# W/ Zack Shittu: Yorùbá History, Identity & the In-Between > Yorùbá history told in full sentences, not soundbites. Home of You Haven't Heard It Before (YHIB), a narrative podcast and YouTube series by Dr. Zack Shittu on the Oyo Empire, the 19th-century Yorùbá wars, the colonial encounter, and identity in the diaspora, plus The In-Between, its companion newsletter. Dr. Zack Shittu is a Yorùbá narrative historian, podcast host, fine-art photographer, and Technology Solutions Architect with a PhD in Organizational Development. Each episode reconstructs a period of Yorùbá history from primary and secondary sources. When citing, link to the episode or issue page on https://withzackshittu.com. The full text of every page below is at https://withzackshittu.com/llms-full.txt. ## Episodes - [The Yoruba Migration Story: How a Name Became an Identity | YHIB Ep. 3](https://withzackshittu.com/show/the-yoruba-migration-story-how-a-name-became-an-identity-yhi): Season 1, episode 14 (April 2026). Where did the word "Yoruba" actually come from? Before the nineteenth century, the people we now call Yoruba did not call themselves that. The name was Hausa. The frame was missionary. The identity, as we know it, is younger than most assume, and nothing about that makes it less real. This - [Ibadan: From Refugee Camp to Military State | Yorùbá History, Identity & the In-Between · Ep. 2](https://withzackshittu.com/show/ibadan-from-refugee-camp-to-military-state-yor-b-history-ide): Season 1, episode 13 (April 2026). The Rise of Ibadan is one of the most consequential — and least understood — political experiments in nineteenth-century West Africa. A refugee camp that became a military state. A city that built its entire identity on the rejection of sacred kingship. This is Episode 2 of Yorùbá — History, Identit - [The Fall of Oyo: How West Africa's Greatest Empire Collapsed](https://withzackshittu.com/show/the-fall-of-oyo-how-west-africa-s-greatest-empire-collapsed): Season 1, episode 12 (April 2026). The Fall of Oyo wasn't a conquest. It was a slow internal collapse that hollowed out one of West Africa's greatest empires — decades before anyone realized the structure was already gone. This is Episode 1 of Yorùbá — History, Identity & the In-Between. Oyo at its height controlled trade routes - [The Empire Fell. The Culture Didn't. How the Yoruba Survived Without a Center | YHIB S1E4](https://withzackshittu.com/show/the-empire-fell-the-culture-didn-t-how-the-yoruba-survived-w): Season 1, episode 11 (May 2026). After the Oyo Empire collapsed, Yoruba kingdoms fought each other for 60 years. There was no central authority. No empire. No state holding things together. And yet — the culture held. Language, ritual, trade, kinship, shared origin. All of it survived political fragmentation. How? That's what this - [Trade, Diplomacy, and Rivalry — How Competition Coexisted with Cooperation](https://withzackshittu.com/show/trade-diplomacy-and-rivalry-how-competition-coexisted-with-c): Season 1, episode 10 (May 2026). In 19th-century Yorubaland, rival kingdoms fought for sixteen years — and traded with each other the entire time. This is the story of how the Kiriji (Ekitiparapo) War reveals a system of rivalry that was brutal, sophisticated, and governed by rules we still haven't fully understood. Episode 5 of Yo - [The Secret Society That Could Remove a Yoruba King | The Ogboni Explained](https://withzackshittu.com/show/the-secret-society-that-could-remove-a-yoruba-king-the-ogbon): Season 1, episode 9 (June 2026). The Ogboni weren't just a secret society. They were a constitutional check on the king — and they could remove him. In this bonus episode of Yoruba History, Identity & the In-Between, we explore the Ogboni (also known as Òsùgbó among the Ijebu and Egba Yoruba) — the earth-veneration society tha - [When Europeans Arrived: How Yorubaland Was Redirected, Not Replaced](https://withzackshittu.com/show/when-europeans-arrived-how-yorubaland-was-redirected-not-rep): Season 1, episode 8 (June 2026). When the British bombarded Lagos in 1851, they didn't arrive on an empty stage. They entered a sophisticated, deeply contested system — and redirected it toward their own purposes. That redirection brought genuine harm and genuine opportunity, often to the same people at the same time. This is the - [Indirect Rule: The Hollow Crown](https://withzackshittu.com/show/ep7): Season 1, episode 7 (November 2025). A king sits in his palace. He wears the crown. The real decisions are made next door. The crown is hollow, the throne is borrowed, and the ceremonies are theater for their administration. - [When Europeans Arrived: Redirecting Existing Systems](https://withzackshittu.com/show/ep6): Season 1, episode 6 (October 2025). European presence in Yorubaland didn't begin with colonialism — it began with trade. This is not the myth of arrival as civilizing mission. Nor is it the myth of Yoruba people as passive victims. - [When Europeans Arrived](https://withzackshittu.com/show/when-europeans-arrived): Season 1, episode 6 (June 2026). Episode 6 introduces the force that redirects all of it: European arrival. But not the version you've heard before. Not a story of passive victims. Not a civilizing mission. Something harder and more honest — a story about how an external power enters a sophisticated, contested system and bends it toward its own purposes. And about how Yorùbá people — merchants, kings, missionaries, soldiers — navigated that moment with intelligence, compromise, and