Karimah Ashadu’s Machine Boys follows the Okada riders of Lagos who operate an informal economy of motorcycle taxi services that have been banned since 2022. The film is a layered and kinetic portrait of the riders and the impact of the ban on their lives. Though the riders work in danger of gang shakedowns, police harassment, and imprisonment, Okada—and the physical, financial, and psychological mobility it affords—becomes a potent tool of personal autonomy and collective independence among working class Nigerian men.
Trained in painting before shifting her focus to moving images, Ashadu frames her subjects and landscapes with a painterly sensibility. The camera glides through scenes like a brush across canvas in Machine Boys, capturing dynamic compositions of motorcyclists winding through the highways of Lagos. Creative camera mounting carries the viewers on sharp turns or spinning donuts in the dust with Okada. The riders strike powerful stances in stylish Gucci flip flops and Versace shades, making direct and sustained eye contact with the camera as if to size up the viewer. Together, they narrate the personal challenges and triumphs encountered in Nigeria: building their livelihoods, financing their educations, generating capital to start new businesses by riding Okada. While one rider describes his experience of migration to Lagos and how the Okada taught him both the language and the city, providing a geographical and cultural orientation, others recall encounters with God and the precarity of life and death.
Through performances of grit and masculinity, the film signals a deeper exploration of Nigerian patriarchal culture. Like contemporary cowboys, the Okada riders find power and liberation in the relationship between man and machine. Ashadu pairs the portrayal of the rugged, fierce bikers with an underlying exploration of their vulnerability to Nigerian socio-political histories and economic hardships. However, their bending of the law becomes an act of resurgence in a city where work opportunities and industry can be scarce. “I am my own boss,” a rider declares.
In Machine Boys, as in many of Ashadu’s films, daily labor is framed not as an oppressive force but as a practice of individual freedom and agency. Remnants of Western colonialism in Africa form a backdrop against which Okada riders construct their lives. Machine Boys offers a view into the informal, post-colonial economies and cultural idiosyncrasies of Lagos, with particular attention to those individuals who continuously shape it.
Courtesy of the artist and Sadie Coles HQ.
Produced by Fondazione In Between Art Film, co-produced by Golddust by Ashadu.
