go back. Okay, what do you want to say? And I said this. I said, okay, got you. So that's how that process works. I think they tell me, versus it being on me.

What do you hope African American audiences will take away from Syncing Ink?

Well, I hope that there are people who come from all over to see Syncing Ink. We should want to see ourselves and our power and appreciate and respect it and recognize that hip-hop isn't just what we see in the commercial presentations. Hip-hop is a culture. That culture spans back before we called it hip-hop. And when you know what that is and you embrace what that is, you're embracing yourself. And when you embrace yourself, then you move through the world with a different type of power and a different type of groundedness. And then ultimately, I want us to understand that we are here to fulfill our destinies. If Syncing Ink can help people get closer to the fulfillment of their destinies, then it's done its job.

And what do you think that Africans born and raised on the continent could learn from Syncing Ink and the relationship with hip-hop?

That it's way more connected. A lot of the time, people who don't understand the history of our people in this country, don't know why we don't know about Africa. We understand what's not taught. Our connections are greater than sometimes we make them to be. Africa never left us even as we were taken from the continent itself. I pray that Africans born on the continent look at Syncing Ink as the ways in which we're expressing our African-ness and that our connections are going to help all of us in the diaspora get closer. And some of the things that have kept us apart we know are not of our own, to say that.