RADRPlus: Caleb Mosby on creating one story at a time

Caleb Mosby is a creative consultant, videographer, and an all round content creator. His passion for the arts; ranging from fashion, film and music has propelled him to collaborate with various individuals and brands. He has creatively managed and produced visual content with individuals like MayD, Akuchi, Wavy The Creator, WestsydeLifestyle and Ebiye. He has created short films in fashion, dance and music under his production moniker, zerodays.off.

I caught up with Caleb Mosby recently, and he is a jolly guy. Enter his interesting world! 

Tell those who haven’t heard the name Caleb Mosby what he is all about. 

Honestly, I can’t exactly tell you all I’m about but Caleb Mosby is a creator, Caleb Mosby is influenced and an influencer through art. I find happiness in all forms of expression. Expression in fashion, with music, creating visuals that tell a story. Caleb Mosby is a lover of experiences and seeing life from different perspectives. Caleb Mosby is a lover too [laughs]. 

Your creative journey has seen you dabble into music, fashion, photography & now video production, which is your most exciting form of creative expression?

Wow! [laughs] It’s hard to choose, cos music is very personal, I’m writing my thoughts, my ideas, video production on the other hand encompasses music, fashion, photography and so on, that’s why we are best friends right now you know, so I will say video is my most exciting form. 

So which came first into your life: Music, Fashion, Photography, Videography?

Consciously, I will say music.  I had a very strict childhood so I usually zoned out through music, literally had earphones on everytime, then I eventually started making music while in uni at Covenant with JibzyBeats and StG. I made 2 songs which I was proud of then, but now I don’t know if I will play them for y’all [laughs] but i could do remixes of the songs for sure. Then fashion, fashion came too easy, I started working with Ifeanyi Nwune, actually we went on the runway for one of our friends, Delz, then it hit me that I could legit do this shit for real, like design and put pieces together. I love good style, I love the representation of my mind, my comfort, my energy, my influences with my clothing style, you know. But I stayed on styling for a bit before I designed my first pieces which I gave to Ehiz in 2015. Photography and Videography came next as soon as I finished my NYSC, that was when Wavy The Creator and I were working back to back and that has been my shit till now.

Walk me through your creative journey by giving me timeline of when, how long and which events marked your transitions into your forms of expression?

Damn! I kinda just went through the timeline in your previous question [laughs] but yeah I started making music in 2009 with JibzyBeatz, that ni**a has some sort of ginger man, we released ‘Hustle Kid’ and it was hot in school, then i was supposed to drop an EP called “G.M.P” Gemini Master Piece but due to a lot of distractions that project never came to fruition. 2009 till about 2011 I was lost bro, I can’t remember a lot of meaningful shit from those years, then i dropped “FadeNation” with my homeboy Kevy, Fadenation as the name will imply described where i was in life at that point, real crazy. StG produced that joint so you know it was dirty (laughs). Then I switched to fashion, worked on a fashion film with Ifeanyi Nwune as a stylist then fashion became my lifestyle till now, oh yeah I made my first designs in 2015 while i was working as an Assistant Stylist for a TV series ‘Dance With Peter’, shout out to Papa Omisore who was the main stylist for the show, we ended up working together afterwards and I eventually did my first fashion film for his brand, real great guy, Then I started with Photo and Videography in 2017 soon as I got back to Lagos from NYSC and I’ve been on that till now. 

How do you manage to balance all your interests to ensure you’re not overwhelmed? 

Are they balanced? [laughs] Well, right now most of my work involves every aspect of my interests so they all blend together and I can grow all aspects simultaneously. 

So how did zerodays.off come about? I see the zerodays.off instagram bio reads fueled by fun, tell me a bit more about zerodays.off. 

zerodays.off!!!! zerodays.off is a community for creatives that want to tell a story. We create valuable content for film, fashion, music, and products also. I see us at zerodaysoff as value providers and creative educators. We are “fueled by fun” because we love what we do and how we do it. You get me.

In what direction do you plan to take zerodays.off in the next few years?

I plan to drive zerodays.off to consistently put out more series content, we are working on collaborations for a style series, a short film series and a documentary. In the next few years I want us to have built a solid foundation strong enough to run our own TV channel. 

