Today we’d like to introduce you to Mubarak Oyegunle.
Mubarak, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Hailing from Nigeria, Mubarak Oyegunle, also known as Soloin is an American Internet Personality and Creative Director in which owns a YouTube channel with over 300k subscribers and his own media company, ABRANT. I am currently attending Towson University for a Degree in Science for Electronic Media and Film (EMF) with a minor in Music Industry. I am currently a Sophomore in college and am 19 years old, going to 20 in May. I moved to the United States (Maryland) when I was four. Growing up in Maryland was a humbling experience for me. My family moved from Nigeria to get away from the corrupt government for a better education.
My father is a Civil Engineer with his Masters that owns his own company in Nigeria, and my mother was a former fashion designer who later became a nurse and social worker with Bachelor’s degree in Science. Although we were well off in Nigeria, the government was very corrupt in terms of education and other means. My father took the final decision and the risk of bringing my family to the United States.
It was a struggle sorting ourselves out here, with my father having to travel back and forth from Nigeria to America to maintain his business and see us whenever he could. He’s a hard working man and I look up to his so much for what he’s gone through in his own life and how he managed to get to where he is today and support our family. I get my work ethic and perseverance from him. My mother is also a strong, joyful, and positive woman. She keeps pushing even when times are dark. from being a former fashion designer to managing to raise two children, myself and my sister, while managing to get her bachelor’s degree in science in the states. I get my creativity and confidence from her.
From my younger years through high school, I grew up around primary minorities. Mostly black, Hispanic, and middle eastern/Arab people. I’ve never been more grateful to have that experience in my life. It allowed me to understand the culture of not only different races and ethnicity but their struggles as well individually. It carved me to become a non judgmental and understanding person and allowed me to learn more about the world than I thought I knew.
When I was young I’ve always had a passion for art and creating. when I was in 5th grade I would record short films of my cousins and I “play fighting” on his apartment balcony and upload it to YouTube. The series was called “hidden fight recharged” but I took it down because it was cringey haha. I would always draw and make random comics in my free time in middle school, I even made a fake card game called “PokiGon” which was a combination of Pokemon and Bakugan. Yeah, I was a bored kid. I still have the cards today.
In 2010 I created my first YouTube channel by the name of Mubarak907. I would upload videos of random online games and videos of my messing around with my cousins (in which most are deleted from the internet, thank god). Fast forward to 2012, I decided to take things a bit more “seriously” with my YouTube career.
I created a new channel by the name of “Soloin” on December 12th, 2012, at the age of 12. From there I uploaded Minecraft videos, Wizard101, and other random games I could lay my hands on and enjoyed.
Now many people ask how I came up with the name “Soloin” So I used to play this online game called Rumble Fighter. One of my accounts got banned for being associated with a “hacker” so I had to make a new account. I wanted to create a character by the name of “Soloing” but because that name was already taken, I took the “g” out of the word and named my character “Soloin”. So I stuck with the name ever since because I thought that it sounded cool.
As time passed, I grew older and my interests changed. I was in 10th grade when I decided to change my content from gaming to more personality based content. It didn’t work too well. My subscribers at the time disliked it and I lost a significant amount of supporters. It got to me at first, but then I kept pushing and decided to stick with the plan and action. I wanted to create a legacy for myself and make other people’s lives better rather than just entertaining. From there, I got my first “hit” video, On August 29th of 2016 I uploaded a “Song lyric text prank”. The video allowed me to expand the dynamic of my content to further heights and also gained me many new supporters. And from there, I kept pushing. I never really got that much support in high school. Mainly because I never really put myself out there. There I was, a Youtuber with well over 40k subscribers in school that no one knows about. I was always lowkey about who I told about my YouTube channel because I never liked the attention. I didn’t want people to befriend me because of my “status”. Because of this, I managed to create strong friendships with people I still talk to today. It wasn’t until my senior year of high school (2017-2018) is when people started noticing me. This was when I decided to start making music for fun too as well. At that time, March of 2018, I got into a dilemma with Sommer Ray Sommer failed to pay me for multiple videos I edited for her. I made a video in regards to the situation that went pretty viral and eventually got paid after the backlash Sommer received.
