Kafayat Oluwatoyin Shafau (popularly known as Kaffy) is not just Nigeria’s most prominent dancer and choreographer, she’s a force of reinvention and resilience who has quietly built a thriving ecosystem around her craft.
With a career spanning over two decades, Kaffy has transformed from a misunderstood young woman with a dream to a trailblazer whose name has become synonymous with professionalism, creativity, and structure in the dance industry.
‘It was very difficult when I started the journey. When I said I was a dancer, people would look at me and ask, ‘What else do you want to do with your life’, It didn’t look like a great path’, she recalled.
Yet Kaffy stayed the course. Today, she runs a growing organisation that not only trains dancers but also offers a blueprint for creatives struggling with structure and sustainability in their careers.
‘One of the problems of the creative industry is structure. We are dishing out, people are consuming, but the average creative—whether a photographer, dancer, or stylist—often lacks a business model that allows them to evolve and scale’, she said.
That realisation pushed Kaffy to begin building a brand that extends beyond the stage. Through personal funding—she notes that over 80% of her journey has been self-sponsored—she has developed the Kaffy Kreative Agency, a platform that now serves as both a service hub and talent incubator.
‘Yes, I’m still looking for investors. The vision is so new that people don’t understand it until it becomes something. Even banks don’t believe a dancer can repay a loan because they don’t see the structure. But now, the Kaffy brand is a unicorn model for others to emulate’.
At the heart of her mission is empowerment. According to her, creatives need to become entrepreneurs within the space of their talent—balancing art with business savvy.
‘There is life behind everything people see. Photographers become fathers, dancers become mothers. They need to know how to scale and structure their lives. That’s the gap I’ve been able to fill’.
From stage to strategy
Kaffy is acutely aware of the distinction between herself as a performer and her agency as a business. Over the years, she’s been deliberate about building a system that functions with or without her physical presence.
‘Every time people hired me, they would say, ‘If you’re not there, we don’t want anybody else.’ But the brand has grown beyond me choreographing. I’ve had to delegate. Whether it’s editing or directing, others can now deliver those services’.
That mindset has not only helped scale her operations but also shifted the industry standard.
‘I broke that chain and set a new benchmark. I started collecting ₦500,000 over 15 years ago. Today, that’s a decent starting point for younger talents’.
She also redefined how dancers present themselves.
‘When I started doing proper photoshoots, most dancers couldn’t afford it. But once they saw it on my brand, they began to emulate it. That’s the power of setting a standard’.
Value of dance
Far beyond performance, Kaffy sees dance as a tool for development and transformation.
‘There’s been massive growth. Dancers are now influencers. Brands now see the value of dance in advertising and film. It’s being used in wellness, education, even therapy’.
She cited an example of a government-approved school program using dance to aid learning and cognitive development. ‘I have a friend who the government has approved a programme in secondary schools using dance for information and assisting educational materials, dance helps to expand that cognitive reasoning of children and that has been infused in our educational system as well. So that already connects to the economic value because when people can develop themselves, they can empower themselves, and that is where their productivity increases.
These are the things that help us nurture people and eventually improve the economic scale of things. Working with organisations and partnering with government parastatals can amplify that when these things are imbibed into institutions, because I go to schools and higher institutions to coach and mentor.
‘When people develop themselves through creative expression, their productivity increases. That improves the economic scale. That’s why we must infuse dance into institutions—schools, corporate wellness programmes, and more’.
Two faces of the Kaffy brand
To avoid confusion between her public persona and corporate entity, Kaffy has separated both.
There’s Kaffy the person and then there’s Kaffy the business, and one of the things I’ve struggled with over the years is every time people hire me, they will be like, if I am not there, they don’t want to see anybody else, but I’m like, I can’t… There’s a level at which the brand will grow. I have to let the younger ones do the work, it has expanded beyond just me choreographing.
‘Every aspect of service I have rendered has another human being that can also give out that service either by direct training from me or they came already with that talent and we can only absorb them…. For instance, I used to edit myself, and someone who has already trained himself as an editor comes to the company. That means I’m not going to be the one editing any longer – I have to direct the job to the person. All these have helped the industry grow even to the pricing level. When I came, getting paid five hundred was luck, but I broke the chain and increased the value of hire, that is how much you get paid.
‘Because I set the standard like fifteen years ago, collecting five hundred thousand for choreography, for a young person now, that amount is a good pay to start with, but if I didn’t start it, it may not be easy for younger generations now. When I started doing photo shoots, no dancer could afford a major photographer to do it, but when they saw it on my branding, my brand space, they started emulating that.
‘When you want Kaffy at your event, that’s the personal brand. When you want creative solutions, that’s Kaffy Kreative Agency. Both are strong brands, but they serve different purposes’.
Staying relevant
In an industry where relevance can be fleeting, Kaffy’s secret is service and integrity.
‘What has sustained the brand for me is the hunger, the drive to see lives living better. There’s never an end game for that kind of journey because human lives evolve; the only thing constant in human life is change. I keep putting work out there that connects with humanity and I keep serving. The crown is not too big for me to work and do the grind and brand integrity, and also over-deliver. When you hire my brand, you can go to sleep, be assured that the job will be delivered’.
Balancing motherhood, legacy
Despite her busy schedule, Kaffy remains a hands-on parent to her two children, a boy and a girl.
My kids (male and female) ask questions a lot. I have a professor in the house, Professor Sean. My children are a gift. Even at their age, they don’t even act their age. I wonder where they got that from. They are very sound, and I am a very intentional mom when it comes to my children. I have conversations with my kids a lot, and they are aware based on their level of understanding, but they understand more than you think. One of the things that created a huge bond with my kids and allowed me to do this now was that when they were very little, they went with me everywhere that I went. I hardly left my kids with nannies, so if I had gigs, they went with me.
Kaffy believes that presence matters more than time spent.
I am an advocate of quality time over quantity time. Sometimes a parent is around but not around, you can be with your child and not be with your child. So it’s not about being at home but being present when they need that caregiver energy to be with them. It’s been perfect but it’s the process of being intentional for every present moment that matters with me and the children and that has really helped us and now that they are entering teenage hood this equilibrium comes for me every time that its tilted, it’s always going to be tilt as a parent, there’s never a blueprint that is perfect and there’s a place for God.
I thank God for their cocoon that I am embedded in as a parent to nurture and raise my kids.
