Shallipopi, the dynamic Benin-born artist was the great revelation of Nigerian music in 2023. His slang-heavy songs are indicative of young people’s cultural significance but he’s so much more.
Shallipopi, who was the biggest revelation of Nigerian music in 2023, moved to Lagos in March, earlier the same year. Before then, he resided in Benin City, where he was born and also where he grew up. The city’s lore is established for its ancient kingdom which was renowned around the world especially by the visiting Portuguese traders in the 15th century. Now it’s one of the most culturally diverse and spiritually aware areas in Nigeria and that has translated into local pride, inspiring the city’s creatives who have emerged over the years, of which Shallipopi is presently the most transcendental.
‘Elon Musk,’ the March 2023 song which catapulted Shallipopi to national fame, was a freestyle. He makes lightwork of that fact during interviews but it speaks to his linguistic ingenuity that he doesn’t write his songs, rather allows experience to flow through him, unencumbered. Especially amongst a vibrant and primarily male audience, that song was undoubtedly the year’s first hit record, the then-21-year-old relaying his perspective on the immediate world around him.
Six months earlier, he had put out ‘Power,’ which had a similarly mellow sound and whose vocal direction showcased his rap roots more poignantly. Running under three minutes, it was the manifesto of a young man blazing his path towards the reality he desired. As with his other songs, the weight of young experiences were paired with an older man’s appreciation for witty wisdom, which often provides captionable lyrics such as, ‘In this world I gat nothing to lose na, in this world I gat no one to choose now/ You came to this life on your own, and I guarantee you will be leaving alone’. It’s not exactly socratic philosophy but when you come from where Shallipopi comes from, where young men his age are caught up in the throes of their excesses, then such perspective becomes an unlikely ascension beyond the mindstate the American rapper Kendrick Lamar, in his seminal album To Pimp A Butterfly, evokes through the evolution of the caterpillar.
The signs were evident with ‘Shaka’—the musicality of Shallipopi was developing. A conflagration of Pidgin English, Yoruba and his inherent Benin City sensibilities, the song pulled together cornerstones of the Nigerian pop music style, reminiscent of the sort of songs Wizkid would release during his Superstar era. Depicting a lust for bodies was the thematic preoccupation of the youngster, moving past the stark street narratives he evoked on previous records. The markings of a pop star were visible on the lithe frame of his approaching celebrity. Then came ‘Elon Musk,’ then came love, then came recognition and along with its sustained zest, perhaps, immortality.
Early last year, the country’s sonic centre was still very much influenced by the crowd vocals technique popularized by Asake in 2022. That artistic stacking of voices, an evolution of the traditional call-and-response, was known to elicit chants from listeners but which depended, really, on how interesting the call was. By any metric, ‘All these Elon Musk boys,’ even while addressing a niche demographic, had a sweet ring that made many more want to scream: ‘Para dey body!’ Throughout the first half of last year, that call-and-response was audible across the country. From street corners to nightclubs and secondary school parties, people caught the buzz. Suddenly it was cool to become addressed as an ‘Elon Musk boy’, the song giving colourful language to the hyperactive world of online dealings that was the zeitgeist.
Beyond that communal aspect of the music, ‘Elon Musk’ also saw Shallipopi introduce the cache of street slang and code talk that would form the lyrical core of his mythos. Words like Pluto and Evian would come to represent the communicative standards of the world Shallipopi has built, with inventiveness and tact, and within which he sits, glorious, like those Obas of old.
A MAN OF THE PEOPLE
Shallipopi is outside. We’re supposed to have started the scheduled interview some thirty minutes before but when you’re the hottest artist at the moment, events quickly position themselves seeking your attention and timelines shift. It’s part of the realisation that comes with telling certain stories, especially of people whose worlds orbit very different realities to yours. Shallipopi is outside and he’s left a fast food building; the background reveals a fruit seller’s wares, her bewildered eyes fixated on the superstar. This is understandable, considering it’s not an everyday sight in mainland Lagos, some distance away from the glossy allure of the island where many public figures reside.
When he gets into his car, he’s ready to start the interview and I’m already going through my first question but there are more distractions. People, mostly women, peer from outside his rolled-down windows and request pictures with him. Quite gracious, he lets them have their mementoes, one, two, three until a small cluster of people are gathered not far off, watching the scene. He’s a boisterous young man, easily smiling and returning cheerful greetings. ‘Later, later, I get interview,’ he tells them, pointing to his phone’s screen. On the other end I’m smiling as well but tickling at the back of my head, I knew it wasn’t going to be a conventional interview. I would have to follow his rhythm.
In July 2023, Shallipopi released Planet Pluto. A six-track EP, that hit-laden project solidified his standing as one of the country’s trailblazing acts. By then, he was signed to Dvpper Music, and introduced to the revelatory company which counts T.I Blaze, Balloranking and Seyi Vibez amongst its signees. This is an exciting detail because Shallipopi orbits the circles of street pop, and conversations about that inventive subgenre have tended to exclude other budding scenes around the country, most notably Benin which, along with Port-Harcourt, is holding the south down.