What’s your daily experience like being a creative in Lagos? 

[laughs] It’s crazy. There are good days and bad days. I mean we are talking about Lagos here but it’s also entertaining when you just block the negatives and get in the moment. 

What are the pitfalls and how have you managed to get shit done regardless of the drawbacks? 

One of the pitfalls is being in an environment where there’s a serious lack of understanding the effort put into a creative idea and the cost for execution, many people don’t understand this, hence they either offer to pay less or pay nothing, Another pitfall is almost everyone in the society feels entitled to your money: an example is having to shoot a video at a location, just a short clip or whatever and the residents are super motivated to charge you ridiculously to use the environment, it’s almost like there’s no support for creativity but there’s light cause despite these type of pitfalls I have been able to execute projects with the help of God and my team, these accomplishments have further fueled my belief in possibilities and to always start everyday with the “Do” mentality. 

In doing your creative work, are you mostly impulsive – leaving yourself to figure things out along the way , or you like to take your time before starting work on a project? 

It’s actually a bit of both, sometimes I just go with the flow, sometimes it’s more like “okay guys, lets pen down all these ideas, think about them and pick our best” you know. A funny thing is sometimes you can execute a project without implementing half of the penned down processed ideas and the project still comes out amazing regardless, you know.

Which approach has given you the best rewards? 

Both have given me what I wanted or want on every given project. 

What are some of the most exciting & memorable projects/accomplishments you’ve worked on? and what made you really excited about them? 

When I shot my first fashion film with the team, that was golden. We did it for People Of Colour, a big fashion brand in Lagos. It was lit, I remember we had camera issues and all of that but it still came out great, Also, being a music director and co-producer on my girl Adeola’s EP “CALL ME JACK” was a memorable achievement, we were locked in for days with my friend and super producer Maz, just creating sound and music for her EP, it was lit, it was my first time contributing to anyone’s sound in production.

What is the single biggest source of your inspiration? 

A good story inspires me, whether it be over music or in a book or in a visual representation.

Okay so I want you to do something like a vocal portfolio for me, tell me some of the brands and personalities you’ve worked with, what projects and roles you played in bringing creative ideas to life? 

Okay, So I have done creative direction with personalities like Wavy The Creator, we worked on a short film alongside Emily Nkanga, Emily’s brilliant by the way. I have worked with Westsydelifestyle, the dance gods as visual director. I have also worked with the Comedian Ebiye as his creative director, I worked with MayD for a short while too as his creative director, then I also worked with Akuchi, a music artist, I was his creative director for a period of time, I have also done content creation for fashion brands like POC Lagos and AMA Lagos. All these in no particular order. 

Quite a number of names in there, but I know you definitely want to add to those, so who are the people out there you would you like to collaborate with?

Santi. That dude is brilliant, been a fan since his Diaries of a Loner tapes, and there’s Soof, Sooflight  that dude is bright! There’s also Anaka, she just did some video with FKATWigs, I find her work entertaining, she’s flames. Don’t let us get to Tyler The Creator, Kanye, Cudi, 3000 and ASAP Rocky (laughs).

Music seems to be a major fixture in your life, do you have plans of making music again?

Of course, in due time. Life’s a process. I’m trying to be intentional with my moves, plan, gather resources, money especially to push, you know. So yeah, in due time. 

Looking at your own creative journey you’re walking multiple paths, if you had to say something to fellow creatives with multiple interests, what would you say? 

Change is constant, be the best you can be in every situation you find yourself in. Recognize that nobody is gonna give you a seat at the table, you have to earn that shit, meaning you have to work super hard, I’m still working hard bro and as much as I’m grateful for where I am at, I still have a long way to rise, you know what I mean. You have everything in yourself to make you great, you just have to be in a space where you are self aware of your talents, and what you enjoy, you have to be in tune with it and soar. If you don’t know what you should be doing, its cool, just stay away from the things you should not be doing then you’ll see your life go boom, you know. Finally, keep real productive friends or no friends at all (laughs). You have to be mentally upright on these streets. 

Visuals are powerful in evoking emotion, what three emotions do you want people to feel when they watch a Caleb Mosby visual? 

Anticipation, Inspiration and Excitement.