I move through the still motion of Friday’s closing hours on Victoria Island. A bedlam is building up on the other side of Ozumba Mbadiwe, several tired steels burdened with their destinations. I am headed to Johnny Rockets for MoodboarD, the commemoration of Yamen Yamen’s second year anniversary. It is a festive collaboration by Drummr Africa and Nigerian Boys that sources a community of prolific art and expressions. I alight a public bus at Saka Tinubu Bus Stop, check my map and walk right ahead till I stroll into a bamboo-walled garage arranged with stools as high as my waist.
Lights and sound are being set up. I quickly find Nesta who is supervising it. He founded Drummr in 2016 at a friend’s dining table, he tells me. From where Nesta and I sit, a crane slowly waves from an elevated construction across the island’s darkening skyline. There are more of these trampoline-covered cement monsters jutting out from the ground to barricade locals from the fresh wind of the ocean but we are under the shade of a green mango tree where we enjoy some cool ventilation. I asked him what Yamen Yamen meant to him, two years down the line. “Yamen Yamen means that we can do beautiful things,” he said, “and it validates the idea I had at my friend’s dining table.”
The stage gets lit, music comes on, and more people begin to trickle in and spread across the tables. June, my friend, and co-founder of Drummr arrives and almost immediately disappears into the frenzy of preparation. Things quickly take shape, the evening ripens with a quiet human buzz, and a bright spotlight tilts towards the stage where a mic stand lingers with a stool so elevated and lone that it fits for a throne.
Esoterica sits on this throne in the middle of the stage with her recently purchased tooth-white guitar, and she tunes it to check the sound. As the curtains of day begin to draw, she sings octaves that lulls a setting sun into its bed of clouds. While I share drinks with Tammy, my editor in the jersey-spangled enclosure, I hear Braye’s ‘Nothing Like I Feel’ and I geek out and jump out to see him leaning on the mic as he lubricates a vibrant highlife jazz with soul. He is one of the artistes I have especially come out to see at Yamen Yamen, but I have to go back to drinks and conversation I am leaving unattended.
When I catch up with him later, he is coolly sipping something dark like cognac or brandy from a short glass. He sports a bright-yellow vintage Brazil jersey and smiles bashfully behind his falling locs. We (mostly me) yap about possible connections from his debut single to his most recent ‘Painless Melody’. He seems impressed yet pretends to be unaware of his music’s therapeutic qualities. Months ago, I had discovered Braye’s music on a mutual friend’s Instagram page and immediately followed him because of the effrontery his sound had to barge into my predicaments at the time. I had also seen a video he posted about keeping words from books he’d read and learning them. So I asked Braye to give me a word that describes the evening. He observantly pokes his head around before he reaches into his phone and types out the word “incandescent.”
It is 8:00 pm when June finally sits on stage and begins to call out the setlist. DaveTheOracle also known as DTO gives an energetic open and trails instrumentals of heavy reggaeton followed by a scintillating drill. He is wearing a zipped black leather vest over a white tee and intensely performing tracks from his latest ‘BLOCK19’. Seo strikingly walks on set with a fluffy handbag and silk scarf that arbitrarily enhances her gothic appearance. She does her soft talk-rap on ‘DOGHOUSE’ when I find lightning flashing in the sky.
Seo is one of the collaborators on the original Yamen Yamen, a pan-African collaborative project released in 2022 with acts like Bash the Piper, Sir Bastien, Nano Sharay, Ess the Legend, etcetera. The versatility that project contains reflects the beauty that Nesta was trying to describe earlier. I just had to wait to see it for myself. The magic of Yamen Yamen lay beneath the bright purpleness of the atmosphere, with every artist bringing their originality to view in sparkling colours.
Charles Majek, co-founder of Nigerian Boys has more to say about versatility when I approach him for a stick of Chesterfield. “If you give me rap, I can do that. Rock? EDM? Boombap? Just name it.” He has this dauntless energy about him that jostles the crowd with relatable social vignettes from his ‘The Life and Death of Sixth Cell’ E.P., and his latest ‘Pussy Trumper’. True to his words, when he performs, he reels several different flows through distorting strings and jumps from the stage to walk into a seated crowd.
Moyosola Olowokure also bathes the night in flowing spoken words. I have seen her perform multiple times at Ouida Open Mic and I find myself finishing some lines of her poetry as she dazzles in the spotlight. I am sharing a joint with Silas when the crowd refocuses on the DJ booth. A masked BlackCulture ignites the deck and douses it in fusions of house and afrobeats beside them is Yimeeka, a singer and producer, and they’re burning the wheels with literal fire from their latest collaborative E.P ‘INO’. “Hello everyone, you’re listening to BlackCulture and my name is Yimeeka!” she interludes through their transitions.
We go deeper into the night as Kevwe guides us with a soulful rendition of ‘Know’ accompanied by Jero who follows her tirelessly on the keyboard. She multitasks as director and performer, and we lead down a winding path, through her passionate and teary-eyed magnetic performance, it wouldn’t let go of the crowd’s attention at any point.
And will you believe it? Immediately RnBPrincess sits on the throne, clouds finally break and it starts to rain. Attendants run from their seats in the open and stand beneath available shades but she stays there drenching, laughing, and continues to sing into the drizzles. Talk about poetic.
The rain eventually stops. I am back in the coolness of the enclosed bar for Azumi’s set, yet I stay with her soft vocals. I come back out when I hear Suurshi’s sensational ‘It’s You’ and she is rocking the audience’s glare in her fine red dress. People are back in their seats now, but someone has kicked the spotlight stand and the stage looks rather blue. However, when Braye climbs on again, that doesn’t matter. He owns it and warms it up with his own melodies. He ends this set with a preview of his unreleased single. He tells me later that it’s titled ‘Are You On the Way’, and promises there are new songs coming soon.
Under the full influence of my earlier indulgence, I begin to hear the wall fans overhead wafting like receding waves on a beach. Esoterica, in a sleeveless top and long black shirt, returns with a melodious soul right before she makes an electro-funk indentation on Kendrick Lamar’s ‘ELEMENT’. Everyone is sing-rapping along with her. When she switches flows again, she moves back to unreleased solos aided by sweet-lollipop acoustics from her brand-new guitar.
Soon, the party drifts to EDM sampling Obongjayar’s ‘I Wish It Was Me’. “I adore you!” loops endlessly on jumpy rhythms and I imagine Obongjayar materialising on stage at Yamen Yamen. Maybe the next one, I hope. His music easily fits the scene and it leads me to my personal truth about Yamen Yamen and its composition of alternative ideas and rare authenticity.
All the artistes who step on this stage aren’t barred by convention, or the audience’s normative expectations. They are free to delicately enact their worlds without cognisance of our attentive observation, and we just trust their lead as we move into it. In this place, right under the nose of Lagos, we find a deep x-ray of the underground soundscape that is as expansive as it is underappreciated. This picture depicts a commune that encourages us to dig deeper and seek even more.
During the show, I discover other artists like Keziah Mallam and Toje who both deliver truly captivating performances. The night gets quickly spent and it is a bit past midnight when Yosa pops out and swings from Japanese hip-hop to Jamaican dancehall. Then Dami takes on the wheels and propels us to classic afrobeats.
By this time, the air is redolent with petrichor and the crowd begins to trickle out as they have come. Some are spent, headed to their respective houses, while others are trying to make it to a second party destination. I am among the former group.
I think about the energy that connects such a commune as Yamen Yamen, and the network of love and passion that draws people to such an event. It feels warm.
