In conversation with Fu’ad Lawal, who’s intent on digitising Nigerian history

Something shifts in the air when you walk into a Lagos rave. There is, for lack of better words, a quiet radicalism that settles over you. A knowing that here, you can move however you want, move however you like, because everyone else is doing the same. “Outside, I calculate every gesture, monitor my voice, watch my walk,” Deji, a 26-year-old graphic designer, tells The NATIVE. “But when I attend raves, I just exist and I dance. Raves taste like freedom.”

This feeling, the opportunity to finally breathe without reservations, is what these spaces offer to so many young Nigerians, particularly those marginalized within society. In a city where authenticity often carries devastating consequences, the thrumming basslines of underground raves have carved out rare pockets where vigilance can momentarily surrender to abandon, where calculation yields to expression, and the perpetual performance of conformity dissolves into the honest fluidity of movement.

A Community Built On Freedom

Cultural historians trace the beginning of Nigeria’s electronic music evolution to the mid-2010s, when local DJs began experimenting with blends of traditional African percussion and global electronic production. It started with house parties. WhatsApp & Telegram flyers passed like secrets. Intimacy mattered more than scale. It wasn’t about clout or big venues. It was about creating a space that felt safe. A space where people who often felt out of place in the real world could finally belong.

These gatherings were built around a shared love for the genre, a communal appreciation for sounds that weren’t mainstream. People found one another through EDM playlists and mutual connections, creating communities anchored by musical taste first. The spaces were accepting by nature, rejecting judgment and embracing differences. Queer people naturally gravitated toward this openness, finding rare solace in venues that didn’t question gender expression or sexual orientation. The rave community became a refuge not by explicit design, but through an organic understanding that everyone deserved to feel comfortable and free.

Gbadebo, a filmmaker who has been involved with the Lagos rave scene since 2019, recalls the early days fondly. “The buzzing DJs then were DJ Aye, DJ Combs, and Tigran,” he says. “It was low-key, chill community gatherings. There used to be mats and rugs spread on the floors during early raves, where people would lie between sets. It was lowkey, but it felt like home.” These spaces became and remain essential for queer people. Places where you could kiss who you wanted, wear what you wanted, move freely, and love loudly. The dance floor became one of the few places where it felt possible to exist on your terms within the melodrama of Lagos.

Back then, it was simple. You showed up with your drink, found your people, and flowed. 

What Even Is This Sound?

What struck me most at my first rave was how present everything felt. People were there for the music. They screamed genuinely at beat drops, at brilliant transitions, at that one unexpected song. It felt like communion. Like everyone was holding their breath for that exact moment. The soundscape is difficult to box in. It borrows from everywhere—Afrohouse, Amapiano, and weird soulful remixes of Afropop songs. It’s layered, warm, and often bizarre. It loops when you expect it to break. It stretches where it should snap. It doesn’t ask to get under your skin, it just does.

The scene still sits at the margins of Nigerian music, described as too “alternative” or  too “strange.” That strangeness holds its kind of magic. Strange, beautiful music for strange and beautiful people. The kind that gets side eyes at house parties or a confused “what kind of music is that?” But maybe that question feels familiar, because what kind of music is that, really, if not the perfect soundtrack for people who’ve always been asked: “Why are you so different?”

You Can Always Tell

You can always tell a raver from a Lagos outsider. Or at least, I can. The fashion is different.

Bolder colors. Intentional clashes. People wear things that might be seen as “abnormal” anywhere else—fishnet vests, platform boots, mesh, metallics, glitter, lace. What might be mocked on the street feels perfectly ordinary here.

Rave fashion, which intersects heavily with the alté aesthetic, has long been criticized online. But in these spaces, people dress without fear of mockery. And that alone draws many in. Still, as rave culture expands rapidly, new faces arrive—some merely curious, others less understanding—which threatens the safe and accepting environment that initially defined these gatherings.

