Every Friday night, hiphop heads and their fans gather here in the Sculpture Garden for an evening of rhymes, battles, and ciphers known as "The Basement." According to Skimo, who began the venue with a group of friends several years ago, participants often spend all week writing and rehearsing lyrics to present at the Basement. As it turns out, the Basement has nurtured the rising stars of underground hiphop in northern Nigeria; it is one of the primary hubs in the underground hiphop network. I have come to see this network as the most important characteristic of Nigerian hiphop - not only because it makes great music possible, but because it brings together diverse groups of people for collaboration and cultural production.
My initial research on hiphop in Nigeria began with the internet, where Nigerians all over the world share music with each other through social sites like Naijapals.com and Nairaland.com as well as sites dedicated to hiphop music like nigerianhiphop.net, werunthings.com, and notjustok.com. I used these sites to become acquainted with the commercial side of Nigerian hiphop - listening to tracks, watching music videos, and reading interviews by such popular artists as Eldee, Eedris Abdulkareem, Modenine, MI, and Terry tha Rapman. I was impressed at the ways these artists and others referred to their country and their fellow Nigerians as one entity, united in spite of the ethnic, linguistic, religious, and economic divisions that have fractured Nigerian society. Along with their danceable beats, these artists' songs were often infused with a conscious, critical, and nationalistic spirit. I wanted to find out if these messages had meaning to young people in Nigeria, especially in the northern part of the country, where conservative Islam has a strong hold and past outbreaks of ethnic violence have occurred. Could the nationalism expressed in hiphop music play any role in young people's tolerance and appreciation of diversity?
I traveled to Kaduna, Nigeria, in June 2009 in search of answers to these questions. I was fortunate to stay with a host family, and my host brother, a student at ABU - about 40 miles north of Kaduna - took me to visit the campus one Friday. When I told my host brothers' friends and roommates that I was interested in hiphop, they immediately suggested we go to the Sculpture Garden. By the time we arrived, it was completely dark, and the Basement was well underway. Although I was only able to catch thirty minutes of that evening's performances, I knew that I had found the right place.
Through one of my host brother's roommates, that evening I was able to meet an MC called Da Naymliss, who has won several awards in online forums for his lyrical and storytelling abilities. Not only did Naymliss enthusiastically share his own songs, personal history, and philosophy on hiphop, he was my guide in navigating the underground. His connections with others in the game were invaluable - and when he could not introduce me to someone in person, he encouraged me to check out their music online. Thanks to his help, I was able to meet with the members of the Faculty, a rap crew based in Kaduna with fans all over northern Nigeria (as you will hear them describe in the video). And Naymliss's manager, Skimo, organized a freestyle session in the studio that brought together the best MCs from the Basement in order for me to videotape - and get schooled.
The research process in Nigeria was slower than I had expected - it seemed like there was always some basic problem that affected me as much as it did the hiphop heads I was trying to connect with. Power outages plague Nigeria, and they constantly frustrated my attempts to charge the camcorder battery and load video onto my computer. When I returned to ABU to videotape the Basement, the power went out and the venue was in total darkness, except for the cell phone lights that artists and onlookers brought out. And Skimo's recording equipment had to be run by generator, an expensive enterprise in a country where fuel scarcity is common. Transportation to and from Kaduna was difficult to come by, both for me and the artists I spoke with. Mobile phone service was in and out, even when we did have enough prepaid minutes to call each other. With these barriers as an everyday reality, what these artists were able to do was even more impressive.
The Nigerian MCs, producers, managers, and fans I met educated me on hiphop: for them, it is about the love of the game, respect for genuine skill and hard work, and, by extension, respect for each other. People of all different backgrounds came together for hiphop in memorable ways. For example, in a freestyle session at Skimo's studio, Naymliss was spitting bars at the mic when the call to prayer echoed across Zaria. A practicing Muslim, Naymliss freestyled, "Even when the name is stoppin' / I ain't never gotta think of nothin' / because I gotta be out, man / prayer time, I gotta pray the rhyme." Skimo, a Christian, nodded. "Y'all know what it is," he said, respecting Naymliss's performance. Twenty years ago, it would have been unimaginable for Christians and Muslims in Kaduna state to collaborate the way that Skimo, Naymliss, the Faculty, Mo Entertainment artists, and others are doing (not to mention the variety of ethnicities they represent). While I did find that artists often talked about Nigerian society, critiquing it and representing it, I found that equally important work toward Nigerian unity was being done through the social networks that have been constructed by hiphop. It is my hope that more research can be done to better understand these networks and how they maximize the resources available to them while minimizing barriers. And I hope that the hiphop community in Nigeria will continue to build its network and broadcast its message of inclusion and respect
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