Early Life
Kemi Adetiba was born on 8 January 1980 in Lagos, Nigeria, to Dele and Mayen Adetiba. As a child, she appeared in a television advert for OMO detergent. She went on to earn a law degree from the University of Lagos, before later studying filmmaking at the New York Film Academy.
Career
Kemi Adetiba began her media career as a radio presenter on Rhythm 93.7 FM, hosting popular shows including ‘Soul’d Out’ and ‘Sunday at the Seaside,’ before moving into television, where she produced and presented shows on M-Net including ‘Studio 53’ and ‘Temptation Nigeria,’ and hosted the ‘Maltina Dance All’ show for three years. She also built a name directing music videos for artists including Banky W, Ty Bello and Olamide, before her short film ‘Across a Bloodied Ocean’ premiered at the Pan African Film Festival and the National Black Arts Festival in 2009.
Her directorial feature debut, ‘The Wedding Party’ (2016), premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival’s City-to-City Spotlight and shattered Nigerian box office records, grossing over ₦450 million. She followed it with ‘King of Boys’ (2018), a political crime thriller starring Sola Sobowale that became a cultural phenomenon, later extending it into the Netflix limited series ‘King of Boys: The Return of the King’ (2021). In 2025, her Netflix crime thriller series ‘To Kill a Monkey,’ starring William Benson, Bucci Franklin and Bimbo Akintola, premiered on 18 July and quickly became one of the most talked-about Nollywood productions ever, reportedly accumulating over 22.7 million hours watched and winning multiple awards, including Director of the Year and Favourite African Series.
Personal Life
Kemi Adetiba married Ghanaian music executive Oscar Heman-Ackah in April 2022, in a star-studded ceremony followed by a destination wedding in Dubai. She splits her time between Lagos and Accra, and runs her own production company, Kemi Adetiba Visuals (KAV).
With a filmography spanning romantic comedy, political crime drama and crime thriller, Kemi Adetiba remains one of Nollywood’s most acclaimed and influential filmmakers, proving that home-grown Nigerian stories continue to hold global pull.
