I remember back then when we were always nodding our heads to American hip hop never believing we would see something worth listening to out of Nigeria in terms of rap, not that Nigeria has not had its own share of rap/hip hop acts. Between the 80’s and 90’s, we’ve had acts such as Sound on Sound, Emphasis, Junior & Pretty, Weird MC, Baba Dee, Zakki, Cashman Davies, Seyi Shodimu and a host of others.
The late 90’s saw the emergence of Trybesmen, Ruff, Rugged & Raw, Maintain, Blackface (Plantashun Boiz), Eedris Abdulkareem (Remedies), Big Lo, Terry Da Rapman, Mode Nine, Lord of Ajasa and so on. These guys were the people who laid the foundation of what we know as hip hop in Nigeria today. The turning point for Nigerian hip hop was brought about in 2002 when Ruggedman came out with a diss track “Ehen Pt1” where he called out a couple of rappers and termed them “wack”. The song was widely accepted by the public because prior to then, songs by these acts were lacking greatly in aspect of “lyrical content”. This singular action birthed the much needed reform in the industry with young cats such as M.I, Naeto C, Da Grin, Ikechukwu, Jesse Jagz, Godwon, Yung6ix, Vector thaviper, Eva Alordiah, Sasha, Sinzu, Ill Bliss etc churning out dope songs.
