Amani Olu is the founder of Olu & Company, a marketing and business consultancy at the intersection of art, design and social impact; co-founder of Detroit Art Week, a five-day festival celebrating contemporary art in Detroit; and founder of IMG SRVR, a file-sharing platform for creative professionals. Before launching Olu & Company, Olu worked as an independent curator and arts writer. During this period, he organized over 40 exhibitions, co-authored Humble Art Foundation’s “The Collector’s Guide to New Art Photography Vol. 1 and 2” (2008, 2010), launched his ground-breaking “Young Curators, New Ideas” exhibition series, wrote about artists William Eggleston, Rashaad Newsome, David Benjamin Sherry, Elad Lassry, Zoe Crosher, and K8 Hardy. In 2018, as part of the inaugural edition of Detroit Art Week, Olu organized “Rhythm, Repetition, and Vocab,” an exhibition of abstract works by Allie McGhee and Carole Harris at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Scott Avery
A familiar face to the art circles of NYC and Detroit, Scott Avery is the tabbed alias for Philly-born, Detroit-based producer, Amani Olu — an ambitious creative who makes his music debut via “Child Self.” The EP includes four disparate tracks that explore wanderlust, play, experimentation, and unencumbered curiosity. An homage to innocence and the source of his creative expression, “Child Self” represents a juncture in Avery’s personal history, a moment of reflection as the artist considers the roads which have led him to the present. Coupled with Detroit’s legendary history and an aching devotion to the early years of Avery’s life, “Child Self” richly entwines sounds with spiritual expression. With subtle reference points and underlying samples seamlessly flowing between disco and rap, house and Motown, “Child Self” is a composition of gradual histories tactically woven back together into proof of concept for an ambitious and varied career to come.
