KDX, born Daniel Shomefun, is a Nigerian-Irish artist whose creative output takes many shapes, from hip-hop to painting and poetry. Alongside his work, exercise has become a defining part of how he understands himself. “I wasn’t fat, but I had a little round shape like an American football”, he says, reflecting on what brought him to the gym in the first place. Despite later building a remarkable physique, self-criticism of his body image remained. “It went up, down, up, down,” he recalls, before he eventually reached a point of clarity.
“The gym became more of a thing to help my mental, especially in times of overthinking or getting out of your head”, he says. “The main thing in my head is am I healthy? Am I strong? Am I flexible?”.
Shomefun’s approach to both fitness and artistry is driven by consistency as much as passion. Over time, training became less about appearance and more about showing up for himself. The lessons it teaches, he explains, have become part of a wider philosophy that shapes his everyday life. “When you’re getting so used to pushing yourself constantly, the little day-to-day activities, you have more discipline for them”.
At his home studio in Galway, KDX spoke with Normal’s Jake Carroll about his fitness journey and how it has helped shape his world view.
KDX: The first thing that comes to mind is that when I was younger, I wasn’t fat, but I had a little round shape, like an American football. My Mom had this nickname for me and I hated the nickname. It was basically because I used to kind of walk on my high legs a little bit, so it looked like I was walking with my ass out. [The nickname] was targeting that and I hated that. So that’s really what we got me into fitness, as well as anger issues and boredom. All that combined.
What were your early days in the gym like?
I started with home exercises. I’d do push-ups, diamond push-ups, stuff like that. I just wanted to start losing weight, which turned into wanting to gain muscle. In third year they had an underground gym [at school] and I started going there.
I think I had the most fun in the gym in the beginning, because it was just a sense of growth. Everyone knows, at the beginning, it can just boom because you’re just starting out, so the gains come a bit quicker. When I started going up in strength and stuff, that’s when I was really excited, like, “Oh my God, I’m doing it”.
Did your relationship with your body begin to change?
Definitely, because you take before and after pictures, trying to see the progress. Seeing the work you put in affect your body and change it, it was a confidence booster. So I guess I started looking at my body more like, “Yo, this can go somewhere”. It even got to a point where people around me at the time would be like, “Oh man, he’s so big”, and they wouldn’t want to get in trouble with me because I was big. The fact that I saw people reacting like that, I was kind of like, “Oh, okay, I guess that’s cool”. I started walking around with a little more confidence.
But then it did start to get to a point where every time I looked in the mirror, it was like, “I’m very small”, even though I wasn’t small. It went from, “Oh, I’ve got muscles”, to then, “Man, I’m small. I’m smaller than all the other big guys”. So it went up, down, up, down.
“The gym was really a testimony to not ever assume that where you’re at with your strength, especially mentally, is all you can be.”
To be honest, I didn’t necessarily defeat it. What it is now is more acceptance. At some point strength started mattering more than size. I gave up on trying to over-critique my body every time I looked in the mirror. I still flex in the mirror... it’s a nice feeling, you look good, but the main thing in my head now is: am I healthy? Am I strong? And at a certain point, it became am I flexible? Because I couldn’t touch my toes at one point.
When it stopped being about how you looked, what did the gym start doing for you mentally?
For me, the gym was really a testimony to not ever assume that where you’re at with your strength, especially mentally, is all you can be. The only thing you can assume is that you haven’t pushed yourself past the wall you’re currently at. If you’re still struggling to do one or two things, more likely it’s the way [you’re] thinking about it rather than it being all that difficult.
Does that mindset carry through to other aspects of your life?
I believe it does, because when I come back from the gym, I feel good. I feel like I’ve just accomplished something. A good type of pain. I feel like that helps because when I come back from the gym, I’m tired, but because of the way I’ve worked my body and the way I feel, I wouldn’t mind doing those dishes I said I’d do tomorrow, because I’m just not full of excuses.
What would your advice be to someone trying to improve their body image through fitness?
There’s people who might be a bit chubby, or on the other side, whatever the case may be, but you can still see that confidence in them. So I guess my advice would be: don’t be so focused on the aesthetic of why you’re doing fitness, but rather, as corny as it sounds, how you feel from the inside. There are people out there who are not as tall as the next person, not as good-looking as the next person, not as fit as the next person. But when they walk in the room and they speak to you, their confidence is booming. It’s vibrant. And that makes you look past all of that.
So I think that’s the main thing. When you’re going for fitness, it’s for your health, it’s for your mental, before it’s for your looks. The internal is the most important part. That changes before the external. The external may come, but focus on the internal for sure.