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'MJ Praise' Oluwamayowa Oyinloye
Finding Freedom, Faith, and a Voice in Medway
TENS-2026-007 | 10 Black Voices of Medway 2026
Oluwamayowa Oyinloye, known as MJ Praise, begins her TENS interview by introducing herself through a sequence of Yoruba names.
The introduction is warm and playful, but it also carries meaning. Names connect her to relatives, faith and expectations expressed when a child enters a family.
Speaking with me, she moves from these beginnings to memories of Nigeria, life in Medway, and the community work she has built through music.
Her account places personal expression and the wish to encourage others within the same story.
The stories within a name
MJ Praise explains that relatives may contribute names for a newborn, creating a much longer personal name than the one used in daily life. Remembering and reciting those names becomes a way of acknowledging the people and meanings attached to them.
In her own account, Christian belief is important to the names she received. She explains Oluwamayowa through the idea of God bringing joy and discusses the significance of other names within the sequence. Her explanation allows a reader unfamiliar with Yoruba naming to encounter its meaning through one person's experience.
The interview does not suggest that every Yoruba family follows an identical practice. Instead, it preserves her description of how names worked within her own family and what she chooses to carry into the present. A familiar public name and a longer family inheritance can exist together.
Remembering community life
Born in Lagos, MJ Praise also describes family connections with Ekiti. She remembers an environment in which neighbours and relatives played a visible part in everyday life. Adults knew one another, children were noticed, and responsibility could extend beyond a single household.
Festive gatherings provide some of her clearest examples. At Christmas, food travelled between homes, children delivered dishes and neighbours shared what they had prepared. Celebration involved movement and exchange, with familiar routines connecting people across a neighbourhood.
She contrasts these memories with an early Christmas in Britain that felt unexpectedly quiet. The difference is not presented as a complete judgement about either country. It is the remembered surprise of discovering that an occasion can feel very different when the surrounding social practices change.
Such details matter to the heritage record because they explain what people miss as well as where they came from. Cultural memory may live in visitors' expectations, the noise of a gathering, or the habit of preparing enough food to share.
Learning to cook
Dammy describes the early loss of his mother and the responsibilities he encountered while growing up. Cooking became an important practical skill and, over time, a source of enjoyment.
The account connects competence with circumstances while making clear that food later became something he actively wanted to pursue.
His educational journey included civil engineering before a move towards hospitality and cooking. That change gives another dimension to the story.
The path someone begins does not always remain the path through which they choose to contribute or find satisfaction.
Food and familiar tastes
Her conversation includes foods such as suya and puff puff, alongside other dishes associated with her memories of Nigeria. Food provides a route into discussing authenticity, pleasure and the growing range of African food available around Medway.
These references connect personal memory with the changing local environment. A restaurant or shop can make familiar tastes available while introducing them to people who have not encountered them before. Food becomes part of the way a community remembers and part of the way it welcomes others.
Her account also shows why a cultural history should allow space for enjoyment. A life cannot be understood only through difficulties or achievements. The foods a person likes, the celebrations they remember and the company they miss help explain how that life feels from within.
Music as a way of reaching people
MJ Praise describes herself as a gospel artist. Faith and musical expression are closely connected within the story she tells. Music provides a way to speak publicly and to invite people into a shared experience, including those who might not approach a formal conversation or service.
The interview summary describes the Let Loose Initiative CIC, which she founded to offer hope and support to people affected by abuse. It also records community concerts using mobile stages and the development of a choir open to all age groups. These activities use performance and participation to bring people together.
The significance is not limited to the person at the microphone. A concert can create an opportunity to gather, while a choir invites people to contribute their own voices. The account therefore connects individual artistry with the work of organising situations in which other people can take part.
Freedom and support
Her interview includes personal testimony about childhood harm and the importance of finding safety.
This library account does not repeat the details of those experiences. It recognises their place in the story while allowing her identity to include far more than what happened to her.
She describes the support of her husband and the importance of honesty within their relationship.
Understanding another person's history can help a couple respond to one another with greater care.
Her advice to families includes communicating openly and recognising the different strengths each person brings. Medway is part of her account of finding space to grow.
She describes support and freedom that helped her develop personally and professionally. These are her reflections on her own experience, rather than a promise that settling in a place will have the same meaning for everyone.
A voice within Medway
The portrait photographs present MJ Praise through her chosen appearance and public presence, while the oral history provides a different kind of encounter. Readers hear how she explains a name, remembers a celebration and connects creativity with care. Neither image nor text needs to contain everything about her to contribute something meaningful.
Her place within TENS records a contemporary Black woman's cultural and community life in Medway. Yoruba heritage, Christian faith, music and family relationships remain connected, but they are not reduced to a single label. Her account invites attention to the ways people carry memory forward while creating opportunities for others to feel heard, welcomed and able to participate.
The name MJ Praise identifies her publicly, while the longer introduction reminds listeners that a public identity does not contain every important intergenerational family connection. The same is true of the archive. A portrait, a song and an interview each offer a different encounter, without replacing the person who contributes them.
Holding those forms together allows readers to appreciate the range of her contribution while remembering that she retains a life beyond what is shared. Her story remains hers even when it becomes part of a collective local record.
About this collection
An edited account based on the supplied oral-history transcript extract and interview summary. Personal recollections are attributed to the narrator; this article is not a verbatim transcript.
Supported by the Medway Heritage Place Project, with funding from Medway Council and the National Lottery Heritage Fund. With thanks to National Lottery players.
Interview, editorial adaptation and project direction by Michi Masumi — Anthropology, Art & AI. Published through the Benjamin Zephaniah Digital Archives & Library, an initiative led by Michi Masumi. Portrait photography by Michi Masumi unless otherwise credited; Leslie Haynes family photographs supplied through Russell Haynes, with original photographers credited where known.
Copyright © Michi Masumi 2026. All rights reserved. Copyright in individual contributions and third-party material remains with the respective rights holders.
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