Toheeb explores the electronic underbelly of Nigeria’s diverse music scene beyond Afrobeats…

At first, I failed to find a rhythm. This wasn’t what I was used to. The prevalent five-step beat I had grown accustomed to from a lifetime of Afrobeats consumption didn’t prepare me for this. I’d previously only heard this kind of music in club scenes in Hollywood movies and now, I was being thrown onto the dance floor, unprepared and un-blooded.

Twelve hours earlier, I’d been having a quiet Saturday with no plans to step out until I received a text from an acquaintance, asking if I’d like to meet up at Bayroot where I first saw the Cavemen perform, for a show that started at 23:00. VIP access, it read, as I’d be a guest of one of the performing artists. He gave me the details and I did some digging.

But despite googling this new genre of music on offer before the show, I knew I needed to experience it live to understand it. So I got dressed and headed out of my apartment, straight for the Island.

Upon arriving, the first thing I noticed when I got there was the glaring diversity in race. Usually, there’d be tons of Black people at this venue and just a handful of other races but it was different now: I bumped into more white folks than usual as I found a corner to sit and take in the scene.

Like wine-tasting, I soaked in the music, bopping my head to the tune blasting from the loudspeakers a few metres away from me but it felt different. It was a new kind of feeling for me. There were barely any vocals, just raw beats and people dancing and pumping their fists in the air regardless. The beat commands you and with a mind suddenly possessed, you begin to move your limbs. Your waist follows suit and next thing you know, you are killing it on the dance floor with dark shades on and no worries at all.

I have attended a number of shows at this venue, but not one that lasted this long; not one that boasted a still unshrinking crowd of people on the dance floor by 04:35 in the morning. And yet the indigenous population had already started to thin out a couple of hours prior: this wasn’t their usual bread and butter. There were no lyrics to blurt out or familiar faces in the artist lineup. They were just here for a good time and what they had seen was enough.

The non-native population, however, remained so newcomers at the scene would’ve been forgiven if they thought they were no longer in Nigeria what with the overwhelming amount of white people left on the dance floor. I figured this “techno music” was more of what they were really into.

Techno music is a form of electronic music that originated in Detroit in the early cocaine-dusted ’80s as a result of the melding of synth-pop by artists like Juan Atkins, Kraftwerk, Yellow Magic Orchestra and James Pennington. But while it may have been pioneered by African-Americans in the United States, it’s the white and Middle Eastern immigrants who make up the expat population in Nigeria that really vibe with the genre’s expansion here.

All this time, I still had not met my host Karlo Wanny, a Lebanese-Nigerian DJ who was preparing for his performance. But his absence gave me the opportunity to make a few friends I could grill for info, which is how I found out he was part of a wider movement to introduce Nigeria’s nightlife to the discordant sounds of Techno music. It’s also how I found out most of the natives at the event were guests of their immigrant friends; others however, were invited courtesy of their influence on social media by Cloud9 (founded by none other than Karlo) and Spektrum, two of the leading event organizers for house and electronic music in Lagos.

They had been making inroads with regular shows in Lagos to drum up a presence in the areas where these expats typically reside — Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Lekki — especially those of Lebanese descent. So naturally, for the few foreigners I did speak to, their love for the sound was confirmed as just one of many reasons they’d not only come down but partied like the best of them till dawn.

But as for me, my time at a venue I’d frequented many times before can still only be summed up in two words: virgin territory. A new experience to say the least, but certainly one I’d love to savour all over again.

credits

words — toheeb oladeinde

design — karina so., kirsty pargeter