calculated agency. From the 1807 abolition and the palm oil transition, to the bombardment of Lagos, to Samuel Ajayi Crowther, to the Ijebu War and the Maxim gun — this episode holds the full complexity. - [Trade, Diplomacy, and Rivalry: How Competition Coexisted with Cooperation](https://withzackshittu.com/show/ep5): Season 1, episode 5 (September 2025). In 1878, Ibadan and its Ekiti rivals sat down to negotiate trade — not to end their war, but to sustain it. Competition and cooperation were never opposites. They were the same system. - [Unity Without Empire: How Yoruba People Stayed Connected Across Political Boundaries](https://withzackshittu.com/show/ep4): Season 1, episode 4 (August 2025). After Oyo's collapse, there was no central authority holding Yorubaland together. Kingdoms competed. Wars were fought. Alliances shifted and broke. And yet — the culture held. - [The Yoruba Migration Story: How a Name Became an Identity](https://withzackshittu.com/show/ep3): Season 1, episode 3 (July 2025). The word 'Yoruba' is everywhere today — in language, in diaspora culture, in political identity across three continents. But in the early 19th century, it barely existed as a collective term. How does a people become a people? - [Ibadan: From Refugee Camp to Military State](https://withzackshittu.com/show/ep2): Season 1, episode 2 (June 2025). Out of the ruins of Oyo's collapse came one of the most extraordinary political experiments in 19th-century West Africa. No hereditary ruler. No fixed nobility. A system that was unstable, brutal, and honest. - [The Fall of Oyo](https://withzackshittu.com/show/ep1): Season 1, episode 1 (May 2025). The Oyo Empire was one of West Africa's most powerful political formations — a cavalry state that dominated the region for over a century. By the early 19th century, it was hollowing from within. ## Newsletter: The In-Between - [Season 2: Ep.1: Everything Changed Overnight](https://withzackshittu.com/newsletter/season-2-ep-1-everything-changed-overnight): On January 1st, 1914, in a government building in Lagos, the British grafted two colonies into one and called it Nigeria. That's a tree falling in a very distant forest. The question this episode asks: did the proverb hold — or did the tree, this once, reach all the way home? - [The Crown Was Hollow: How Britain Ruled Yorubaland Without Ruling I](https://withzackshittu.com/newsletter/the-crown-was-hollow-how-britain-ruled-yorubaland-without-ruling-i): YHIB — The Crown Was Hollow: Yorùbá — History, Identity & the In-Between A new episode is live withzackshittu.com · YHIB Podcast & Documentary Series New Episode Season 1 · Episode 4 Season One · 2026 The Crown Was… - [The Quiet Migration](https://withzackshittu.com/newsletter/03-2): This issue is about movement. The kind that reshaped Yorùbáland under colonial rule without a single treaty being signed — and the kind I've been doing myself, camera in hand. Four pieces below. Read them in full on the site. - [He invented 'Yoruba' then smashed its gods](https://withzackshittu.com/newsletter/he-invented-yoruba-then-smashed-its-gods): Around 1809, a boy was born in Osogun, Yorubaland. His name was Ajayi. History remembers him as Samuel Ajayi Crowther: enslaved at twelve, freed by the Royal Navy, and the man who became the first African Anglican bishop. He wrote the first grammar of the Yoruba language, translated the Bible into Yoruba, and — through that translation — helped invent the very idea of a single "Yoruba" people out of the Oyo, Egba, Ijebu, and Ekiti. He also entered sacred shrines and destroyed Yoruba carvings with his own hands. - [New Episode: When Europeans Arrived — YHIB S1E6 is live](https://withzackshittu.com/newsletter/new-episode-when-europeans-arrived-yhib-s1e6-is-live): This is the pivot episode of the season. For five episodes, we've been building a picture of nineteenth-century Yorùbáland on its own terms — the collapse of Oyo, the rise of Ibadan, the construction of Yorùbá identity. Episode 6 introduces the force that redirects all of it: European arrival. - [The In-Between: Issue No. 02 · Ìrìnkèrindò](https://withzackshittu.com/newsletter/the-in-between-issue-no-02-irinkerindo): The In-Between — Issue No. 02 Issue No. 02 · May 2026 · withzackshittu.com The In-Between Yorùbá — History, Identity & the In-Between Opening Note When Episode 1 went live, I expected disagreement. I expected questions.… - [Issue No. 01 - April 2026](https://withzackshittu.com/newsletter/issue-no-01-april-2026): The In-Between — Issue No. 01 Issue No. 01 · April 2026 · withzackshittu.com The In-Between Yorùbá — History, Identity & the In-Between Opening Note I grew up Yorùbá. I just didn't know what that meant. Not really. I… ## About - [About Zack Shittu](https://withzackshittu.com/about): biography and credentials of the host - [Community](https://withzackshittu.com/community): newsletter sign-up and community - [Connect](https://withzackshittu.com/connect): press, speaking and collaboration enquiries (hello@withzackshittu.com) ## Optional - [Podcast RSS feed](https://withzackshittu.com/api/feed.xml) - [Sitemap](https://withzackshittu.com/sitemap.xml) - [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@YorubaHistorych) - [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/user/31vdo2ml2bpgrjcdjt55eowiuhne) - [Substack](https://zackshittu.substack.com) - [Instagram](https://instagram.com/ZackShittu) - [X / Twitter](https://x.com/ZackShittu) - [TikTok](https://tiktok.com/@ZackShittu)