Lagos is a city of daring and endless possibilities. The famous coastal city houses over 25 million dreamers, a large percentage of whom believe in the aspirational axiom that one’s life can get better despite their current station in life. In fact, many believe that they owe it to themselves to make things rosier. In essence, the fundamental premise of being a Lagosian is an earnest trust in a brighter future, a better day, and a more comfortable life if one is dogged and resolute enough to persevere and figure a way to bend life’s uncertainties to their will and desire. If grind is the currency that Lagos trades in, hope is the salve it offers for tough times. 

Rising artist, FOLA, used to sit among the city’s dreamers, working on his music in hopes of catching a life-changing break that would bring all of the city’s delights one step closer to him. In fact, when he started to write the songs that would make up his debut album, ‘catharsis,’ he was making music without an anchor, striving without direction. His collab with BhadBoi Oml, “alone,” changed the course of his life, positioning him as Afropop’s next breakout star, and setting up a fairytale rise that has seen him rise from the underground to sitting on the cusp of superstardom. 

His debut album, ‘catharsis,’ was imagined as a big sigh of relief, a place to dispel the worries and uncertainties of working his way to the dreamy highs of Afropop from the bottom. No song quite channels the specifics of that feeling like the pseudo-biographical “eko.” Like most FOLA songs, it’s a sombre mid-tempo ditty, but where other songs are defined by his rumination on the theatrics of heartbreak and feeling misunderstood, “eko” is about something more elemental, concerning itself with the business of survival and the trade-offs that ensuring success in Lagos demands. 

If FOLA ever needed a reminder that Lagos can be tough and unsparing, the opening seconds of “eko” feature a voice expressing her disbelief at him not knowing what he wanted to do with his life. It sets the stage for a song about confronting self-doubt, the disbelief of loved ones, and the famed difficulties of life in Lagos. Singing a delicate blend of English and Yoruba, the singer faces all these situations with swaggering confidence. “Go home or go harder / Ko shine bright like no other,” he sings before seguing into a line about outworking his coworker. 

It all comes back to that age-old belief that work is the only way to overcome the things that hurt or hold one back. FOLA is an ardent believer in this tenet, going by his promise to “hawk his shit like cold water.” The high point of FOLA’s writing style is in how English and Yoruba references are in constant conversation with one another. It’s a capacity that he places squarely into focus when he says, “As I dey chase the mullah ba n gbe wale mi,” code-switching between languages to invoke the divine to aid his sustainability journey. 

There are a variety of songs about Lagos. Some deal in papering over the cracks of Nigeria’s most populous city, embracing escapism as a way of dealing with dysfunction. Others daydream about easier times, reaching into a time in the future when their creators might be able to live it up. FOLA’s “eko” subverts these tropes. It doesn’t pine after wealth even if it hopes for a lift in station, nor does it wallow in the despondency of figuring out a way to sustainability. It simply exists as an archive of an interesting time in FOLA’s life when he was writing songs in hopes of the world hearing him, and that’s why it could easily find its way into the canon of great songs about Lagos. 

Listen to ‘catharsis’ here.