‘Benin was very difficult,’ says Shallipopi about his time growing up in the city. ‘The struggle was unreal so we had to do anything to survive. I’ve been doing music for a very long time, going to studios, going to different places just to let people know I have my own type of sound and they should listen to it’. With the ‘Elon Musk’ remix featuring Zlatan and Fireboy DML, the landscape was set for Shallipopi to come in and make his mark. He didn’t just make a mark—he set a precedent for artists coming after him, to represent the local even while having intercontinental ambitions.
‘Obapluto,’ the opening record of Planet Pluto, was proof of his documentary gaze. Its chorus was a classic sample of Monday Edo-led ‘Ogbasi,’ a 1996-released record by the Ebohon International Theatre Troupe, which was a soulful ode to Oba Ovonramwen, whose exile by the British took him to Calabar, and thus becoming the last independent Oba of Benin. Ovonramwen is arguably the most revered Oba and on the song, that energy of focus is replicated in the verses of Shalli, summoning the zest of traditional worshippers visiting the sea, his words interwoven with Benin oral poetry and his signature hype man-esque chants. It is this assuredness of Shallipopi that makes him so loved, the freedom of perspective he’s used in approaching delicate matters.
A copyright issue was quickly resolved by the artist and the sampled singer appeared on its visuals. ‘Ex-Convict’ made light of his time in detention during an investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, flipping what presented a dangerous outcome into an exhilarating record about the excesses of young lifestyle. The line ‘So I start to dey bend her like Benz’ works in such a song due to its understated innuendo but also the specificity of the Benz car, whose place in the contemporary imagination is championed among young people emerging from the streets, seeking those symbols of financial prosperity that once eluded them as a means of turning their narratives from struggle to bliss. It is that demographic he speaks the most to, not only matching their vivacity for language but also soundtracking the joy of community. On ‘Speedometer,’ he sings, ‘Who fall before go rise again on a speedometer,’ an embrace of motivation and solidarity. ‘Sharpiru,’ which was earlier released as a single, fits into the EP like gloves on Michael Jackson’s hands. His motivational ethos continues on ‘Ahead Ahead,’ an early favourite from the project whose zesty delivery made illuminating the generational desire to ascend the geographical and institutional limitations placed on young people.
The contemporary Nigerian music landscape has seldom seen a musician like Shallipopi. Who else releases an EP and an album in their breakout year? It’s not a feat that shines off quantitative output, because each song has measured up to a visible whole, the amapiano-influenced sound is largely cohesive but with minute touches of detail so that ‘Elon Musk’ sounds nothing like ‘Speedometer,’ the same way that ‘Obapluto’—heralded by many as his best song yet—has little sonic resemblance with ‘Ex Convict’. In that regard working closely with Busy Pluto, who produces all but one record on his album, has created the focus in his catalogue, the reason why has so much in the vault, a beast of productivity.
HIS COLORFUL PERSONALITY
Presido La Pluto is the debut album of Shallipopi. He tells me he began recording the album immediately after he returned from London in late August 2023, where he performed alongside Asake and Olamide at the former’s show at the O2 Arena. United on that stage, it was a groundbreaking moment of some sort, as the trio represented variant sensibilities within the Street Hop movement. Anyways, Shallipopi returned inspired and crafts an indelible profile of the assured superstar as we hear on Presido La Pluto. I asked him what Pluto means. ‘Pluto means many things,’ he said just before he was again asked for a photograph. It’s an interesting aspect of his interviews, how elusive he seems while revealing intimate parts of himself.
Days before we conducted our interview, Shallipopi trended on social media for all the right reasons. Viewers were intimated about his life and thought process through the Zero Conditions podcast episode, hosted by the Nigerian media professionals Excel Joab, Motolani Alake and Melody Hassan. ‘Suffering, suffering, suffering, enjoyment’—that is how he describes his childhood to the hosts, the early minutes spent moving around trivialities before he finally opens up, among other things speaking candidly about his music, his tattoos, the manifestation of traditional beliefs in his native Edo State, that which he calls Evian in his music. But even then he makes the point that ‘too much explanation no dey good sometimes’ which, as someone who grew up in the hood of Ajegunle in Lagos State, is upheld as truth.
If Shallipopi comes across as elusive in interviews, the music is the direct antithesis: he’s quite expressive in his songs, especially on Presido La Pluto, where his newly realized celebrity enables him the confidence to spread wings, sonically and thematically, although the latter to a lesser extent. The percussive overtones of South African pop still form the sonic background for him, but you’ll hear an artist who’s yet finding new ways to perfect his preferred sound.
