‘I got offered a gram of cocaine for a painting’: is Slawn art’s latest enfant terrible?

His critics call him a talentless chancer, but the 23-year-old street artist from Lagos has found success through brand collaborations, Saatchi backing – and manifesting his goal of becoming the ‘biggest artist in the world’

Slawn turns up to our interview in his London studio two hours late and holding his two-week-old son under his arm like a rugby ball. Dressed in a black T-shirt, shorts and work boots, the 23-year-old Nigerian (real name Olaolu Akeredolu-Ale) looks like a well-dressed scaffolder on his lunch break. In actual fact, he’s the art world’s latest, and most in-demand, enfant terrible.

The Lagosian mixes skating’s bravado and street art’s break-the-rules approach and is having a lot of success doing it. He claims he’s already made £1m, and this afternoon – 24 hours before the launch of a show at his new gallery, Saatchi Yates sandwiched between Pall Mall and Mayfair – Slawn has been spending some of it.