Being a creative in Nigeria is tough, a real extreme sport. No matter how many times you explain it to Nigerian parents they will still act like your entire career is a hobby they are just waiting for you to outgrow. Asides the bad rep you get, here are 6 other struggles that are too real for Nigerian creatives:

1. Explaining the career path to Nigerian parents.

Nigerian parents only know and approve 4 career choices: Medicine, Law, Engineering, and Pharmacy. Every other thing amounts to being a disappointment to the family.

2. People underpricing your work.

People are ok with paying doctors, people perfectly understand why they have to pay for food, people even save money to pay for clothes and slay. But somehow when it comes to creatives people suddenly don’t understand why the charge is so high.

3. People wanting you to work for free.

zikoko - struggles of Nigerian creatives

Do you think I live for free? You think my Landlord shows up and I smile and he goes away content? Do you think the bukka’s feed me for free? You better come correct and pay me my money fam.

4. Creativity block.

zikoko - struggles of Nigerian creatives

Asides all the outside forces conniving to make work difficult for you, village people will still find a way to manifest internally via creativity block. And it hits harder when you have a lot of work to do on tight deadlines.

5. This fact that this country is noisy.

zikoko- struggles of Nigerian creatives

If it’s not your neighbor’s generator, it’s their kids arguing over what mommy said or didn’t say. Or it’s a church somewhere loudly commanding enemies to die by fire or even a mosque in the earliest hours of the morning. This country is so noisy.

6. Getting appropriate pay.

zikoko - struggles of Nigerian creatives

It’s always battle to get most companies to pay you your worth, they act like as long as they don’t see you physically moving weight, humping and thumping then you can’t be doing that much hard work.

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Zikoko amplifies African youth culture by curating and creating smart and joyful content for young Africans and the world.