In 2022, Asake rose to Afropop prominence, driven by an ingenious combination of past and future. He commanded Amapiano, the exhilarating South African genre with which producers and artists alike were forging forward in an experimental Afropop scene, and infused it with the substance of his culture, bringing in Fuji as his own distinctive marker. In September of the same year, just as his popularity was peaking on the back of an impressive run of singles, he released ‘Mr. Money With The Vibe,’ a scintillating debut encapsulating the zeitgeist he had spent the year reshaping. Building on the sonic foundation he had set, the record throbbed with the bluster and urgency of his home city, Lagos Island, and dripped with the slang and proverbs you would expect to hear there. Asake platformed his culture not just in sound but with language too, and his brilliant execution was a testament to the creativity that culture brings to the table. Its widespread acceptance, both across Nigeria and beyond, was proof that language is no barrier for those who appreciate excellent music.

Before Asake and his record-setting run, Street-Pop was already a culturally fluid entity, and producers and artists all over the country found success infusing the Ajegunle-born genre with various languages. Olamide built a career by flipping between being the gruff, battle-hardened mafioso of the streets and a carefree purveyor of street party anthems. Phyno, his friend and longtime collaborator from across the Niger, has been a force for Igbo rap and street music, threading slinky Igbo verses into a fabric that ranges from Hip-Hop to Igbo Highlife. Now, nearly a decade after their monumental collaborative album, their protégés tread the paths they laid down. Today, Asake and Seyi Vibez rule the streets, while younger stars like TML Vibez, Balloranking and Ayo Maff sit at the heart of the movement’s next generation. 

In Eastern Nigeria, Rap devotees like Jeriq, Aguero Banks and Zoro spit bars in Igbo. Other artists like Kolaboy and Kcee lean more towards Pop in their approach, reproducing Afropop or Amapiano with traditional Igbo instruments, like the Ogene and Oja. In other parts of Nigeria, clusters of creatives are working to attach their native languages unto some version of Street-Pop. Shallipopi’s use of Bini language and culture, especially for the standout “Obapluto,” has earned him status in mainstream Nigerian music, while others like One Touch (who raps in Bini) and Blixxy D RapKing (who favours his native Ishan) fly under the radar. In Northern Nigeria, Hausa rappers like ClassiQ, B. O. C. Madaki and DJ AB have found success combining Hip-Hop–like flow, local instrumentation, and the Hausa language. Today, Nigerian Street-Pop is more vibrant, versatile, and unapologetically local than ever, but what happens when its meaning gets lost in translation? 

At its origin, Street-Pop was performed almost exclusively in pidgin. In the ‘90s, artists like Daddy Showkey, Baba Fryo, Ras Kimono and Blacky were its chief proponents, and they shared the commonality of being born and raised in Ajegunle, an area of Lagos where their parents had come to settle from different parts of Nigeria – mostly Delta state. For them, pidgin was more than a lingua franca: it was a means with which they could express distinct thoughts that the rigor and structure of English (and perhaps their own inability to properly express themselves with it) would not allow for.

Galala is accepted by convention as the first evolutionary form of Street-Pop. Like many other sub-genres, it was a dance, but still it was much more. Taking heavy influence from Ragga, Galala was an expression of Ajegunle’s free-spirited response to life in adversity. Songs like Daddy Showkey’s “Diana” and Baba Fryo’s “Denge Pose” are classic cuts from this era. These songs share, in addition to sound and language, an infusion of social commentary and storytelling. Galala artists sought to share little nuggets of their lives in the music – like the moving story of Diana’s childlessness, or Baba Fryo’s admonition of the haughty on “Denge Pose.” 

A few years later, Street-Pop took on a couple of new identities, this time via Konto and Swo, although the first was more often used to refer to the genre of music and the latter designated to mean a related dance move. Konto was a little more melodious than Galala, and didn’t carry as much social commentary. Mad Melon and Mountain Black were its biggest practitioners. Their music relied on call and response choruses – whether it be an effusive “Swo!” chanted in response to the statement “I am a danfo driver” on “Danfo Driver,” or the titular response on the chorus of “Kpolongo,” a sequence that has been interpolated multiple times in modern music, including by Tekno and Zlatan. 