StyledByNasky, a rising Lagos stylist, explains this phenomenon: “There’s no limit to self-expression here, no policing of it,” she says. “For me, rave fashion embodies freedom, fun, and comfort.” She points out that practicality is as important as style. “It’s usually warm, and things get very heated, so comfort is essential. The choice of shoes, the amount of skin exposed, the selection of breathable fabrics; every element serves both style and functionality within the rave setting.”

Going further, she says that rave fashion in Lagos represents an intentional defiance of cultural norms around dress and presentation. In her words, what we see is a “visual language that communicates belonging to a counterculture.” The clothes become flags of identity rather than mere aesthetics. Oversized silhouettes, gender-neutral styling, and DIY alterations all signal a rejection of mainstream Nigerian fashion constraints.

For queer folks and other marginalized communities, these clothes transcend aesthetics. They become armor and announcement simultaneously. “Before, they felt safe dressing however they wanted, breaking gender stereotypes,” Nasky adds. “But now, in a country where dressing ‘weird’ or outside norms is frowned upon, these spaces don’t feel as safe anymore. It’s exposing.”

These spaces offered something rare: the ability to perform gender—or avoid performance entirely—without punishment. To show up in the truest version of yourself and still be enough. In a country where stepping outside of gender norms can mean ridicule, violence, or worse, the freedom to dress as you feel has always been a gift. But that safety now feels less certain.

The Shadow of Surveillance

More than ever, Nigeria’s Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act of 2014 looms large over queer communities. Beyond banning same sex marriage, it criminalizes public displays of affection between same sex people, advocacy for queer rights, and even queer-friendly gatherings. Penalties can stretch to 14 years in prison.

The economy is withering, as it has been for years. But now, it feels like it’s on its last breath. Traditional nightlife is following the same path because purchasing power shrinks every day. Nobody can afford to order expensive bottles of alcohol anymore, and regular night crawlers are hunting for cheaper alternatives. Underground raves have emerged as a viable option, much to the detriment of the tight-knit communities that built them.

“Back then, there weren’t tickets; you just came and made ‘donations,’” Gbadebo recounts fondly. Today, a few raves still run on donations, but most have leaned into steep pricing. “Prices are now crazy,” Gbadebo admits. “I don’t attend races much ever since I paid 8k and had to stand from 11 to 4 am. I even saw a flyer for a rave with tables for reservation.”

In April 2025, a local online blog threatened to leak the location of Group Therapy, one of Lagos’s most beloved, queer-inclusive raves. The post was laced with moral panic and targeted language. It didn’t go viral, but it didn’t have to. In a city like Lagos, where rumors move faster than facts, it only takes one post to make people feel unsafe. 

The damage wasn’t physical, but it was deeply felt. It was the first time some attendees realized just how exposed they were. “I didn’t even wait to see if it was serious,” Faith, a regular attendee, told me. “I just didn’t go. I couldn’t risk it. All it takes is one wrong person showing up.” Even after the post was taken down, the damage lingered. For queer people who rely on these spaces to feel normal, it was a reminder that the safety they’d built was still fragile. 

“An attack on Group Therapy is actually an attack on the rave scene in Lagos,” one tweet said. “God forbid that actually happens. You cannot take out queer people from raves, it started from them as a refuge in music. We literally do not bother anybody”.

For some, these risks are worth it. For others, the threat is too high.

Holding On To A Fragile Future

Lagos raves are gaining popularity. As more people know about them, many more want in, and the energy is infectious. There’s talk about raves becoming mainstream. When that happens, many queer folks and original community members start retreating, creating smaller, more exclusive gatherings. These “mini-raves” become refuges within refuges — intimate, secret, and protected.

The question for organizers is: As raves gain cadence and popularity, is it worth risking losing the original community that gave them meaning? The people who built the scene, who know why it matters, who rely on it as a lifeline? Are we ready to welcome everyone — even those who might not understand the deeper value these spaces represent?

