Ahamefule J. Oluo Presents His Creative Capital Project, Susan, at Under the Radar Festival

Ahamefule J. Oluo performs Susan at On the Boards in Seattle, 2019. Photo by Haley Freedlund.
This darkly comic musical portrait of Ahamefule J. Oluo’s mother builds one story out of many, a journey from Section 8 housing in 1980s Seattle to the mangrove swamps of the Niger Delta to the Clallam Bay Correctional Facility. With stunning new compositions combined with soul-baring stand-up interludes, Oluo explores two intertwining narratives: his mother’s life as the white, Midwestern wife of a Nigerian chief and, later, a destitute single mother; and his own journey to Nigeria, as an adult, to visit his late father’s village and discover a family on the other side of the world.