According to O’Brien (2016), hip-hop is a type of musical genre that has been around since the late 1970s and early 1980s. He stated further that since the inception, the genre has got a bad rap for it only being about sex, drugs, violence, and misogynistic themes since those songs only get radio play and popularity. This genre of music became more known for its obsession with wealth and glamour and unadulterated objectification of women than for its social commentary roots (Romano, 2014). In Pough (2007), Simon and Schuster (2000) stated that hip-hop has its emergence in the Bronx in New York in the 1970s with women playing forefront role in shaping the culture of hip-hop through graffiti art, break dancing, and rapping.
Gbogi (2016), states that there are four major periods that can be isolated in the historical development of Nigerian Hip-Hop Music. The first is phase of Mimesis which began in the early 1980s with the crossing of Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” from The Bronx, New York, United States of America to Nigeria. He mentioned further that “Rapper’s Delight” gained popularity in Nigeria at about the time when hip-hop started recording both commercial and media successes in the United States. The commercial and the media successes jerked Ronnie Ekundayo up to go into rap music in 1981 to record “The Way I Feel” which was tagged the first rap record in Nigeria (Ikonne, 2009)
. Alex (2009) also posits that the first era of hip-hop music in Nigeria emanated in 1981 from the mind of a protesting On-Air personality who decided to throw a dagger at the disco rap trend which suddenly became the rave of the moment. The record of Ekundayo “The Way I Feel Rap” consisted a similar tune with Kris Okotie‘s pop tunes, just like Run DMC jumped on rock tunes in 1983 and beyond. Rap music in Nigeria during this period was mainly vague expressions and predominantly mindless chants which have been adapted poorly from the more artistic American counterparts, which some of today’s rappers will refer to as ‘whack’.
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However, the new evolution of hip-hop in Nigeria could be traced to the late 1990s (Alex, 2009; Ikonne, 2014). On the mainstream were such groups as The Remedies, Maintain, Trybesmen and single acts like Raskimono. Apart from these group or single acts mentioned earlier, in other parts of Nigeria, underground groups such as Swatroots, Coal City Finest and Tuck Tyte were also heard representing the game as much as possible. Hip-hop at this time at the mainstream till the early 2000s was characterized by a lot of Afro beat, native language and junk rap (Ikonne, 2014), which Gbogi (2016) refers to as phase of Domestication of hip-hop music with the recording of “Which One You Dey” by the group Emphasis (comprising the trio of Terry, Mouth MC and Junior). The phase of domestication of hip-hop music in Nigeria is the combination of American English (slang) and Nigerian indigenous languages and Pidgin English. The duo Junior and Pretty took hip-hop to mainstream with their comical pidgin style of rapping which was adapted for the streets of Nigeria.
Unlike the first era, they showed more originality by owning the art and making it Nigerian and even the instrumentations were heavy on indigenous content (Alex, 2009). In the second era of hip-hop emergence in Nigeria, Reggae and Disco music were ruling in Nigeria between the 80s and late 90s and due to the success of the likes of Majek Fashek, Mandators, Kris Okotie, Edna Ogoli and most promoters and labels (both foreign and local) were focused on the reggae artistes as they were the money makers at this period. For this reason hip-hop genre of music suffered in terms of prominence and been lucrative. Some artistes had to inculcate the reggae culture into their hip-hop genre; for instance – Daniel Wilson (aka Mr. Raggamuffin), Blackky and even Oritz Wiliki had to infuse rap bars into their songs.
Furthermore, there is era of the third phase of Nigerian hip-hop music which is referred to as the phase of Local Dispersal (Gbogi, 2016). Ikonne (2014) notes that musical groups like Remedies, Maintain, Trybesmen and single acts like Raskimono were the artistes on the mainstream in the third era of hip-hop emergence in Nigeria. In other parts of Nigeria, groups such as Swatroots, Coal City Finest and Tuck Tyte were only heard representing the culture of hip-hop underground as much as possible. Mainstream hip-hop at this time till the early 2000s was characterized with a lot of Afro beat, native language and junk rap. Alex (2009) stated that, ‘Ruggedman’ a hip-hop singer pioneered the era of “lyrical awakening” in Nigeria because he used rap features that are synonymous with the foreign counterparts, depicting intellectual as well as artistic skillfulness.
The fourth phase involves Global Dispersal. In this phase, Nigerian hip-hop is accepted globally despite the use of mix languages by the artistes that make the genre of hip-hop in Nigeria to be standard with a coined name NAIJA MUSIC. Though, this state of affairs did not come to be overnight; hip-hop in Nigeria has travelled a long road to mainstream acceptance and proliferation with the emergence of hip-hop artistes like M.I, Naeto C, Sound Sultan, Ice Prince, Da Grin, Jesse Jagz, Olamide, Davido, Wizkid, Falz, Mayorkun, Reminisce, and the female counterparts like Sasha P (the first Nigerian female hip-hop artiste), Eva Alordiah, Muna Gee, Tiwa Savage, Sheyi Shay, Late Goldie, Omawumi, Cynthia Morgan, WAJE, Yemi Alade and so on. Some of the features of the present decade include according to Alex (2009) clearly defined style, heavy play on words, use of metaphorical expressions, use of punch lines, and many others.