Rave culture in Lagos stands as a form of resistance, a reclamation of identity, and a fight for safe space in a world that too often denies it. It testifies to the resilience of a community that refuses to be erased. In a city as complex and vibrant as Lagos, where the stakes are high and the risks real, raves remain one of the few places where marginalized people can truly be themselves, if only for a night.

In these charged, fleeting hours, queer Nigerians reclaim what the world keeps trying to steal: joy, safety, belonging. By dawn, the masks of caution are back on. The city resumes. But somewhere, someone is already planning the next one.

Somewhere, safety is being rehearsed. In another place, the bass is warming up.

One of the more pressing topics of discussion amongst party-goers today is the curious question of why people don’t dance at gatherings anymore. While partying, theoretically, includes other activities like talking to strangers, getting drinks, and conducting business, it is primarily geared towards dancing and living in the moment. 

These days, however, there seems to be more emphasis on these other activities than actual partying. People are doom scrolling on the dancefloor or are more occupied with trying to take the perfect selfie. Enter: True Clrs, a travelling party series launched by Adeola Kofoworade and Menab Tesfu that aims to bring the dance back to the parties by centering on the richness of African sound and the communities that love it. 

“We found that there were a lot of parties in Dallas that had cultures that didn’t encourage dancing or interaction between customers,” Kofoworade tells The NATIVE about the inspiration for True Clrs over a Google Meet conversation in July. “Seeing how parties were being thrown in L.A., New York and other places in Europe, we thought to bring that idea here to Texas.” 

Since its inception in 2023, True Clrs has hosted over 15 editions of its travelling party series across cities in the United States. In addition to a dedicated real-life following that engages with their series, they have also cultivated a robust online presence thanks to their meticulous branding and active CRLS YouTube page that features various thrilling DJ sets. 

Ahead of the latest Houston edition of True Clrs, which featured ODUMODUBLVCK and Sarz headlining the Global Sounds Stage and others like Native SOUND SYSTEM’s DJ Sholz, Lowkey Ade, and Khulumars on DJ duties, we caught up with Adeola Kofoworade to discuss how they’ve managed to position True Clrs as the go-to party series in Texas, what makes them unique, and what their long-term plans are. 

What inspired True Clrs?

We originally started True Clrs about two years ago because we noticed that there was a space in Dallas that we could infiltrate. We found that there were a lot of parties in Dallas that had cultures that didn’t encourage dancing or interaction between customers. That’s something pretty notable down here in the South. In clubs, there are a lot of sections and no big dance floors, so people are stuck in their sections without really interacting with other people. Seeing how parties were being thrown in L.A., New York and other places in Europe, we thought to bring that idea here to Texas.  At first, we started with Afrobeats and Amapiano-centred parties, but then we started branching out to other genres as well. 

How have you been able to position True Clrs as one of the go-to diaspora-focused party series in the U.S, especially in Texas?

We try to be innovative. We always try to make every event better than the last one. So if you came to one of our events the previous month, we try to switch things up and make sure you have a better experience the next time you come. We do this by booking notable DJs from around the country and even around the world. We also started booking a lot more talents. Last year, we had Lancey Foux; we had Sholz, who brought ODUMODUBLVCK; and we also had Skyla Tyla. This year, we’re looking to do more of that so we can always give our audience a notable experience. 

How do you balance catering to the African diaspora with appealing to a broader audience that might be unfamiliar with the music and experience? 

There are a couple of ways we try to do this. First, since we have monthly events, we try to switch between different genres and vibes. So let’s say, one month we have an Afrobeats and Amapiano party, the next month we could switch to this concept that we call the R&B rave. In the R&B rave, we basically play all types of R&B music, whether it’s old, contemporary or alternative, and we curate a rave-like setting. 

