Ikhane Akhigbe

Creative Producer | Showrunner | IP Lawyer & Strategist
AbOriginal Productions • Okhai Akhigbe & Co
Story. Structure. Ownership.

[Ikhane Akhigbe @ikhane]

Creators build culture.
Ownership builds legacy.
Structure protects value.
My work sits at the intersection of all three.

[Ikhane Akhigbe @ikhane]

😳😳

[Dr. Yonni @kiddiewise_]

What is the cause of the sudden collapse, and how can you prevent it from happening again?

[null margin @nullmargin0]

THE MOST TERRIFYING MICHAEL JACKSON MOMENT

THE LAWYER HANDED HIM HIS OWN NOTES...

march 1, 1996. michael jackson is 37. he's under oath in a lawsuit, and a camera is rolling.

the lawyer slides two handwritten pages across the table. michael reads them and says it's his handwriting.

deposition = you answer a lawyer's questions under oath, on camera, before the trial. anything you say can be played to a jury.

what's on his list:

→ 0:09 "yes, it's mine"
→ 0:26 things he wanted to set straight in a tv interview
→ 0:35 the interview was with diane sawyer
→ 0:43 "people have lied on me"
→ 0:48 the bleached skin rumor
→ 1:01 a rumor about president clinton's inauguration
→ 1:07 "don't judge a person unless you walk a mile in their shoes"
→ 1:26 "jesus said to love the children"
→ 2:04 "people completely lie on me"

what actually got me is that he wrote it down. the most famous man on earth sat at home and made a list of what people said about him.

i rewatched 1:26 three times. he's quoting the bible to a lawyer. he looks like he means every word.

he was never convicted of anything. in 2005 a jury found him not guilty on all 10 counts.

but the list didn't get shorter. it got longer every year until 2009.

the scariest part isn't the rumors. it's a man who had to keep a written list of them.

[Big Cuz @imohumoren]

The reason why AI can replicate human activity so easily is that we are very predictable. We speak the same way, wear the same clothes and generally do the same shit…everyday

[Labriant @Labriant0]

Michael Jackson said he didn't write Billie Jean, he just got out of its way, and Thriller still sold about 70,000,000 copies.

The claim sounds mystical, but it describes a real working method. He set 1 clear target, a song with a great bass hook, then stopped forcing it and let it arrive days later. That is deliberate preparation followed by deliberate absence, and it is how many creative people actually work. The goal is fixed in advance, and the solution is allowed to show up on its own.

His advice on dancing carries the same idea. Thinking is the mistake, so you drop the mind and become the sound. Skilled performers know that conscious control slows them down once the skill is trained. Practice is where you think, and the stage is where you stop.

Notice the shyness as well. When the interviewer pushed him to demonstrate, he deflected, called himself shy, and only then showed it. That fits the pattern: he is at ease inside the work and uneasy about explaining it, because explaining is a thinking task and the work is not.

There is a caution here. Saying the music wrote itself also removes the credit from the person and the years behind it. A hook found in a car on Ventura Boulevard came after a lifetime of training that made the idea recognizable when it appeared. Inspiration only lands on a prepared mind.

The skill is knowing when to stop trying.

[RedDevilGirl @CharZiyanah]

𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐄𝐑𝐒

𝐀𝐥𝐞𝐱 𝐓𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐬 — 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟎

"He's a guy with a massive heart and immense quality. He is a great guy who is always willing to help everybody"

𝐉𝐮𝐚𝐧 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐚 — 𝐀𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐥 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒

"He's a top, top player, but he's even better as a person. So for me, the culture of the club should be built around him. He's always there with the right attitude."

𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐌𝐚𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐫𝐞 — 𝐀𝐮𝐠𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓

"Bruno’s a great leader. He cares about others, he cares about improving others, he cares about helping others."

𝐉𝐨ã𝐨 𝐍𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐬, 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓

"Bruno Fernandes was a very important person for me on this journey with the national team. He helped me settle in, helped me understand that I didn't need to be nervous at the beginning, and that I could be myself."

𝐃𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐫, 𝐀𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐥 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔

"Bruno is very good with the young lads."

𝐀𝐦𝐚𝐝 𝐃𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔

"Bruno is the guy I like to talk to when I have a little bit [of a] problem or if I need advice from a player."

𝐂𝐎𝐀𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐒

𝐄𝐫𝐢𝐤 𝐓𝐞𝐧 𝐇𝐚𝐠, 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑

"You saw how great a captain Bruno is. He could see, feel, assess that his team-mate needed that goal. You need such leadership and you back each other" (on giving Rashford the opportunity to take the penalty)

𝐑𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐨 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐳, 𝐎𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑

“For a coach, Bruno Fernandes is a dream”

𝐑𝐮𝐛𝐞𝐧 𝐀𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐦, 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓

"What I can say is that we need more Brunos. That is clear. Not just the quality, the character, not some mistakes, but the character that he has"

𝐑𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐨 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐳, 𝐅𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔

"And what I appreciate from him is he never hides. Never hides. He's a leader. He's a leader. And the way he's very emotional, but in a very respected way by his teammates."

