In a time when rap music in Nigeria was almost in a state of inertia, M.I Abaga, with a cohort of ‘Jos boys’, gave it life once again, this time, introducing an original aesthetic that transformed the sound of Nigerian rap.
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Folks from Jos, the capital of Plateau, like to say their city is the birthplace of Nigerian rap and hip-hop. The pointer is mostly to a rap group called Black Maskuraderz whose song ‘The Truth’, very early in Nigerian pop history, was featured as a soundtrack in the 1997 film, Out of Bounds, starring Richard Mofe-Damijo in his first ever acting role. This happened in the context of an already vibrant rap music consciousness that was fostered in the city since 1994, when radio host, Sammy Rita, hosted a 30-minute show on Peace FM 90.5, tagged ‘Ghetto Raps United’. The show was later continued by Eldee Extra Large, Yiro Abari High, a writer from Jos, told me during my research for this story. (Eldee Extra Large would later be part of the hip-hop group, Swat Root, which shot to fame in the early 2000s.)
The debate about the birthplace of Nigerian hip-hop is mostly an argument about paying respect—as the hip hop culture is known for—especially since The Remedies, formed a year later, in 1998, blew up in Lagos and is, today, more likely to begin a conversation on how rap music became mainstream in Nigeria. But silent in this conversation is Kaduna, where the rappers Six Foot Plus, Overdose, and Eldee, once avatars of Nigerian rap music, are from. In the end, however, from a long line of ancestors, emerged a rapper who would represent not just his city, but his country, and even the African continent, in a ground-breaking career arguably unrivalled by any African rapper to date. That rapper is M.I Abaga...
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