Nigeria's hip-hop stars reveal growing consumer culture By Matthew Green
It’s Saturday night at the Jade Palace in Lagos and Killz, one of Nigeria’s hottest hip-hop artists, steps out of a swirl of dry ice and disco lights to launch into his new song, “Shoobeedoo”.
Shaven-headed, wearing a bespoke French-cut suit with cashmere lapels and exuding attitude, the aspiring impresario could be forgiven for thinking that he is already living the lifestyle of a US rap star.
At the bar, men favour the classic American gangsta-rapper look: oversized designer sunglasses worn indoors, at night. Ice buckets rattling with the bottles of Veuve Clicquot champagne beloved of the Lagos elite ensure the gig retains at least a dash of Nigerian flavour. Held to launch his new album, Life & Times of Killz: Volume I, the party was a snapshot of a trend sweeping sub-Saharan Africa: a growing hunger for a local version of the hip-hop and R&B music that defines youth culture in the west.
Nowhere is this phenomenon more apparent than in the continent’s most populous nation, where the star power of artists such as D’Banj, 2Face and P-Square has grown in parallel with the gradual re-emergence of Nigeria’s once vibrant middle-class.
This nucleus of young professionals is already seen as a lucrative market for products from financial services to consumer goods and telecoms. The craze for home-grown hip-hop suggests that investors may do well to brand their products in a way that recognises the strength of the new pop culture in “Naija” – youth slang for Nigeria.
“There’s been a reawakening of Nigerian identity,” says Obi Asika, chairman of Storm 360, a media content provider that promotes Killz. “Any investor who wants to come into Nigeria must understand that, if they want to sell products and communicate with Nigerians.”
A collapse in prices for Nigeria’s oil following the global downturn and a prolonged bear market on the country’s stock exchange, coupled with the slow pace of economic reform under Umaru Yar’Adua, the president, suggests that the new cadre of better-off Lagosians may face some tough times.
In a country where most people live in poverty, gains made by a few can pale in contrast to the deprivation suffered by the many.
In the long run, however, anecdotal evidence suggests that more Nigerians will start to embrace the kind of globalised consumer culture dominant in the US and Europe. As Killz puts it in “Shoobeedoo”: “I know they say the best things in life are free. But money will take you places I know you wanna see.”
Fast-food outlets have proliferated here. UAC Nigeria, a food, property and logistics conglomerate, says the number of its counters, including the Chicken Inn franchise, has risen to about 230 from 150 in 2004. Promasidor, the food group, says the proportion of its sales made up of the larger tins of powdered milk favoured by better-off families has noticeably increased.
The small middle-class is also driving growing demand for Nigerian media content. HiTV, a Nigerian satellite television company, has made rapid inroads in a market dominated by South Africa’s DSTV, partly with the help of its “Nigezie” Nigerian music channel. Screen Digest says a period of rapid growth has seen the number of Nigerian households taking paid-for television content rise to 430,000 by late 2008.
Some of Nigeria’s biggest companies are discovering that the new hip-hop culture is a particularly effective channel for targeting the fast-growing telecoms and beverages sectors. In a country where some 45 per cent of the population is under 15 years old, today’s teenagers will be tomorrow’s shoppers. Mr Asika puts the potential annual spend by corporate Nigeria on music-related endorsements, events and television shows at up to $100m (€73m, £66m).
Perhaps the most notable example is a deal signed by D’Banj, one of Nigeria’s best-known music stars, to promote Globacom, a mobile phone operator keen to stress its Nigerian roots in contrast to its main rival, South Africa’s MTN.
The appeal of D’Banj and other artists lies partly in their skill at combining the sound of a rap scene that originated in New York and Los Angeles with language that resonates in Lagos. “Let me be your semovita,” Killz implores a woman in “Shoobeedoo”, comparing himself to the Nigerian staple of coarse wheat flour and corn.
The irony is that for all the Nigerian feel, many of the artists regard their homeland as a springboard to fame in the US. Killz – whose real name is Ikechukwu Onunaku – cruises the city in a black Range Rover with KILLZ inscribed on the number plate. “If you’re not big in the United States, you’re not big,” he says, between bumping over potholes. “What I am doing is championing Nigeria.”
Courtesy of: Matthew Green
West Africa Correspondent,
Financial Times
HHWA Nominees Party
The 2009 Hip Hop World Award nominees party held last Saturday May 9th at Ajibogun Village in Otta, Ogun State.
Check out some of the pictures...will bring you more.
The village masquerade
Actor Kunle Afolayan
Pix thanks to Ade Oluseyi
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