𝐌𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐞𝐥 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐤, 𝐒𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔

"He trains well, his attitude is spot-on, he's desperate to win, he's desperate to do well"

[☆ @fwskiiii]

Michelle Thomas’s last words to Malcolm-Jamal Warner were “elephant juice,” which looks like I love you when you mouth it. He was at her bedside when she died in 1998 at 30, and her mother called him the love of her life. Rest in peace to them both 🕊️

[Mark Elling @markelling_]

Carrie Fisher was paid $850 a week to play Princess Leia.

George Lucas owned her face.

She was 19. She signed the contract, and with it the rights to her likeness.

Then came the dolls. The action figures. The shampoo bottles. The Pez dispensers. Star Wars merchandise went on to make billions, and none of it was hers.

Lucas later gave her a quarter of a percent of his own profits. By 1980, it was worth about $320,000.

Alec Guinness got 2.25% of the profits on the same film.

28 years later, at Lucas’s lifetime achievement tribute, she stood at the podium and settled the score in front of all of Hollywood.

She put it on the record:

“You have owned my likeness all these years, so that every time I look in the mirror, I have to send you a check for a couple of bucks.”

The room laughed. Lucas laughed.

The case for Lucas: he took the risk, Fox laughed at him, and nobody knew it would be Star Wars.

The case for Fisher: she was the face on the box, and the box made billions.

Here’s the lesson: if you don’t own your name, someone else will sell it.

In the video, she roasts him for four minutes. Watch her, then decide.

Was she joking, or finally saying it out loud?

[Michael Jackson Crave @moonwalker4077]

50 years ago today, the Jacksons dropped “Enjoy Yourself” their first single after leaving Motown, co produced by Gamble & Huff, with Michael and Jackie on lead vocals and Randy officially in the lineup.

A Philly soul/funk that peaked at #6 on the hot 100 and #2 on the R&B charts, later certified platinum. The message is still airtight 50 years later: stop staring into space worrying about what you can’t control, let yourself go and enjoy the night while the music is running hot.

Some advice never expires 🕺🏽🔥

[Ikhane Akhigbe @ikhane]

Even more????

[Big Cuz @imohumoren]

Wanna make more films and TV shows

[Black Journals @blackJournals01]

He drove his wife to one of the best hospitals in America for a planned caesarean. A routine one. Her second.

Charles Johnson watched her blood collect in a catheter bag for ten hours while he asked for help.

Kira Johnson died at 2:22am.

Cedars-Sinai, Los Angeles, 12th April 2016. Kira Johnson was 39. She spoke five languages, raced cars, ran marathons. The caesarean was scheduled. Everything about it was routine.

Her son Langston was delivered at midday.

By the afternoon her husband could see blood in her catheter. He told a nurse. He was told they would check.

He asked again. And again. A CT scan was ordered and then not performed. He has described being told, at one point, that his wife was simply not a priority right now.

He stood in a corridor for ten hours asking people to look at his wife.

They took her back to theatre just after midnight. There were three litres of blood in her abdomen. She died shortly after.

Her son Langston was twelve hours old.

Charles Johnson has spent the decade since as one of the most effective advocates in American maternal health. He founded 4Kira4Moms. He has testified before Congress. The federal Black maternal health legislation introduced in recent years carries work he pushed for.

He talks about one thing more than any other, and it is not the medicine.

It is the ten hours. He was standing right there, in the building, awake, articulate, asking. And it made no difference at all.

[Ikhane Akhigbe @ikhane]

👀

[Collin Rugg @CollinRugg]

The Catholic priest who died after a crucifix fell on him was talking about how everyone will be dead one day and the importance of giving your life to God.

“Dear brothers and sisters, one day, all of us here will also die…” said Father Patricio Sánchez Molinari of Ecuador.

“Dear brothers and sisters, one day we will all die, and the time we spent on trivial things will prove far less meaningful than the time we invested in God,” he said again.

“The quality time we gave to Him, to our brothers and sisters, to our spouses, to our children, and to our families… That is time well spent, dear brothers and sisters.”

Just moments later, the crucifix fell on him and killed him.

[Matthew A. Cherry @MatthewACherry]

Man this shit had me thinking Drag-on was next up man.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

Tyler Perry is worth $1.4 billion and he fired his own aunt for not showing up to work.

When his mom died, he mailed the rest of the family letters. 60 days to get a job, or the money stops.

Now here's the thing. Back in the early '90s, that same guy was sleeping in his car.

He's 6'5" and the car was a Geo Metro, so picture that for a minute.

In 1992 he took every dollar he had, about $12,000 from selling used cars plus a tax refund, and put on his first play in Atlanta. He figured 1,200 people would show up that weekend. Thirty did. His rent and his car payment were riding on that show, so when it flopped, he lost the apartment too.

