Pop Culture; Changing The Nigerian Narrative

Nigerian Pop Culture (Burna Boy, Alex Iwobi, Wizkid & Davido) / amped illustration

If you’re reading this, there’s a 70% chance you’ve heard the name Lebron James before, Lebron is one of the greatest people to ever play the game of basketball on the highest level which is the NBA. However, like every person who has been considered great in sports, his greatness is one of contention. He has his devoted fans and those who cannot stand him; one of the most popular reasons for Lebron ‘hate’ is his constant need to sway public opinion by controlling the narrative around his ability and outcomes of his games. Lebron is not alone in his need to control the narrative surrounding him. As human beings, we put great effort into curating our personal brands because we know how that the brand is often times the first impression people have of us. On this minuscule level, we all relate with Lebron James.

Unfortunately, the brand or narrative is not always positive and the negativity usually stems from sort of truth. The narrative about Nigeria in the western world has been mostly negative for as long as I can remember. From watching tv to listening to music and even to traveling outside the country, the first association made with Nigerians is often scams and corruption. A close second is that Nigerians are often brilliant and will succeed at whatever they put their minds to. The most popular narrative about Nigeria is the one that bothers me the most. It seems that in pop culture, the ‘Nigerian Prince’ token joke is the only reference to Nigeria. In music, there doesn’t seem to be any positivity either. Lil Wayne in his prime once rapped that he was ‘tougher than Nigerian hair’. Anybody with hair of African heritage or interested in the subject matter understands that tough hair is not an aspiration, it is a burden.

In February of 2018, Nike had a huge event in London where they invited press from all over the world to unveil products for the new year, as well as merchandise for the world cup. The products ranged from OffWhite jerseys by Virgil Abloh, to national jerseys for qualifying teams of the World Cup tournament, as well as soccer boots.

In wrestling, fans subconsciously select who they want to be a superstar, by gravitating towards a performer. When this trend is noticed, the WWE would decide to make said star their marquee figure. In a launch that included new merchandise from Virgil Abloh as well as the World CUp kit for England, Nigeria’s kit was the superstar the fans wanted. And in true business fashion, Nike decide to make the kit their marquee by putting a lot of revenue behind marketing the Nigerian jersey. The campaign resulted in making Nigeria the world’s team, and everybody wanted to be a part of it. Nigerians home and abroad were proud and eager to declare they were Nigerian; being Nigerian had never been so cool.

You know how in wrestling the fans subconsciously select who they want to be a superstar, when the fans gravitate towards you, the WWE would decide to make you their marquee figure, that’s exactly what happened after the Nike launch, in a world where there was new Virgil Abloh, New England football kit, the one thing that caught the eye of the World was the Nigerian football kit. 

Sports have not been the only gravitational pull to Nigeria the world has experienced. In the music sphere, Afrobeats have been propelling the idea of the Nigerian culture to world. This shift is primarily due to exposure from Drake’s feature on Wizkid’s Ojuelegba. Drake is indisputably one of the biggest artists in the world and has influence only a few people can relate to. Consequently, the success of that song had a trickle down effect that no one, especially wizkid, envisioned. Following that, a domino effect was observed: Drake released his own afrobeat hit ‘One Dance’ which was co-written by Wizkid; Wizkid got a record deal with Sony Music; Davido got a record deal with Sony Music as well and recently won the best international artist at the BET awards and accepted the award on the actual stage the day of the event. Yes, receiving this particular award in front of his American counterparts is a huge deal because it has never happened before; the international artistes often get their awards before the actual show. Finally, Burna Boy, who is also Nigerian, signed a deal with Atlantic Records and is currently touring America on the success of his recent album “Outside”. Nigerian culture is currently pushing pop culture and everybody wants to associate with our culture in some way shape or form. In the 24 and seven-eighths years I have been alive, the narrative about Nigeria is finally changing and it is changing for good.