From Kano to Lagos, all for a concert!
I have been to quite a few events where well-known Nigerian musicians have performed. I have heard 2Face, Sound Sultan, Wande Coal, M.I., Jesse Jagz, Jeremiah Gyang and many others perform live. The performances have usually been good, but I have never been to a concert with the energy or excitement I felt at the […]
I have been to quite a few events where well-known Nigerian musicians have performed. I have heard 2Face, Sound Sultan, Wande Coal, M.I., Jesse Jagz, Jeremiah Gyang and many others perform live. The performances have usually been good, but I have never been to a concert with the energy or excitement I felt at the concert Lagos to Kano, performed by upcoming artists from Lagos and Kano at the Goethe Institut on 30 July 2011. Lagos hip-hop artists, 2Tek Odey, Kool Kid, Mikkey CA, Protek, and Special Agent Snypa, mingled with Kano-based musicians, Ali Jita, Big Daddy Fresh, Daman Sounds, Lt. John, Mahmoud Nagudu, Major Arlman, Mariah Ugbashi, Nomiis Gee, Nura Nash, Pastor Dan, and Vtime Faya, to create an exciting fusion of genres on a particularly Nigerian Project. Reggae artist Vtime Faya who doubled as MC introduced the programme saying, the musicians had come together create a “fusion between Hausa-style music and hiphop” and to “preach love” and “defeat stereotypes.”
Of course, this is not the first time Hausa-language hiphop has been heard in Kano or that there has been a fusion between Hausa nanaye (film music) and hiphop. I was surprised, when I first saw notice of the programme, that established Kano-based rappers like Billy-O, X-Man, Kano Raiders, Abdullahi Mighty, Buzo Danfillo, TY Shaban and so on, most of whom have fused nanaye with hiphop and whose songs are regularly heard on Kano radio, were not included in the programme. Nor is this the first time Kano-based musicians have collaborated on larger national projects. Most recently, Hausa rapper Ziriums collaborated with Abuja based musicians like Yoye and Supreme Solar to create an exciting Nigerian fusion of language and style.
This concert is the first time, however, that I have seen such collaboration on such a large scale. My initial misgivings gave way to excitement about these amazing musicians rapping and singing in Hausa, many of whom I had not heard of before but who have the talent and charisma to rise to the top of their field. Nomiis Gee spun out smooth Hausa-English rhymes, alongside Big Daddy Fresh and Daman Sounds, with what Gee identified as “Naija swagga,” providing an invigorating complement to the English language hiphop of the Lagos artists. Crowd pleasers were the popular Hausa nanaye musicians Ali Jita and Mahmoud Nagudu whose crooned interludes of pop songs like ‘Tatausan Lafazee’ drew much of the crowd onto the stage. Yet I found the most stimulating use of the nanaye style when Ali Jita sang live alongside the other musicians in a fusion of nanaye, hiphop, reggae, and r&b.
If it is fair to pick from such a thrilling group the one musician who seemed to dominate the night, it was dancehall queen Snypa, with her trademark mismatched stockings, whose electrifying vocal power and presence blew me away. In a collaborative song warning about the dangers of drugs, she sampled tracks from Lauryn Hill and Asa among others but made them her own with a roar “Fire inna we house and no one is putting it out.”
Much of the excitement of the atmosphere came from the audience of Kano youth, one of the most responsive audiences I’ve ever seen, which crowded into and filled the Goethe Institut theatre space. Although the concert started over two hours late and went past 11pm, the audience didn’t want to go home. Almost all of the musicians I spoke to spoke with awe about the response they received. “We didn’t expect so many people would come,” Vtime Faya said, “but the turnout was great. In fact, great is an understatement.” Since the concert, he said, people kept stopping him on the street and telling him “We need more of this. We hope that after Ramadan you will do more of this.” Organizer Ade Bantu agreed that the audience was “incredible” and that it was an “overwhelming concert environment.” As he had only been in Kano several times as preparation for the workshop, he had no idea what to expect, he said. Snypa, who grew up in Jos and had been to Kano several times before, told me that she had been expecting the workshop and concert to be largely a “Sabon Gari” affair but that she “loved the fact” that a Hausa audience had embraced them with such enthusiasm. She echoed Ade Bantu’s appreciation of how, as Bantu put it “established artists” like Jita and Nagudu collaborated with the group. Bantu pointed to the “Hausa artists” participation as fulfilling much of the larger goal of the workshop, as part of the Global Prayers project to connect urban youth from various religious backgrounds to build peace. When he began to think about the workshop, Bantu told me, he felt that “hiphop has unifying elements that could bridge the gap when it comes to intolerance and the artificial divide of North and South” in Nigeria. The outcome had been even better than he expected. “Even the rappers from Kano said they had not gotten to work with the nanaye musicians before so the workshop and concert was able to “bridge a context within Kano and in the nation as a whole,” Bantu said. Hausa rapper Nomiis Gee pointed to the workshop as giving Hausa artists access to a larger global music scene. Popular nanaye singer Mahmoud Nagudu said, “We had never met the other musicians before. It’s not the kind of music we do,” but when they came together they realized “they have something we don’t we have. We have something they don’t have. We met and created something new.”
Producer and rapper Daman Sounds said that at first it had been challenging working with the musicians from Lagos who had taken part in an earlier hiphop workshop with the Lagos Goethe Institut, and who initially seemed to “feel that they were superior to us.” By the third day, however, the motto had become “leave your ego at the door” as they began to work together and respect each other. “They were really surprised at what they met here,” said Vtime Faya, who creates a sophisticated mix of reggae and Hausa folk songs. “The power of the word,” his brother Daman Sounds said, quoting one of the songs that came out of the workshop, connected them “irrespective of religion or tribe,” and “brought us together as one.”
It was this goal to “unite Muslims and Christians together,” Jos-bred Snypa said, that had attracted her to the project. Kano-based producer and gospel artist Pastor Dan who has long worked with both nanaye musicians and Sabon Gari rappers spoke to the workshop as “a dream come true” and kind of culmination of his own attempts to bring together musicians from various backgrounds in Kano. “The same God made all of us,” he said. Rapper Nomiis Gee said that in the past he had been accused of not being Hausa because though “I’m Muslim, all my friends are Christian,” but that his music, which references both Christianity and Islam, was a way to send a message to society. Mahmoud Nagudu expressed similar sentiments. In his music, he said, “I call on us to live in peace. Islam means peace. The religion doesn’t tell us to fight with and cheat those not of your religion. All of these divisions of religion and tribe should stop.”
These discussions came out in the addictive harmonies and lyrics of the collaborative songs: First, a recognition of the ambiguities of the way words can be used, “The power of the word has caused war, the power of the word can bring peace. The power of the word can give you life and take you life and bring you down so be careful and mindful of how you use your tongue.” Then, earnest calls for unification: “To love and to trust, you need me, I need you. Take my hand, drop your pride.” “Nigeria, Wayyo Nigeria, Unite. Unite.”