Out Of Africa: Darey Art Alade Talks… University Of Side Hustle, Creative Infrastructure And Building Legacy

Dare Art Alade, professionally known as Darey, is a Nigerian cultural architect and award-winning recording artist whose multifaceted career spans music, media, television, experiential production, and creative entrepreneurship. 

For over two decades,  Darey has helped shape the evolution of Nigeria’s creative industries, positioning  him as one of the most influential voices in African entertainment today. Born into a family of musical legacy, Darey emerged early as a trailblazing talent in Nigeria’s entertainment scene. After gaining continental recognition as the first  Nigerian artist to achieve pan-African fame through reality TV as runner-up on  Project Fame Africa in 2004, he quickly cemented his place as a chart-topping crooner in the years that followed with records like Escalade, Fuji, Not The Girl, Style Na Style and The Way You Are, among others.

Darey continues to push creative boundaries. He is the creative mind behind Nigeria’s most successful unscripted TV franchises,  including The Voice Nigeria Season 3, Livespot X Festival and more.

As Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Livespot360, Darey has led the  company’s evolution into one of Africa’s foremost creative powerhouses, delivering  culture-shaping experiences and multimedia content for Amazon, Netflix, Disney,  Meta, Fenty, the NBA, NBC Universal, Gates Foundation, and Multichoice. His  groundbreaking productions include Love Like A Movie and Entertainment Week Africa (EWA). 

Darey makes his feature directorial debut with University Of Side Hustle, Livespot Studios’ first scripted feature film. He is joined in the director’s chair by Kayode Kasum, one of Nollywood’s most commercially successful filmmakers whose film credits include Áfàméfùnà: An Nwa Boi Story, Sugar Rush, Soólè, This Lady Called Life and Ajosepo.

Written by award-winning screenwriter Dami Elebe, the film follows three young Lagosians navigating ambition, friendship, relationships, financial pressure and the realities of building a life in a milieu where one job is barely enough to get by. 

We spoke to Darey, who effusively talked about University Of Side Hustle, creative ownership, and building legacy as an African media mogul.

Please introduce yourself: 
I’m Darey Art Alade. Aquarius. Nigerian, of Yoruba origin, roots in Kogi, Lagos born and bred. I’m a creative engine, artist, storyteller, entrepreneur, and these days, filmmaker as well. I’ve spent most of my life somewhere between music, television, live experiences and building creative businesses — but Lagos is home. Lagos made me. 

Describe your life in one word or a sentence.
Building while becoming. 

I’ve never really waited until I had everything figured out before starting. Music, television, Livespot, festivals, now film…every chapter has involved building something while also becoming the person capable of carrying it. 

Why are you here, and why this story? 
University of Side Hustle is exactly why we are here. But if you want the bigger answer, I think African stories deserve to be told by Africans, owned by Africans, and taken to the world on our own terms. This film is our first step into doing that through cinema, and it feels like the right time to have that conversation. 

Tell us what University Of Side Hustle is about in your own words. 
At its heart, it’s a gripping thrilling dramedy about a generation trying to make something of themselves in a city that constantly asks you to be more resourceful than even you thought you could be. It follows these young Lagosians juggling ambition, careers, relationships, money, image and survival and the different compromises that come with wanting more. The price, the side hustle costs your main hustle! 

We call it University of Side Hustle because Lagos itself can feel like a university. Everybody is learning on the job. Everybody has a side hustle. Everybody is trying to graduate into a better version of their life. Everybody’s price to pay becomes the course curriculum. But underneath all the humour and energy, the film is really asking: what does ambition cost you, and when you finally win, do you still recognise yourself? 

Which character is closest to you and how you see the world? 
Mandy, probably. Not because our lives are similar, but because I understand that instinct to be the person who fixes things. The person who says, ‘Okay, nobody has built the structure? Fine, we’ll build it.’ She’s constantly carrying people, solving problems, keeping things moving and believing she can somehow hold all the pieces together. I recognise that. 

But what I love about her journey is that she eventually has to learn that control isn’t the same thing as ownership. There’s a difference between constantly fixing everybody else’s world and finally deciding to author your own, on your own terms. 

