A UK-based Jamaican disk jockey, DJ Magic Jay, has recounted how Grammy-award-winning Nigerian singer, Wizkid slapped him at an event in London in 2018.
Focalistic was in Lagos, Nigeria to shoot a video for ‘Ke Star (Remix)' featuring Virgo and Nigerian superstar, Davido. According to Focalistic, the collaboration heralds the next phase of his career; pan-African identity. And this only feels reasonable after the incredible run he had in 2020, which saw ‘Sandton’’ gain moderate buzz in Nigeria.
“The internet makes it easy to measure responses to your music these days. It also makes you realize that you need to take the music to another country,” he enthused. “
The week 'Sandton' dropped, my Instagram stories were filled with Nigerians. At that moment, I started thinking about getting outside South Africa to go see my fans. Even the dance was different.”
At the turn of the last decade, Nigerian music on the last leg of real-life music consumption. The internet slowly started to take over, Twitter garnered more followers and the life of millennials and later, Gen Z slowly started to be dictated by virtual reality.
The definition of beauty was replaced by
Instagram Face, music found more aggregated conversations, stan culture became more toxic and ‘Afrobeats to the world’ gathered pace. More importantly, the importance of media as a ground for documenting Nigerian pop culture took on another dimension.
In 2010, Nigeria Hip-Hop witnessed a golden era and a change of guard which brought in the frontrunners for the last decade. 2011 was their first year to put down markers and they did that. Nonetheless, some of the old guard refused to simply lie down. The niche artists also laid down the gauntlet.