In the last year Beau Slawn has appeared in the “Sprinter” music video with Central Cee and Dave, joined the duo on stage at Glastonbury, and given his parents the name for their new east London café, Beau Beaus. An impressive slate of work for a one year old.

Beau’s father is Oloula Slawn, the artist who started his career as a skatewear designer in Lagos and moved onto bold, graffiti-style pop-art, working extensively with the late Virgil Abloh and designing the 2023 BRIT award trophy. Slawn’s eclectic style gained him followers, but it was his outlandish marketing strategies that really got people’s attention – even going as far as making people brawl for his paintings. It was that rebellious streak that made the late Virgil Abloh take notice. Slawn was mentored by the multi-hyphenate, collaborating with Abloh on both Off-White and FREE-GAME, a website that offered free professional insight for people trying to build a streetwear brand.

At Beau Beaus, along with his partner Tallula Christie, Slawn is bringing that spirit of collaboration along. The coffee shop, fitted out with muted mid-century furniture and original Slawn artwork, is a space for people trying to make it in the creative industries who might have felt shut out. Here they can talk over smoky jollof rice, an iced chai or the “I’m trying to learn from people”, Slawn tells me. “I want art, music, whatever, to not feel inaccessible.”

The buzz around the café has been steadily growing for months. It began with a video from Fabio Dessena, a TikToker known for his street interviews, who posted a promotion for Beau Beaus which has since hit nearly 250k views. The clip featured rappers M Huncho and Unknown T going undercover as baristas and receiving treatment in the cafe’s acupuncturist clinic. The video showcased a typical Slawn stunt for the opening: anyone who bought a coffee was entered into a raffle to win a moped designed by the artist.