And he kept going. He put the play up again the next year, and the year after that, and lost money every single time until the seventh try finally sold out in 1998.

Seven years later Diary of a Mad Black Woman opened at #1 and made $22 million its first weekend. He kept ownership of what he made, and eventually turned 330 acres of an old Army base in Atlanta into his own studio. Forbes has him at $1.4 billion now.

His mom, Maxine, was the reason he kept pushing through all of it. He's said as much. She asked him to look after the family, so he did, for years, the whole time she was alive. She passed in December 2009, and that's when the letters went out.

If you've lived what he lived, you know which part actually made you. It was six years of failing with nobody coming to save him. A monthly check from a rich relative takes exactly that away from somebody.

So with his aunt, he tried a job first. She'd call asking for money, he'd send it, and finally he offered her a spot so she could build something with him. She kept calling in and not showing up, so she was out.

According to Perry, every relative who got that letter found a job. Some of those jobs didn't pay much, and he said he didn't care, he wanted them proud of a paycheck they earned themselves.

He told Derrick Hayes, the guy who started Big Dave's Cheesesteaks, to watch out for family "putting holes in the boat" while you're trying to get across. Sometimes, he said, you build the boat by yourself and have everybody wait on the shore.

He runs the same rules with his son Aman, who does chores to get paid.

Honestly, he gave them the best thing he had. Sixty days and nobody coming to save them, which is the exact deal he got in 1992, and it's the deal that made him a billionaire.

[🤠 @love4odin]

nigerian music is so interesting man, just found out nigeria had a thriving psychedelic rock scene in the 1970s & it’s crazy how nobody talks about it.

OFEGE were a band of secondary school students aged 15-17 from OBALENDE, LAGOS. combining traditional west african melodies with western sounds and its a gem. trust me you’ll love it if you give them a listen.

[Waziri Adio @Waziriadio]

Exactly 40 years ago today, Dele Giwa (leading journalist, columnist, editor and publisher) was killed with a parcel bomb while he was having breakfast in his Ikeja, Lagos home. The murder investigation was declared inconclusive. His killers were never found.

[Ikhane Akhigbe @ikhane]

@KevOnStage @TamTamsWorld 🙄🙄🙄

[Vinyl Records🎱✝️🇧🇷👪🗽 @j_c_domingues]

George Michael Feat. Lynn Mabry
Back To Life

[Ikhane Akhigbe @ikhane]

😂😂😂😂😂

[Bop Daddy ⚪️🔴 @awoyemijoshua61]

When Alex Ferguson took over Manchester United in November 1986, he had barely had time to settle into the job before the club flew out to Bahrain for an exhibition match that had already been arranged.

United were struggling near the bottom of the First Division, Ron Atkinson had just gone, and Ferguson had already started to realise how much some of his new squad enjoyed a drink.

United won the game 1-0, with Whiteside scoring the winner, and the squad stayed in Bahrain for another couple of days.

The following afternoon, Ferguson went out shopping.

The players took the opportunity to get stuck into a few beers.

By the time he returned to the hotel, the singing and shouting coming from the bar was loud enough for him to hear before he even got there.

Ferguson walked in still carrying his shopping bags and ordered the entire squad up to his room.

Fifteen players squeezed inside while their new manager gave them their first dressing down.

“You’re a disgrace to the club and yourselves.”

“You’re an absolute irresponsible bloody nightmare!”

Eventually Ferguson finished and let them go.

The players filed out quietly until they were far enough away from his room.

That was when Whiteside realised something.

For everything Ferguson had just shouted at them, he had never actually told them they were not allowed to go back out again.

So Whiteside and Robson did exactly that.

They found another bar, carried on drinking and eventually ended up in a nightclub.

Everything was going well until they spotted Manchester United chairman Martin Edwards in there as well.

Both of them knew what was coming.

They also knew there probably was not much point leaving now.

So they ordered another round.

About 15 minutes later, Ferguson and Archie Knox came through the doors and dragged the pair of them outside.

“I’ve only been in the job a couple of weeks.”

“I haven’t even signed a contract yet and here we are with my two best players behaving like this.”

“Look at the bloody state of you!”

Whiteside apologised and suggested they all get a taxi back to the hotel.

“F****** taxi?”

“F*** that. You can walk.”

The hotel was three miles away.

So Ferguson marched the pair of them back while Robson and Whiteside swayed their way along beside him.

Whiteside spent most of the walk apologising.

He kept telling Ferguson how sorry he was, and eventually decided the best way to prove it was to offer up a week’s wages as a fine.

Robson had been listening quietly beside him.

“Shut up, you.”

“No one’s f****** fining me a week’s wages!”

[CorneroftheSky @Cornerofthesky7]

Allen Iverson has never been afraid to admit how big a Michael Jackson fan he is 😂

[Ikhane Akhigbe @ikhane]

I just pulled up a chair at Industry Table. Round tables and live sessions for the people building Africa's creative industry, Q1 2027. Tell them where you are: https://t.co/spI7AylaCh