A scene or line that best captures why you set out to create this. 
There’s a moment towards the end where Mandy is no longer simply the subject of everybody else’s gaze or decisions. She takes control of the narrative herself. For me, that captures the whole reason for making this film. Because University of Side Hustle is obviously about ambition and survival, but underneath that is a much bigger question: who gets to tell your story? Who owns the image? Who owns the opportunity? Who benefits from the thing you’ve built? 

That idea means a lot to me personally, and it also speaks to why we’re moving into original film and television at Livespot. I don’t only want Africans to appear in great stories. I want us writing them, directing them, financing them and owning them. 

What was it about University of Side Hustle that convinced you this was the story to mark your feature directorial debut?
What really grabbed me was the specificity of the world Dami Elebe created. This isn’t a story trying to be universal by becoming vague. It is very specifically Lagos, and ironically, that is what makes it travel. 

The hustle culture in the film is not uniquely Nigerian. It is generational. Young people everywhere are building multiple income streams, figuring out what a career even means anymore, and finding ways to create opportunities in systems that were not necessarily designed for them. Dami found a way to tell that story through a Lagos lens that feels completely local but still immediately recognisable. 

That is the kind of writing that makes you want to show up to set every day. And I felt personally connected to it. I’ve spent the last two decades building things that didn’t necessarily come with a clear blueprint, from Livespot360 to Entertainment Week Africa and Entertarium. That spirit of figuring things out as you go is very much at the heart of University of Side Hustle. It felt like the right story for me to bring to the screen for my first scripted feature. 

How do you balance spectacle with authenticity when portraying a generation for whom one job is rarely enough? I
actually don’t think this generation sees those things as opposites. For them, spectacle and authenticity can exist in the same room. Look at how young people present themselves online. Everything is highly curated, but it can also be completely genuine. The way they hustle, build personal brands and create opportunities is part of who they are. 

So our job wasn’t to stand outside that world and explain it to the audience. We are inside it. The camera has to feel that way too. We wanted the world to feel lived-in rather than constructed. This meant trusting Dami’s script, trusting the actors and, sometimes, resisting the urge to make a scene bigger just because we could. Not every moment needs fireworks. Sometimes you just let people be people.

What part of the milieu that characterises this film felt most personal or urgent to you? 
For me, it is the question of ownership. Who gets to benefit from their own hustle, and on whose terms? These characters are building, creating and grinding, but they are doing it within systems that haven’t always been designed to let them win. That is something I understand very personally. 

When we were building Livespot360, we were operating in a market where the financing, distribution and institutional support for what we wanted to build didn’t always exist. You learn very quickly that talent alone isn’t enough. Sometimes you have to build the system around the talent at the same time. That is really the conversation sitting underneath University of Side Hustle, and it is one I feel very strongly about. 

You’re co-directing with Kayode Kasum, one of Nollywood’s most commercially successful filmmakers. What does that partnership add that you couldn’t have brought alone? 
Kayode brings a deep understanding of what Nigerian audiences respond to, both commercially and emotionally. He has spent years working across some of the country’s biggest productions, so he understands this audience at a level that only comes with experience. I come from live experiences, music and broadcast, where the energy of a moment is everything. Kayode brings a different kind of narrative discipline and audience intelligence. That balance has been incredibly useful. We’re very complementary in the way we see things, and I think that creative friction has made the film better. We don’t always see things the same way, which is probably a good thing! 

You’ve evolved from Project Fame runner-up to critically acclaimed recording artist, broadcaster, festival producer and now film director. What’s the overarching theme connecting all of those chapters?
The through line is actually pretty simple. I believe African excellence deserves a world-class platform. And if that platform doesn’t exist, you build it. 

Project Fame taught me that Nigerian talent could hold its own on a continental stage. Music showed me that African artistry could move audiences around the world. Building Livespot360 showed me that African creatives could also build and run world-class operations. 

University of Side Hustle is the latest expression of that same belief. African stories, told properly and owned properly, belong in every cinema in the world. 

After more than two decades building platforms for other people’s stories, what does it feel like to step behind the camera and shape a story frame by frame? 
Honestly, it feels like the most honest version of something I’ve been building towards for a long time without necessarily knowing it. I’ve spent more than 20 years telling stories through music, live experiences and television, but often within formats that were already defined before I arrived. 

