Ogogo has died at 66. Here’s a look back at the 10 unforgettable films that turned Taiwo Hassan into one of Yoruba cinema’s biggest icons.
If you grew up watching Yoruba movies, chances are you know that voice, that swagger, that no-nonsense screen presence. That was Ogogo.
Taiwo Hassan, the man behind the name, passed away on Sunday at 66, after a long fight with stage-four cancer. He left behind over 100 films and more than four decades of work that shaped Yoruba cinema as we know it.
So today, instead of mourning alone, let’s remember him the way he’d probably want, through the movies that made him.
It all really took off in 1995 with Owo Blow. Directed by Tade Ogidan, this was the role that turned Taiwo Hassan into “Ogogo” overnight. He played Wole Owolabi in a story about corruption and the rot in society, and it hit so hard he walked away with Best Actor at the 1997 THEMA Awards. That same year, he also starred in Agbelebu, back when he was still the romantic leading man everyone swooned over.
Then there’s Danfo Driver, also from 1995, where he played a street-smart Lagos bus driver. Funny, sharp, and instantly memorable, this is peak early Ogogo.
By 2004, he’d matured into something else entirely. Okan Soso, alongside Bukky Wright, Kola Oyewo and Yemi Solade, is one of those films Yoruba movie lovers still bring up today. And behind the camera, he was just as busy, writing and producing Ekun-Ayo back in 1996, proof he was never just an actor waiting for scripts.
His roles started shifting too. In Omin (2008), he moved away from romance and into the authoritative father-figure energy that would define his later years. Elewon (2009) followed the same pattern, with Ogogo producing as much as performing.
Then Nollywood’s biggest audiences got to meet him properly. Omo Ghetto (2010) introduced him as a D.P.O. to a whole new generation who’d never seen his Yoruba-language classics.
But it was Aníkúlápó in 2022 that really made the world sit up. Playing Alaafin Ademuyiwa in Kunle Afolayan’s Netflix hit, alongside Kunle Remi, Bimbo Ademoye and Sola Sobowale, earned him an AMVCA nomination and introduced him to global streaming audiences almost thirty years after his first big break. He reprised the role in Aníkúlápó: Rise of the Spectre in 2024, one of his final major performances.
From a Lagos mechanic to Alaafin on Netflix, that’s not just a career, that’s a whole journey. And honestly, that’s why people are struggling to let go right now.
