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Nigerian Pop Culture: Here is why Naija is popping up on the world stage now

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Why Nigerian pop culture is so big now, Afrobeats, brain drain

The virality of Nigerian pop culture has taken the world by storm thanks to economic conditions in the 80s and a genre of music.

Never has there been a time in history when Nigerian pop culture has been so dominant on the global scene than now.

The Super Eagles had the hottest jersey at the 2018 World Cup tournament selling out in England in mere minutes.

 

It was just more than sold out jerseys for Nigeria at football's apex competition. Eventual World Cup winner Paul Pogba did the 'Shaku Shaku' not once but twice in Russia.

 

'Shaku Shaku', the street dance that originated from the streets of Agege in Lagos city has been embedded as one of the dance steps in NBA 2K18.

 

On the big screen, British-Nigerian movie star, John Boyega is the lead actor in Hollywood's biggest and most legendary franchise, 'Star Wars'. We should also mention that the number one boxer in the world right now is the ladies man Anthony Joshua.

One of the hottest rappers in England is Joseph Junior Adenuga better known to audiences as Skepta. And it was him who linked Afrobeats pop god Wizkid with Drake on 'Ojuelegba' remix.

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On the surface, there should be little to connect Ojuelegba, Lagos to Toronto, Canada but when Drake wanted to infuse a more global sound into his OVO discography, he tapped African superstar Wizkid to be one of his muses on the project 'Views'.

And speaking of Lagos, in December 2016, the city played host to the Migos where they performed their future classic single 'Bad & Boujee'. The virality of that performance would be one of several tipping points of the single spreading like wildfire.

 

Oh, and guess who directed the video for 'Bad & Boujee'? He goes by the name DAPS (Oladapo Fagbenle) who has worked with 2Chainz, Rita Ora, Migos, Lil Uzi Vert and others.

 

Even Beyonce has tapped in on the Naija fever. From creating an Afrobeat themed album which was later shelved, King B went on to enlist the services of Nigerian visual artist Laolu Senbanjo for her fem-god album 'Lemonade'.

Mrs Knowles flirtation with Nigeria does not stop there. She featured the vocals of Chimamanda Adichie on the song 'Flawless' off the same album.

Apart from Adichie, there are other Nigerian authors who are making global strides. Tomi Adeyemi's 'Children of Blood And Bone' got her a $1m advance and is being developed into a film. Her book has also spent 30 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List.

 

Nnedi Okarafor's fantasy and science fiction books have got her in business with Marvel Comics and George R.R Martin, the famed author behind the hit TV series 'Game of Thrones'.

"I'm Judging You: The Do-Better Manual" written by 33-year-old Luvvie Ajayi made it to the New York Times Bestseller List in 2017 and has spawned a TV deal with Shonda Rhimes who wants to make a comedy series out of the book.

Ajayi also happens to be friends with a Nigerian lady named Yvonne Orji. Together they have a podcast called 'Jesus and Jollof'. Just in case you do not know, Orji stars in one of the most culturally relevant contemporary TV series for black people in America 'Insecure'.

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Yvonne Orji has not shied away from her Nigerian roots. She did the 'shoki' at the White House in 2016. That's the equivalent of planting the American flag on the moon.

There is also Uzo Aduba of the US hit TV series 'Orange is the new Black', rapper/love poet Wale, dapper god Jidenna and multi-talented act Rotimi who with their dual identities showcase they very much possess the Nigerian DNA irrespective of growing up in a foreign country.

 

It's hard not to spot a green-white-green reference or influence in popular culture right now. This is worth celebrating no doubt but the question lingers; how has the poverty capital of the world been able to have such a visible presence on global pop culture?

Here is the explanation below;

Afrobeats

There have been many popular genres of music in Nigeria since the 60s from Highlife, Juju, Afrobeat, psychedelic rock, disco, Fuji, Reggae, Ragga, Rap and contemporary pop music popularly branded as Afrobeats by the Western media.

While all these genres have had their respective degree of influence, Afrobeats can be said to be the major thrust of Nigerian pop culture to the world.

First of all, what is Afrobeats? This is the name given to contemporary West African pop music. In 2011, a new wave of Nigerian pop music had started to emerge.

Wizkid, Davido and Ice Prince quickly emerged as leaders of the new school. The older class of Nigerian pop stars 2face Idibia, D'banj and Psquare had laid the groundwork a decade earlier. During this period, their songs and music videos found their way to the diaspora in Europe, North America and other parts of the world thanks to the Internet.

 

By 2011 there was a demand for homegrown pop music from the Nigerian community in the United Kingdom. Within the same year, DJ Abrantee would take over the 12:00 am to 2:00 am slot every Saturday on Capital Xtra. The show was titled 'Afrobeats with Abrantee' and it quickly caught on social media. Abrantee and other like-minded DJs started to spread the gospel of Afrobeats in London and other cities in England.