We also run this concept where we have like two or three stages playing different genres. We could have one stage playing Amapiano, the other R&B and the other more global sounds. I guess it just depends on the venue we use. But we’re able to offer different experiences even at the same party. 

Are there any other unique elements that set the True Clrs experience apart from other nightlife events?

One of our main appeals is recording DJ content. I know DJ content has become saturated recently, but what separates us is that a lot of our content is very genuine. It’s not made up or staged. We get real-time reactions from people. A lot of the time, people don’t even know they’re being filmed. Our content makes us notable, and it’s helped push our brand forward.

Since you began True Clrs, how have you been able to cultivate a strong online presence as well as a thriving community in real life? 

With our online presence, it’s really been our content that has helped put us out there. We’ve had a couple of reels or YouTube sets go viral, and that’s definitely helped our online presence. Also, just being the kind of people we are, we take our time when it comes to branding True Clrs. We get a lot of feedback from people regarding our content, and we take it into account moving forward. For our real-life community, my partner and I had already been heavily involved in the entertainment space and the African community here before we began True Clrs. So we got a lot of support when we first started, and we’ve just kept building from there. 

What’s the long-term vision for True Clrs? Are there any plans to expand into other U.S. cities or even international markets? 

Definitely. Last year, we had our first international event in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. My partner was up there for a holiday, and we decided to throw an event there. In the future, we do plan to expand to other countries, whether in Africa or Europe. With our connections with talents like Lancey Foux, Skyla Tyla, we’re also looking to see if we can put together festivals. That’s what’s on the horizon for True Colors. 

What would you say to someone who’s never been to a True Clrs party? What should they expect, and why should they come?

Our goal is community curation through music. So what I would tell someone who’s never been to a True Clrs party is they should come with an open mind. They should trust our DJs because they might hear songs they’ve never heard before and still be able to have a good time. Also, while we don’t force people to interact, we encourage people to interact and dance while listening to good DJs.

The world first discovered Louddaaa’s artistry on Ayra Starr’s eponymous debut EP, where he produced three of the five tracks. “Away,” his first collaboration with Mavins Records, became Starr’s breakthrough, gaining over one million Spotify streams by April 2021 and establishing him as a force behind the boards. 

His signature lies in the spaces between sounds: synths that drift like the morning mist of Lagos, percussion that falls with the gentle persistence of rain, and arrangements so delicate they seemed to float. On Starr’s debut album, ‘19 & Dangerous,’ Louddaaa’s evolution unfurled across five tracks: “Cast,” “Beggie Beggie,” “Lonely”, “Amin,” and “In Between.” By then, his work had blossomed, the beats becoming muscular without losing their supple grace, and the melodies flowing like liquid silk across each composition. Now, in 2025, the quiet kid from Lagos has found his voice.

Like many great artists, Louddaaa’s calling found him. Walking home from a church rehearsal at just eleven years old, he experienced what he describes as divine revelation. “God showed me that I was going to be a producer,” he says during our Google Meet conversation on a chilly Sunday afternoon in mid-July. 

Born Kehinde Alabi, he grew up in Oshodi, Lagos, where he had his basic education. At age nine, his family moved to Ejigbo, the part of the city he would come to call home. A true Lagosian, he traces his ancestral roots back to Ekiti through his father and Osun through his mother. He’s one of three children—and a twin. Music wasn’t a profession in his household. As a child, he’d sneak out to church rehearsals to play, fearful of the punishment that might follow if his father found out.

At age 11, didn’t know what the term “music producer” meant. He simply knew that his destiny lay in creating music. The calling required preparation, and unknowingly, he had been getting ready for it since the age of seven. While his siblings attended children’s church, he would linger behind the drummer during services, soaking in the rhythms. Eventually, at nine, he took up the role himself, becoming one of the church drummers. 

As he grew older, he added the keyboard to his repertoire, driven by instinct. “I’m the kind of person who likes to learn new things,” he explains, excitement audible in his voice. “Everything was just God preparing me for production.” It would take some time for the prophecy to come to pass because prophecies, even divine ones, require patience. 