Among its many iterations and offshoots, Galala continued its domination through the next decade. In the mid ‘00s it was kept alive by a new batch of artists, like African China and Blackface. These disciples kept faithful to the tenets of the genre, like the conscious social commentary, which brimmed in songs like African China’s “Mr. President,” and “No Condition Is Permanent,” and Blackface’s “Hard Life.” This era also saw an increasing democratisation of Street-Pop, encouraged by several factors: its rising popularity and acceptance, Nigeria’s increasing interconnectivity partly brought about by mobile phones (or GSMs as they were popularly known), the Internet, and the opening up of creative hubs in other cities: Delta, Port Harcourt, Benin, and Enugu. 

This growth meant that Street-Pop had escaped the creative confines of Ajegunle, and could be reimagined and remixed by creatives in other parts of the country. Stereoman Ekwe recorded his ‘Sample Ekwe’ album in his hometown of Warri, Delta State; he was among a generation of artists that recreated Ajegunle’s sound outside its physical borders. His version of Street-Pop was delivered in a variation of pidgin that was coarser than Lagos’, with occasional dippings into Isoko or Urhobo. Other South-South artists, like Timaya, made a connection to the genre via collabs and remixes, like 2Shotz’s “In Case You Never Know.”

While the flames of Street-Pop were spreading across Nigeria, an even greater evolution was happening within Lagos state. Lagos represents the ultimate cultural mixer and a trip from Ajegunle to Bariga, or from Alaba to Agege, means crossing multiple cultural lines. As Street-Pop moved into traditionally Yoruba areas of Lagos, it interacted and mixed with Yoruba genres, especially Fuji, and a new era of the genre emerged, championed by acts like Oritse Femi and DaGrin. The genre’s lingua franca shifted, although Pidgin remained as something of a second language. From the mid ‘00s through the mid ‘10s, Street-Pop picked up lingo from the streets that birthed it, and in turn created a flurry of new slang. Olamide was particularly adept at utilizing the fluid breadth of language and vocabulary. He invokes street-worn sayings, while simultaneously creating new ones like the “-Sneh” suffix that was all the rave back in the day, and phrases like “who you epp?” “science student” “pepper dem” or “omo wobe” that took on a life of their own. 

Other practitioners of Street-Pop across Nigeria have sought to indigenize it as best they can. Phyno rode to glory on the back of a series of hits that fused the frank Hip-Hop of Illbliss and Nigga Raw with the Igbo-laced Neo-Highlife of Flavour. Even younger artists are tapping into their native languages to enhance storytelling. Ayo Maff’s debut EP, ‘Maffian,’ is full of ancient wisdom, the kind that would hardly be expected of a nineteen-year-old, but is reflective of the oral traditions of his Yoruba culture. On “Are You There” he sings that “Oju ri k’ẹlẹdẹ mi to dele,” speaking to experiences he faced before he arrived at his current status, while a line like “Lambebe, o gbọdọ wọ́n nile alata,” compares the overflow of wealth he expects in the future to the abundance of bowls of a pepper seller. These lines help build up the storytelling experience for the informed listener.

While indigenous languages are a source of connection to those who speak them, they also have the potential to alienate the non-speaker. How the audience handles this break in communication determines what their experience will be. While some may find it hard to get into music if they don’t understand the words, options abound for a fan willing to take a few steps to seek enlightenment – including online translations, annotated Genius lyrics, or song breakdowns on TikTok and YouTube. With today’s world focused on short-form video, it is not surprising to find an artist making lyric translations to their own song on TikTok. 

Ultimately, Nigeria is a music-loving nation. Even now, Asake’s music – slangs, idioms and all – continues to be a mainstay in barbershops in Enugu and raves in Benin and Port Harcourt; his words often undecipherable, but the groove irresistible. In clubs in Lagos, Flavour and Phyno boom from speakers, as hypemen announce the arrival of the latest big spender. A listener who does not understand the language may miss part of the message, but they are energized by production and serenaded by melodies. Music is a universal language, and in Nigeria’s banging Afropop scene, melodies speak louder than words.