 

The following summer, Afrobeats would score its first international smash hit by the name of 'Oliver Twist' by D'banj. Newly signed to Kanye West's imprint 'G.O.O.D Music', 'Oliver Twist' was one of the songs of the summer and was played at the London Olympics.

The Afrobeats revolution had started in full swing. Not only were Nigerians abroad listening to 'Dami Duro', and 'The Matter', their non-Nigerian friends were also listening to it and getting hooked on the melody-intensive songs coming out from Nigeria.

Today, Afrobeats is one of the leading musical exports from Africa. And just as how rap music helped sell Hip-Hop culture, Afrobeats has helped sell Nigerian pop culture.

Foreign labels are falling over themselves to sign the latest Afrobeat act. After leaving the country in the 80s due to piracy, foreign labels are back in the country on the lookout for the next big star.

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You have to understand that by and large Africa is the last frontier for the global music industry. There are so many untapped sounds and genres waiting to be commodified on a global scale. Afrobeats is just one out of many. It is a new sound that many influencers have tagged to be cool and if you want to be part of the cool you have to listen to Afrobeats.

"Growing up in the U.S., it wasn’t cool to be Nigerian,” says singer Jidenna, "now, it’s freeing" to W Magazine.

 

Loud, fast, full of life, energetic and bouncy, Afrobeats is a bpm reflection of the Nigerian DNA. So when a non-Nigerian listens to a Tekno track, he isn't just listening to a cool Afrobeats track but is also having an auditory experience of the contemporary Nigerian way of life.

A track like 'Ojuelegba' for example, is more than a hit song by Wizkid. It is the rags to riches story of many young Nigerians who have overcome numerous cultural, institutional and societal obstacles to become successful.

Afrobeats is a major proponent of Nigerian pop culture but that alone is not the only reason why it's cool to be Naija now. We also have to take a look at the role immigration has played in all of this.

Brain Drain

Let's go back to the early 80s during the end of the oil boom. Nigeria had fed fat in the 70s thanks to the oil boom. The curse of this was that Nigeria essentially became a petro-state that depended excessively on the sale of crude oil.

After 1980, the price of crude oil fell within a six-year decline. By 1986 the price of oil had reduced by half.

 

In a paper titled 'Migration in West Africa' prepared by the Global Commission on International Migration, "Until the early 80s, few Nigerian professionals emigrated because domestic working conditions were attractive and internationally competitive.

"The collapse of oil price, a sharp decline in oil revenue, rapid deterioration in living and working conditions, wage freeze, devalued national currency, declining real incomes, authoritarian military rule and the vacillating economic situation fuelled large-scale emigration of skilled and unskilled workers abroad."

These factors led to what is known as 'brain drain' in the 80s and pretty much into the 90s as well.

According to the Office for National Statistics, 190,000 people born in Nigeria live in the United Kingdom made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Unofficial data puts that number at 200,000.

According to the American Community Survey estimates from 2012-2016, there are 277,027 people who were born in Nigeria live in the United States of America.

Hundreds of thousands of middle-class Nigerians left the country in the 80s and 90s to better not only their lives but that of their children.

Even though miles away from the country of their birth, these Nigerians would connect with what's going home with movies popularly known as home videos.

Their kids will also connect to the birthplace of their parents by watching these films as proven by John Boyega. Low-budget with dodgy production qualities, these movies told Nigerian stories and showcased the historical and contemporary culture as well.

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This would be followed up by the Internet penetration in Africa by early 00s. A few years later Nigerian music acts would start uploading their songs and music videos online which would gather attention from young Nigerians born abroad.

For them, these sounds, images and videos would serve as an avenue to connect with their roots even though they were thousands of miles away.

With the blow-up of Afrobeats, many of these young Nigerians have been lured to take the yearly pilgrimage back to Nigerian in December to get a first-hand taste of their heritage.

Wale, Jidenna, Yvonne Orji, Skepta, John Boyega, Uzo Aduba, Rotimi, and others have been back home to tap into the vitality of this culture. These stars represent a generation of Nigerians born outside the most populous black nation in the world but still connect with 'home'.

 

They might be dual citizens with foreign passports but their identity and spirit are largely Nigerian.

 

Afrobeats and immigration. A distinct sound from the boisterous concrete jungle of Lagos dominated by Nigerian youths raised in a chaotic system that gave them little or no chance to be successful yet alone world stars has pushed our way of life to the far corners of the earth.

The movement of middle-class Nigerians in the 80s to the late 90s to the United Kingdom, America and other parts of the world, created a generation of young Nigerians raised in far more productive societies that have helped them reach their potential in arts, business, entertainment, sports and other endeavours.

 

With the boom of Afrobeats, this generation is proud to identify themselves with Nigeria. They have been able to use their talent to sell a new Nigerian image to Hollywood.

No one knows how long Nigerian pop culture will be considered dope but as long as Afrobeats is still hot and Nigerians born in diaspora rep Naija, it might be here for a long time coming.  



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