Louddaaa’s earliest musical influences came from home: his father played a lot of gospel, Apala, and Baba Ara, while his mother was a huge fan of Tope Alabi. Growing up, he gravitated toward artists like 2Face and Styl-Plus, D’Banj and Don Jazzy, who left a lasting impression on him. As a professional drummer throughout much of his young adulthood, he was exposed to a wide range of genres, learning to adapt his playing style for different artists and audiences.

In his first year at the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Louddaaa began telling anyone who would listen that he was a producer despite having never actually produced a single track. The universe, it seemed, was listening too. In his second year, tired of Louddaaa’s endless talk about production without action, a friend put a laptop in his hands. The gift came loaded with FL Studio, a software that would become his gateway to actualization. 

That night marked the first of countless all-nighters spent hunched over glowing screens, crafting beats while his classmates slept. His hunger was insatiable. His makeshift production journey began when he salvaged a pair of old speakers from his dad and set them up in his school dorm. With nothing but earphones and those aging speakers, he started calling up friends who could sing, drafting them into his self-declared label. In 2016, he officially founded his record label, Tal Entertainment. Throughout his years in university, he visited local studios, absorbing knowledge through internships and observation.

Armed with an Industrial Design degree and an unfulfilled musical prophecy, Louddaaa graduated from school in 2017 into a world that had no immediate use for either. He found himself in Port Harcourt, interning as a sound engineer, still chasing the dream, just from a different angle. Then fate intervened. In 2019, he moved back to Lagos, and not long after, a friend forwarded him a job listing: Mavin Records was looking for a recording engineer. It wasn’t his dream of music production, but it was a door, and Louddaaa walked through it. 

If you had told him then that he would one day craft hits for Ayra Starr, he would have laughed at the possibility. In 2020, he was simply the sound engineer who stayed late, making beats when no one was watching. He expected nothing in return. But the universe rewards persistence in mysterious ways. One evening, as Louddaaa lost himself in a rhythm that had been haunting him all day, footsteps echoed in the hallway. Don Jazzy paused at the door, drawn by the loop spilling from the speakers.

“Who owns this beat?” he asked.

“I’m just playing around with it,” Louddaaa replied, perhaps too casually for a moment that would reshape his entire trajectory.

Don Jazzy wanted Mavin Records’ newest signee, Ayra Starr, to try something over it. By the next day, she had, and history was quietly being written in that Mavin studio. His first collaboration with Ayra Starr never saw the light of day, but it did something else: everyone who heard it believed. “She started sending me ideas to help her make beats,” he recalls. At the time, he couldn’t fathom why.

This period of his life was Louddaaa at his most vulnerable: a producer who didn’t yet trust the title. No one had ever paid for his beats. His credentials consisted of a childhood prophecy and an ambitious university label. When the melody that would become “Away” first whispered through his headphones, he had no idea he was architecting his breakthrough. “I didn’t even know why Ayra wanted me to produce for her,” he admits, the bewilderment still fresh in his voice years later.

“Away” soared. It became number one on the charts, earning millions of streams locally and internationally, morphing into a cultural moment that transformed two careers simultaneously. For Ayra, it was stardom. For Louddaaa, it was validation on the grandest scale possible. The prophecy had flesh now, and the producer who once questioned his abilities finally understood what everyone else had already seen. “Away” was his creative genesis, not just the song that introduced him to the world, but the voice that said: You can do so much more. That voice has since become a roar, leading to collaborations with Afropop royalty including Davido, CKay, Simi, Ladipoe, and Lojay.

The origin of his name dates back to when he worked as a sound engineer at Mavin Records. Kenny (as he was called) preferred to keep his speakers at a modest volume, but the artists and managers around him wanted high volumes. “Kenny, turn it louder!” they’d urge, again and again. Louddaaa stuck, first as a joke, then as a brand. Now, a Louddaaa instrumental is instantly recognizable by his vocal tag and the emotional core running through the music. He calls his sound “soulful,” and it’s a quality that is traceable across his work. 

