Popular Nigerian dancer, Dipeolu Damilola Dipson, professionally known as 1cloutdipson, is the only child of his parents and traditionally, they would have wanted him to don a wig and gown or become a surgeon. But destiny has all of us where it always wanted.

1cloutdipson grew up with an ambition to not only dance, but create his dance steps trademarked by him. Like many dreams that initially got foggy before taking flight, his was no exemption. The challenges stared at him so hard, but all he saw was where he was going, and the greater end that lies ahead.

Having to take steps into his future, the young University of Lagos undergraduate was prepared to defy the odds and chase his dream. It first began with looking through the shoulders of those who had gone ahead, and he found a perfect inspiration.

“I was inspired by the 2016 sensational popular hip hop dancers AYO&TEO. It is not easy being a dance influencer in Nigeria it took lots of hard work, dedication, discipline and sacrifice to attain this stage. I started from nothing borrowing phones also paying people just to use their phones because they had good cameras just to shoot and create good dance content”, 1cloutdipson said in an interview.

Continuing, Dipeolu Damilola Dipson said, “Trekking to locations just to create dance content and gather audience on my page and also trying to link up with other dancers and other top dance sensations just for my face to be out there…the strive to save up money just to look good by buying clothes and shoes just to spice up my videos and make it look good, sometimes we were sent out from malls while shooting dance content but this never stopped the drive to be a dance influencer.

“Eventually, early 2021, I opened a new tiktok account because I had issues with login in my old account so after creating it I started dropping my dance content on the new account while using my mum’s phone because I couldn’t afford a phone up until that moment. Then suddenly, my videos started blowing up on the application and I started seeing little gigs from music promotions and advertisements. Then, I could save up to get a new phone and that was how I became fully consistent on posting my dance contents back-to-back”, added 1cloutdipson.

The Ogun-born dancer has now become a mega brand in the Nigerian entertainment industry, inspiring and influencing other dancers at a young age. He co-founded a nine-member dance group known as “City Boyz”, which comprises young and forceful minds who share similar goals as him.

“I’m one of the pioneers of CITY BOYZ and everything started from a text message from my colleague Trophy Bowy, because we all had the same mindset goals and vision of pushing the dance community in Nigeria to the next level. So we started by linking up weekends which we later moved to weekly link up, paying for apartments for content shoot for a month till we finally got a place of our own and now we shoot almost everyday “, said 1cloutdipson.

According to the talented dancer, his role models are Poco Lee, AYO&TEO, Kida The Great, The Future Kings, Jabawokees, Jeriq The Husla, and multiple award-winning Nigerian Afrobeat singer, Davido, for whom he created a dance move in his new project.

He said: “The experience creating the dance for FEEL, a song by Davido, was really unbelievable and crazy because I was not expecting to work with Davido this year or even any time soon. So when Davido offered the project at first, honestly I was short of words I can’t even explain or express how I felt that moment but trust me, I was one of the happiest, if not the happiest person on earth.

“And I knew at that moment that project was going to change my career forever and I had to put my all in it because it was a song from his upcoming album, which was definitely going to be a huge success. So, I felt so blessed to be part of the project”, said 1cloutdipson.