The Songs of Jos

Jude, or M.I, was the immediate star. A returnee from the United States, he burst Click here to enter text.onto the Nigerian music scene in March 2008 with his breakout song ‘Safe’, which interpolated the era’s popular songs. Those years thrived on community: in Lagos where the mainstream industry had crystallized, several neighbourhoods were intensely aware of music being created by Nigerians across the city and elsewhere, creating a vibrant local culture centred around music. But while Lagos drove M.I’s commercialist vision, he was quite nationalist in his art. His intent was clear: to provide an alternative vision for Hip-Hop which, emerging from the 1990s and entering the 2000s, provided the visual and lyrical template for our pop stars to make superstars of themselves.

On the albums, Talk About It, MI2, and Chairman, this was evident: pair and consider ‘Number One’ and ‘Rich’, featuring Flavour and Koker respectively—both were modern interpretations of Highlife and Juju through the prism of rap. These were songs where M.I flaunted his lyrical dexterity, and by adapting genres that were significantly older than Hip-Hop, these songs transcended Jos, the rapper’s birthplace, and gave him national appeal. He was the quintessential postmodernist rapper operating within wider streams of popular culture. While doing that, he also stuck to the ethos of representation that is so respected across Hip-Hop, which upholds that where a rapper is from is as important as where they made their name.

And so, M.I was the ‘Short Black Boy from J-Town’. In ‘Undisputed’, he pays homage to the city of hills and plateaus, before screaming with triumph, ‘We have arrived!’. Jesse Jagz and Ice Prince, both signed to Chocolate City shortly after M.I, showed a similar knack for championing their city of origin. The trio would collectively be known as the Choc Boiz, embodying a rap sensibility defined by swag and identity. However, for the brothers especially, music was a portal through which their city could emerge, drawing not only from personal experiences but also from the influence of other ‘homegrown’ artists.

In truth, Jos has long been renowned as a hub for some of the country’s most distinct musicians. Perhaps we can trace the modern era’s great purveyors to Panam Percy Paul, that shimmering man of suits and songs. A maestro of gospel, his immaculately-composed songs earned him recognition across Nigeria, but especially within Jos’s capital city of Plateau, whose soon-to-be stars witnessed the rise of an enthralling one in real time. ‘Growing up,’ the Soul singer and frequent collaborator of Choc Boiz Ruby Gyang recently commented to OkayAfrica, ‘Jos was the premiere missionary station in the North, and all the different church denominations were very musical. He (Percy Paul) was like a rockstar who was extremely talented and musical and we grew up just basically idolizing him. Coming from that heritage and seeing him break all these boundaries was also inspiring.’

Along with the Choc Boiz, Ruby Gyang and the other Gyangs—the brothers Jeremiah and Sammy—contributed to the heralding of Jos’s contemporary stars on the Lagos-dominated mainstream of Nigeria’s music industry. But make no mistake: the Tin City wasn’t just a feeder for the industry; it had steel in the physiology of its artistic ideas. With intention, music enthusiasts were taught—whether in churches or in the streets—to revel in the techniques of music-making. The diverse array of ethnic voices prompted the most successful artists to perform in the widely understood languages of English and Hausa. Indeed, many of the mentioned artists showcased their versatility by mastering musical instruments and serving as producers.

Jesse Jagz’s peculiar appeal came from his musical versatility. He was informed on both sides of the sonic divide: how to write songs and produce them. His records carried within them the grit of a working musician. His voice evoked a bohemian’s edge and the media were quick to pronounce him Nigeria’s answer to Kanye West. He recognized this ‘otherness’ attached to his art and so began to weave his music through the tapestry of being where he’s from, a child of so many divisions. On the revelatory ‘Blaze’, he starts off his verse by mentioning his full name—Jesse Garba Abaga—and then his tribe, and then his parent’s initial resistance to him doing music, preferring, like many parents of that generation, a professional life in the corporate world.

And so, resistance was etched into that initial popular period and so many that came after. His debut album, Jag of All Tradez (2010), didn’t explicitly advance the J-Town mythos as its sound leaned on an electronic zest blasting straight from the future. He calls himself ‘the incredible kid from J-Town’ on the record, ‘Pump It Up’. On ‘JARGO’ he adapts Hausa in the chorus, which rushes with nostalgia while being purposeful, showing the scenic affiliations of the rapper. When he moved to Lagos and into the central mosaic of Nigerian cultures, there was a slight shift in his perspective. And by the time Royal Niger Company was released in 2014, he was creating a more immersive portrait of himself through the devices of myth: referring to himself in third person, having unique, contrarian ideas about the world, subliminally evoking the landscape of his city in songs. It was different from what many artists from Jos had done, and in this city’s song, it’s especially relevant to consider the potential of being able to contain several voices and make one’s way through their distinct qualities.

It must have been hard being seen through a peculiar and predictable prism. Jesse Jagz stood among the most accomplished artists Jos had ever seen yet he was constantly being presented in the press as ‘M.I’s younger brother.’ Jude, in recognition of his brother’s exceptional ability as an artist in his own right, was consistent in affirming Jesse’s individuality—even acknowledging that Jesse was the more talented musician between them. Still, there are interviews like the one on Modern Ghana, where the headline and majority of the questions directed at Jesse were focused on that relationship. At one point the journalist asked him, ‘Would you say your brother’s influence played a major role in your choice of career?’ Jesse responds: ‘It did in two ways…First, with his first album, people knew the name Jesse Jagz. But on the second hand, the pressure on me to perform was a little more than it was on him when he came out. It was like M.I did this, let’s see what Jesse would do. It all turned out good. But there were both the positive and negative sides to being M.I’s brother.’