Scripted film is different because you’re in the room where the grammar of the story is being created from scratch. That is a different kind of responsibility. It is slower, more deliberate and much more interior than directing a live show. With live production, you’re managing the energy of a room. With television, you’re managing momentum. With film, you’re building something frame by frame, and a decision you make now might not pay off until 20 minutes later. It has humbled me, honestly. In the best possible way. 

Livespot360 has built its name in live experience, TV formats and multimedia content. What made this the right moment to move into scripted feature film? 
Twelve years of producing for other people’s platforms teaches you very clearly what you control and what you don’t. We’ve worked with Heineken, Amazon, Netflix, NBCUniversal, Disney and many other incredible partners, and those relationships have been hugely valuable. But there is a limit to what a service business can build for itself over the long term. 

For us, moving into scripted IP isn’t really a pivot. It is the natural next step. University of Side Hustle is the first expression of what Livespot Studios looks like when we’re producing for ourselves rather than producing on commission. And the timing feels right. The global appetite for African stories has never been more real. Platforms are paying attention. Audiences are paying attention. The diaspora is paying attention. So really, if not now, when? 

How does University of Side Hustle fit into Livespot Studios’s longer-term ambition to build original African IP for global export? 
University of Side Hustle is a first proof point for a much bigger slate. The ambition is to build a library of original African IP across film and television that we own, control and can take to market on our own terms. We don’t just want to make content and hand it over. We want to build assets that can create value over time, for the company and for the stories and communities they represent. 

University of Side Hustle is set to premiere at Entertainment Week Africa 2026 this November. Why was EWA the right stage for the film’s debut rather than a traditional festival or cinema release? 
EWA is where the industry comes together. Not just the audience, but the filmmakers, commissioners, distributors, investors and cultural leaders who are actively deciding what African content looks like and where it goes next. So premiering University of Side Hustle there puts the film into that ecosystem from day one. A traditional cinema or festival premiere introduces the film to an audience. EWA introduces it to an ecosystem. And for a film that is fundamentally about ambition, ownership and infrastructure, that felt like the right place to start. 

With EWA expanding its pan-African footprint this year, what conversations do you hope the film sparks among the wider industry and audience gathered there? 
I hope it starts an honest conversation about ownership. Who is telling African stories? Who is financing them? Who owns them when they travel? And perhaps most importantly, who benefits when they succeed?

With EWA’s pan-African expansion this year and delegates coming from more than 18 countries, we have an opportunity to have that conversation at a continental level rather than making it just a Nigerian conversation. 

University of Side Hustle is a Lagos story, but the questions underneath it are much bigger. Ambition, ownership, opportunity, building something from very little. Those are African stories. If a young filmmaker, founder or creative watches the film and thinks, I can build this too, and I can own it too, then we’ve done something worthwhile. That is the conversation I want the film to leave behind. 

Getting To Know …

If not a media entrepreneur you’d be? A pilot maybe. I’ve always been drawn to aircraft from a young age. 

What’s made you sad, mad, and glad this week? Sad: The passing on of Ogogo. Mad: A lot of young people are still unemployed. Glad: The economic situation looks to be improving albeit only on paper. 

What are you watching? Different movies and shows right now especially as I’m directing USH! I’m currently watching titles like Reacher, Countdown etc.

What are you reading? Reading USH script as we are still filming our scenes. 

The last film you watched? The Devil’s Mouth.

The last play you saw? Lion King. 

The last live music event? Detty December Fest with Gunna 

What’s currently on your playlist, and pick a favourite song? It’s a song titled Clout which we worked on for our film. It will be on the EP that will accompany the movie release. 

Which podcast are you listening to? Afropolitan Podcast. 

What’s on your bucket list? Maybe skydiving (Mrs Dee would never allow it ‍though) 

Where’s your happy place? Home. 

Celebrate someone else… Mrs Dee! Her doggedness and tenacity are to be studied!!! 

Celebrate yourself… I don’t know what to say.

What’s next? EWA 2026 (turning 5 this year!) and the next edition of DDF.

Where can we find you? (socials) @dareynow

University of Side Hustle is on track for a Q4 theatrical release, with festival premieres beginning as early as November, including a grand premiere at Entertainment Week Africa.