On ‘Evil Receive’ he moves between metres of delivery, in one phrase energetic and the other adopting a laidback cadence, while the production builds up with sensitive tension around him. ‘Eazy’ flips a childhood tune into inspirational messaging, mellow and measured, the perspective ostensibly influenced by the glistening fortunes of Shallipopi. He adopts the same technique on ‘Oscroh (Pepperline)’, a song which drew palpable backlash post-release. That didn’t stop it from blossoming into a hit record and its seemingly nonsensical chorus being sung at the top of people’s voices, especially when they were outside, heated by the intensity of a community. ‘Iyo’ and ‘Jungle’ are distinct in their evocation of pain, prosperity and family, those cornerstones of his music. It’s a tightly knit album; even the features are purposefully applied: on the risque ‘Cast,’ the artist combines with fellow rave-of-the-moment ODUMODUBLVCK; he gets the SA seal of legitimacy through Focalistic on ‘Over The Seas’ and ‘Wet On Me’ features his brother and new signee Zerrydl, while the closing record ‘So What?’ sees him go back-and-forth with afropop royalty, Tekno.
‘On Shalli’s music, I’d say, to those who don’t pay attention to or earnestly evaluate his music it is easy to dismiss it as nonsense music, a usual knee-jerk reaction of pseudo-classist Nigerians,’ says Carl Terver, a writer and culture critic. ‘But his music is quite laced with metaphors which speak to a demographic. His style is standout, however protean, one might say, introducing a new whiz kid who obviously arrives on the scene without permission’.
WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS
So who is Shallipopi? Beyond the veneer of celebrity, and the attention he has garnered from fans and critics alike, what makes his music so endearing, and why now? Even while orbiting new sonic spaces, his music belongs ostensibly among the rap tradition, incorporating the inner and end rhyme schemes popularized by so many acts before him. Hip-Hop being a foundational genre for contemporary afrobeats, Shallipopi harkens to the nineties-dominated era of Junior and Pretty, whose originality of language and thought eventually saw them become the first rap superstars the country had seen.
Across Planet Pluto and Presido La Pluto, those influences are bare. You’d hear it on ‘Ex Convict,’ where, after the ‘men mount o, men mount’ refrain, he spins the initial couplet into, ‘the only way men fit take loose guard na if plug no dey and the kpo no last,’ and then incorporating zesty trending language, chips in, ‘Everybody must chop breakfast’. The breakout hit from Presido La Pluto, ‘Cast,’ follows similar technique, where there’s storytelling right from the jump and Shallipopi creates an image of his celebrity, replete with lust-driven innuendos and vivacious delivery, a shoutout given to his Plutomainians fan base. ‘Presido with the big machine, your girlfriend wanna suck my thing, but no be that kind person I be,’ he raps in what is one of the most popular lyrics from the album. On ‘Sharpiru’ he frames one of his most memorable progressions thus:
E nor sharp mehn if e no sharp
If e nor collide, then e no lap
If you are not talking then you don’t cap
Pluto ways no dey show for map
The insistence on mystery which follows that last quoted line proves that Shallipopi, while he might not explicitly reveal his methods, is very much aware of the influence of that method and is deliberate in making sure it spreads beyond him. Sometime in October last year, he founded his own label, Plutomania Records, and immediately announced the signing of Zerrydl and Tega Boi, both of whom are Benin-bred artists and have a similar style as him. It’s quite unprecedented—an artist out of their first big year, having two signees in his own label. Why was this considered important for Shallipopi?
‘I don’t feel like it’s important,’ he says, ‘I just feel like I should do it because they’re my friends. One of them is my friend and the other is my brother. So, this is the only time I have to bring them out. I cannot just make it and leave them, you understand?’
Back home in Benin City, Shallipopi represents the expanding streaks of the city’s sound on the horizons of afropop. Like Goya Menor who soundtracked the viral ‘Ameno’ wave before him and Rema and Johnny Drille before that, there’s more superstars emerging from the city and this has changed the perspective of attaining stardom for the city’s young population. Obviously, Shallipopi has come a long way from vibing and being influenced by Young Thug, and just like the American rapper’s distinct style inspired a lot of artists, so is Shallipopi now stepping into a similar light, proving, that even with the divisive nature of his sound, if he could do it, then could so many others. ‘Everybody wants to do music now nah,’ he comments, ‘cos they have seen that, okay, you can actually make it in music’.
For Shallipopi, this all comes with an endearing perspective. He’s not looking too far into the future because he knows life has no assurances. It’s the perspective of a man who knows to bask in the rewards of every single day, understanding the strong tides of history he flows in but wise enough to not let its weight define him and his choices. Our conversation ends with me asking where he sees himself in ten years and his response was illuminating. ‘Nobody know wetin go happen ten years from now oh; I no go lie for you,’ he says. ‘Me I go pray say ten years from now make I still big, but I no know wetin go happen. Na only pray I fit pray’⎈
The views, thoughts, and opinions published in The Republic belong solely to the author and are not necessarily the views of The Republic or its editors. We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editors by writing to editors@republic.com.ng.