From then on, I got accepted to college and decided to pursue my YouTube career as a side hobby/job. College was a HUGE culture shock for me. From growing up seeing primarily minorities to a university predominantly populated by white people. At first, it was hard to adjust. ”Damn, I’m the only black dude in a square mile radius” but I eventually got used to it. It helped me understand different races and ethnicities further. Not everyone with white skin color is just “white”.
College helped me step out of my comfort zone in terms of social awkwardness and speaking. I’m a more confident and sociable person than I was a year ago. At first, it was hard balancing college, YouTube and my social life, but once I made a schedule for myself it became much easier.
Right now I’m going all out and pushing everything. School, YouTube, and ABRANT. I know with hard and perseverance I will graduate and get my degree, get a million subscribers, and push my brand and other projects for the rest of my life. As of January 2020, I’m still on stepping stones, I’m more consistent with my channel and my brand is nothing more than a baby compared to it’s full potential. I will make a legacy for myself, my brand, and the friends, family, and supporters that have been with me throughout these years.
Thank you all, I’m grateful to be in such a blessed position. Not everyone has the opportunity for what I’m doing right, that’s why I work so hard and never take things for granted.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It was never a smooth road. Some struggles I received along the way were:
– Countless people doubting my efforts,
– Dealing with negative feedback and hate on my channel day to day in an attempt to switch my content to a more personality based fitting in 2016. To this day I still receive hate but it’s ignored and isn’t noticed much.
– Attempting to find my niche after successfully switching my channel to personality based content – I had to find a niche within that to maintain a proper audience and following.
– The automatic judgment of “entitlement” because of my “status” from others when I didn’t even show malicious intent.
– Struggling to maintain a proper balance with school, social life, youtube, and my business.
– Financial struggles in maintaining my business.
– Trying to keep up and maintain consistency on a very competitive site as youtube is.
– Getting declined and rejected from people I looked up to in terms of youtube collaboration and reaching out to artists for music video shoots.
Please tell us about your work.
In December 2018, towards the end of my first semester in college, I started my clothing and media company named “ABRANT “. It is a Maryland-Based Creative Media Label. With the help of my close friends, supporters, and family, I would have never gotten the brand started and running smoothly as it is today as well. I appreciate them all 10 folds.
Derived from the term “aberrant”, ABRANT aims to create art with the intent to diverge from an accepted social norm, yet, maintaining aesthetically pleasing designs and creative work.
The mission for ABRANT is to encourage the process of “Being Your Best Self”. No matter your background, social, or economic standing, always strive to be a better person, daily. At the end of the day, if you’re not enjoying your life, who will?
Be Your Best Self: My goal is to create something similar to a “Lyrical Lemonade” or AWGE for the DMV (DC Maryland & Virginia), but on a much larger scale. Right now our primary focus in Music video production, short films and clothing design. Eventually, I want to branch out and start hosting festivals, concerts, and even turning the brand into something bigger, a section outside of the entertainment industry. I can’t get into to much detail but all I can say is that these next couple of years are going to be crazy.
I’m proud of the progress made in terms of notability, creativity, and our message. Although it’s been a year since we started, the brand didn’t start picking up social traction until December 2019. This is when people around my area started getting more familiar with the brand, as well as my supporters. In terms of creativity, I know we can do so much better, but the content we have out right now is amazing. Appreciate all work you do, good or bad. Use the failures or bad work to improve yourself constantly.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
The proudest moment of my career is having a fanbase that likes me for who I am and being able to push a positive and creative initiative with my company.
Contact Info:
- Website: Youtube: Soloin (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXkdFns2qGob7MeO8_wA7-w) / ABRANT (https://abrant.co/)
- Instagram: Soloin: https://www.instagram.com/ssoloin/ | ABRANT: https://www.instagram.com/abrant.co/
- Twitter: Soloin: https://twitter.com/dasoloin | ABRANT: https://twitter.com/abrantco
- Other: ABRANT Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCicJnondWmJw5NkpYwhhnxQ/
Suggest a story: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
