About

Wayne Samuel

Wayne Samuel is a Nigerian multi-hyphenate creative. He is a fiction writer, spoken word poet, multimedia artist, and more, whose work explores identity, climate, and social critique. His performance art is rooted in the African oral tradition, where the audience is never only an audience.

He is the only consecutive winner ever of War of Words, Nigeria's premier spoken word slam, and winner of the first edition of La Casera's national spoken word contest, This Is Not A Full Stop. He has a BA in Mass Communication and a certificate in Creative Entrepreneurship from Trace Academia, Campus AFD and the University of Senghor.

Wayne has performed at the Lagos International Poetry Festival, headlined Port Harcourt's More Life Poetry Concert, and was nominated for Best Male Spoken Word Poet at the 2023 Port Harcourt Poetry Festival. His live performances have been widely praised in publications including Leadership, National Economy, and People's Daily. Beyond the stage, he has collaborated on commercial campaigns, co-wrote the launch film for the Spoken Wars slam, and led masterclasses for its contestants. He also created and performed Love and Heartbreak in Lagos, a multimedia poetry and film production in 2021 for young couples adversely affected by the COVID lockdown.

As a fiction writer, his novel manuscript Outside Where the Rain Falls, which puts Global Majority characters at the centre of the climate cataclysm, was longlisted for The Island Prize in 2024. His work has also been twice longlisted for the Quramo Writers' Prize. In 2026, he won the Ravenshill Project Award for writers, was shortlisted for the Hugo Burge Foundation's Pigsty Residency, and is currently drafting a new novel.

He has featured at Greenwich's Black History Month, joined the Crossword Creatives cohort, and led collaborative sustainability workshops and performances at the Stanley Arts Community Assembly. He also created Poempocalypse Croydon, an interactive poetry survival game for the Arcadia Festival. He is a member of KreAfrika, a cultural programme for African practitioners run by Trace Academia and Campus AFD, and is a recipient of the UK Global Talent Visa endorsed by Arts Council England.