Revisiting 2Baba’s Face2Face

Exactly 20 years ago, 2Baba came into the fullness of his potential on his debut solo album, Face2Face. A masterclass of form and feeling, the album continues to thrill and inform.

Picture this: a verse four years into the 2000s, emerging onto a populated music scene yet managing to sound like it was everything. Like nothing else mattered. And truly, nothing else did, not while 2Baba, formerly known as 2Face Idibia, rapped that verse that started with the words, ‘I’m coming out straight this time’. ‘Nfana Ibaga’, which was the second record on Face2Face, after a skit-esque intro, signified a new shift in Nigerian music. It showed how a singer could merge his aspirations with that of the larger society, in language true but also technical, scoring associative points from nearby forms. For 2Baba, that form was primarily Hip-Hop. On this album he utilized the stylistic hallmarks of the genre to satisfying levels; his features also keyed into the vision. Twenty years later, deep into the second generation of superstars after 2Baba, Nigerian musicians—consciously and otherwise—are still influenced by 2Baba’s selective pairing of sounds and sensibilities, attempting to paint the human condition with as much verve.  

In the late 1990s, the need arose for local record labels to fill the void left by their foreign counterparts. Previously operating in Nigeria, labels such as EMI and Sony had left that decade and the one before due to the social instability caused by successive military governments. Among a few others circulating was Kennis Music—founded by Kenny Ogungbe and Dayo ‘D1’ Adeniyi—and which scouted 2Baba and signed him after he left Plantashun Boiz in 2004 to pursue a solo career. Both music executives were groundbreaking in their understanding of superstar potential; early visitors to the Grammys, they saw how the African musician could approach the global market, not as second-fiddle but as legitimate sensations, their unique cultures working towards their branding. 2Baba represented this ambition; emerging from a beloved boy band, he already had one foot in stardom; with Face2Face, he put down the second, becoming, essentially, the first superstar of this modern era.  

Perhaps the most instrumental factor behind 2Baba’s ascension was the fact of his timing; that he had no predecessors. This does not connote a lack of influences—rather no other Nigerian artist before him was cut in the same fabric, musically and visually. Timing plays a great hand in music, especially for an album released at such a pivotal period of our musical history. Arriving just five months into 2004, it captured the totality of what it means to live anywhere in Nigeria...