ART DIRECTOR
RED BULL SYMPHONIC
Feat. Asake
For Red Bull Symphonic, Asake became the first African artist to headline the U.S. series, bringing Afrobeats, Fuji, Amapiano, Hip Hop, and orchestral performance together at Brooklyn’s Kings Theatre. The challenge was to build a world that honored Asake’s Nigerian roots while grounding the experience in Brooklyn, without reducing either culture to surface-level references. The night expanded that collision further through surprise appearances from artists including Wizkid, Gunna, Central Cee, and more.
MY ROLE:
As Sr. Designer + AD, I joined for the pitch and returned once the business was awarded. I helped define the world-building through cultural research, moodboards, AI-assisted renders, key art, and campaign visuals grounded in Asake’s Lagos x Brooklyn story.
POINT OF VIEW
The opportunity wasn’t to split the experience into “Lagos” and “Brooklyn.” It was to find where the two already spoke the same language. I focused on the everyday cultural parallels between them: the Lagos danfo and New York yellow cab, Lagos markets and Brooklyn bodegas, street movement, pattern, music, and community. Those connections became the foundation for a visual world that felt less like two places placed side by side, and more like two cultures naturally coexisting. Most importantly, the references stayed rooted in Asake himself. His Yoruba background, musical influences, fashion, spirituality, and upbringing helped keep the work specific to his story rather than defaulting to a generic idea of Afrobeats.
EXECUTION
That thinking first came to life through visual research, moodboards, and AI-assisted spatial designs. The danfo became an early anchor for the creative territory, connecting Lagos transit culture to New York’s iconic yellow cabs and helping establish a shared language of movement and city life. As the project evolved, I carried that visual system into key art and campaign concepts while continuing to refine the cultural references behind the experience. Early ideas around Lagos markets and neighborhood storefronts ultimately became part of the final stage environment, bringing the world we pitched into the live performance.
