Nigeria - The Heart of Hip Hop

Happening in Nigeria first Nollywood, now Hip Hop BA's Highlife magazine reports:

Image of Vocal Slender courtesy of AFP/Getty Images

Cigarette smoke curls in the air, while the blare of music assaults the senses at the exclusive Caliente Club in Lagos. Four rooms flow into one another; none offers a respite from the crowd, but people don't seem to care. They are clearly feeling the music; some raise their brows and others pout their lips as they dance and sing along to Nigerian — or rather Naija — songs.

Scenes like this (minus the cigarette smoke) are being echoed across the world, with clubs from New York to Nairobi playing hits from Lagos. It's the sound of a new generation of Nigerian artists, and a world away from the highlife pioneered by the first wave of exports — IK Dairo, Fela Kuti and Sunny Ade — who helped spur the growth of world music as a marketable product in Europe and North America. Listen to music by D'banj, 2Face, Jesse Jagz, MI, Vocal Slender and Mo'Cheddah, and you'll hear the smooth synthesised sounds of US productions. But these artists — more hip-hop than highlife — stand out because they add a Nigerian stamp to American urban sounds...[continue reading]