Most of our youngest generation will be surprised to discover that hip-hop was one of the first foreign genres to gain adoption in Nigeria.
The embryonic stage of Nigerian rap played out through the 80s and 90s, as a number of impassioned young creatives, with neither commercial backing nor an established fanbase, began to create hip-hop singles and albums for a small audience. DJ Ron Ekundayo is largely credited with creating the premier Nigerian rap single with ‘The Way I Feel Rap‘, released in 1981. Other acts that released songs in these years include Emphasis (a group consisting of Terry, Mouth MC and Junior) and the duo of Pretty and Junior, amongst others.
Towards the turn of the century, rap music began its commercial run, supported by record labels who tilted towards Nigerian hip-hop in their output. Critical amongst them was Kennis music, whose efforts at rap were mostly helmed by The Remedies – a group consisting of Eedris Abdulkareem, Eddy Remedy and Tony Tetuila. They were responsible for the first mainstream rap single, ‘Sakomo’, with debuted in ’98 and laid the path for stardom in rap, a path that would become populated in a few years with acts like Trybesmen (eLDee tha Don, Freestyle tha Shogun and Kaboom), Rasqui, Ruggedman etc.
The boundaries of Nigeria’s rap scene today are not easy to define. Like most other countries, Nigeria still practices its version of American hip-hop, and it is what most people will associate with rap music in Nigeria – the music of rap icons like MI, Vector, A-Q, and as well as newer acts like PsychoYP which captures American rap in most of its essence and leaves only a little room for cultural inflection.
As rap begins to mix and interact with local genres, it becomes harder to keep track of. Olamide, Phyno and Reminisce, the ‘local rappers’ who add cultural flavour to their melodies must surely still be considered rappers, for they tick all the boxes except for the American slang and lingua which they substitute nicely with their own indigenous languages. By doing this, they bring their audience closer to the music and ensure a level of relatability that is difficult to match by their English-speaking counterparts.
But then what do we say of acts like Naira Marley and Zlatan who deviate even further from the hip-hop template and into indigenous genres like fuji, making it difficult to ascertain on which side of the fence they actually lie? A fine compromise has been to refer to them as ‘street hop’ musicians (or street pop), a tag that tallies nicely with the genre-blending music they produce. In the years when contemporary Nigerian hip-hop waned in influence, street hop was in its ascendency, and many of the biggest hits of the last five years bear the distinct mark of the streets. Tracks like ‘Able God’ (Chinko Ekun, Zlatan, Lil Kesh), ‘Cash App’ (Bella Shmurda, Zlatan, Lincoln), ‘Kilofeshe’ (Zinoleesky), ‘Feel Good’ (Mohbad), as well as Naira Marley’s singles from above, spiced up dance floors and had their creators laughing to the bank, none of which could be said about their hip hop counterparts. Pure hip-hop was thought of as a fading genre in Nigeria, with less conservative estimations claiming it had been permanently replaced by its street variant, – in the ‘streets ti take over’ movement.
In contrast to the years around it, 2022 has been a redemptive year for hip-hop. This came on the back of the drive and ingenuity of a new school of Nigerian hip-hop acts who refuse to take no for an answer, even as they are wary of the challenges many have faced in this line of music, challenges that forced predecessors to either veer off and take the easier path to stardom in Afropop or abandon music altogether in favour of the 9-5. But they are not deterred. Their response is to commit even more effort into rewriting the story around upcoming rap acts.
Blaqbonez is an act that must be recognised for this. Possessing the talent to make a dent in an audience not especially loving of your genre is one thing, but putting in the effort to push this into the public eye is even more important, for there is no need to be good at a craft if the people never get to hear it. Thankfully, Blaqbonez is equally adept at both. The marketing gimmicks he has employed are well documented, and they have been at least partially responsible for his rise in the last couple of years.
The bulk of his musical effort in 2022 is contained in the sex-themed Young Preacher which debuted in October and is still in the spotlight for how Blaqbonez effectively sprinkled pop elements into classic hip-hop sounds for a result that was fresh and immersing. Before its arrival, however, he was involved in the making of another album that was a gift to fans yearning to consume more of the Nigerian hip-hop product – the album Behold The L. A. M. B. The collaborative project was helmed by A-Q, M. I., Blaqbonez and Loose Kanyon, 4 rappers who share an affiliation with Chocolate City Music as present or former signees, with their first letters cleverly rearranged to give this album its witty, irreligious name.
It wasn’t the first cocktail of this quad, as they had previously co-starred in tracks like ‘L. A. M. B Cypher’ and ‘Martell Cypher 2’ (both released in 2019), and had broken into pairs for projects like Crown (A-Q and Loose Kanyon, 2018) and The Live Report (A-Q and M. I., 2020). Behold the L. A. M. B. was therefore the first meeting of all four rappers under the roof of an album. Massive collaborative projects like this often struggle under the weight of their ambition, and L. A. M. B. was sadly no different, but its statement on Nigerian hip hop surpasses just the quality of the music. A tape of that magnitude is significant of a change of tide for the future of Nigerian hip hop, as it shows the guys at the top are willing to collaborate to leave lasting imprints for others to follow, in addition to individually chasing short-term gains.
Interestingly, all four acts (with the exception of Loose Kanyon) were able to find time in the year to drop individual albums as well, which testifies to how much harder rap musicians work to consistently put out music. For A-Q, his 2022 project, made in concert with Brymo, was his fifth in only three years. The album, titled Ethos, offered a fine union of hip hop and Brymo’s afro soul, which they finely demarcated into verses and choruses respectively. M. I.’s album, The Guy, was released In August with a warm reception and a number 1 chart placement that surprised even the rapper, for it was more than he was used to. Vector, his former adversary, and the co-correspondent of a number of diss tracks they exchanged until their eventual collaboration with the fence-mending ‘Crown Of Clay’ last year, also made a contribution to 2022. It came in the much-anticipated album, Teslim, which was an ode to his late father and a re-assertion of his longevity at the top level.
Efforts from these returning legends may dominate headlines, but be careful not to miss the work done by artistes at different levels of ‘upcoming’ in the rap industry. PsychoYP with the third instalment of YPSZN, King Perry (African Boy), Odumodublvck (The afro Drill Experiment II, The Drop), are a few of the acts that have decorated the year with albums, ensuring that there is a future to look to in the industry when the bigwigs eventually call it a day. And if these creatives can double down on all the values that brought the industry such success this year – consistency, hard work and collaboration – there is no reason this cannot signal a return to the glory days of Nigerian hip-hop.