But perhaps the producer’s most intriguing dimension is his growing intersection between music and film. “Film is my retirement plan,” he used to tell himself until a conversation with director Kemi Adetiba reframed that thinking. “She asked me, ‘Why make it your retirement plan when you can start now?’” The question stayed with him, especially since scoring films had been a long-held dream. So when director Afolabi Olalekan approached him to work on the score for ‘Freedom Way,’ it felt like destiny.

The score came naturally to Louddaaa, as Freedom Way draws from his own lived experience with police brutality. That personal resonance shaped the project’s emotional core. Since its completion, the film has premiered on prestigious international stages, including the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), the Red Sea International Film Festival in Saudi Arabia, and a screening in New York. On July 18, 2025, it finally made its debut in Nigerian cinemas and is now available for public viewing. For his work on ‘Freedom Way,’ Louddaaa earned a nomination for Best Score/Music at the 2025 AMVCAs. 

Louddaaa is part of a compelling wave of Nigerian producers and artists expanding their creative reach beyond the charts, venturing into film scoring and sound design. This cross-pollination of talent has been brewing for years. Take Falz, for instance. Known for his genre-blending sound, he’s also made a name for himself onscreen. His breakout role in Jenifa’s Diary earned him an AMVCA in 2016, followed by appearances in hit films like Chief Daddy, Merry Men, and 10 Days in Sun City. Tiwa Savage joined this cross-medium movement in 2024 with her film debut, Water & Garri, named after her 2021 EP. The project served as a visual interpretation of the emotions and themes embedded in the music.

For Louddaaa, the pull toward film is rooted in a desire for deeper expression. “Music and film go hand in hand,” he explains. “That’s why we shoot music videos, we’re trying to tell a story, to express ourselves.”It’s this understanding that positions him not as a producer dabbling in film but as a storyteller expanding his canvas, recognizing that some emotions require more than three minutes and a hook to fully unfold.

Today, Louddaaa’s father speaks of his son with pride, often referring to him as “the big producer.” “My dad carries it on his head now, literally,” he says, half in awe, half amused.

A typical day in Louddaaa’s life includes hitting the gym, working on music, and reading self-help books. “My favorite book depends on the problem I’m trying to solve at the time,” he says. It was while trying to navigate one of those problems that he decided—on a whim—to create a few ideas for Davido. At the time, he didn’t even know the global superstar was working on a new album that would become ‘Five.’ He sent the ideas to Davido’s manager without overthinking it. To his surprise, Davido liked them. “Next thing I knew, David started following me on Instagram.” 

Louddaaa went on to produce “Anything” and “10 Kilo” on the album, both tracks carrying the signature elements of a Louddaaa production: emotive, featherlight, and breezy. There comes a moment in an artist’s journey when the work begins to speak louder than the name, and Louddaaa was honing in on that moment.

Louddaaa sees Nigeria’s distinctive sonic identity as a responsibility, something to preserve, evolve, and carry forward through both music and cinema. “It’s a blessing that I’m able to contribute to the evolving nature of African music and film,” he says. The future he imagines reaches far beyond mere music scores. “I don’t plan to wait a long time before directing films,” he says with the same certainty that once made him claim the title producer long before the world agreed. It doesn’t sound like ambition; it sounds like purpose, stepping into his next chapter. That sense of purpose has become his anchor, transforming what might otherwise be an anxiety-laced career into a stress-free one.

“I don’t enter a session to make a number-one song,” he says. “I enter to tell a story.” That distinction defines everything he does. The charts might applaud his work, but his heart is tuned to something deeper. “I don’t know how long this moment will last, but I do know I want to contribute something. I want my work to touch someone’s life.”