10 Nigerian Music Groups We Would Love to See Back Together

It’s officially comeback season across the Nigerian entertainment scene. From TV shows to movies, there is a sense of nostalgia as fan favourites make their way back into our lives. As we enjoy the moment, we can’t help but think of beloved music groups who broke hearts all over the country when they split up. From Mo’hits to TrybesMen, here are 10 music collectives we miss and would love to see together again:

Mo’hits

Nigeria lost one of history’s most popular mainstream Afrobeat acts in 2012 after co-founder and producer Donjazzy announced their split on social media after close to 10 years in the game. The group cited irreconcilable differences as the cause of their split, as they played the blame game, and everyone went their separate ways.

Never again were fans going to hear the Donjazzy, D’banj, Ikechukwu, Wandecoal, Kayswitch, Dr SID together giving them club bangers winning their hearts with their stellar performances. Some of their best songs were You Bad, Booty Call, Pere, Be Close To You and Ten Ten.

The group had a brief comeback when they performed together for the first time since the split on 27 December 2017 at Davido’s show tagged “30Billion Concert.”

StylPlus

The original members were Shifi Emoefe, Tunde Akinsanmi, Yemi Akinwonmi, and Lanre Faneyi, the name STYL being an abbreviation of the founders’ first names. In 1998 Lanre Faneyi died, ushering in Zeal Onyechem, which changed the name to Styl-Plus, the “Plus” denoting the new addition to the group.

However, in 2002, Yemi Akinwonmi left the group, which made the group a trio – Shifi Omoefe, Zeal Onyecheme and Tunde Akinsanmi. They were responsible for the smash hits; Olufunmi, Runaway, Iya basira, and Imagine dat.

Soon after the Four years don waka track release, Stylplus officially separated, with Tunde going ahead to pursue a solo career. As die-hard fans, we still long for the musical group that stole our hearts in the early 2000s.

Plantashun Boiz

Plantashun Boiz was a formidable group in the music industry made up of Innocent Idibia (Tuface), Chibuzor Oji (Faze) and Ahmedu Augustine Obiano (Blackface). This R&B/ Hip-hop boy group was regarded as one of the most prominent music groups of the decade. Their songs were infusions of pop, rap, and reggae that helped introduce a generation of young music fans to the world of three talented boys, emerging as leading voices of the new school. The group released three albums together and are remembered for songs like Say You Believe Me, You and I and Plantashun Boiz.

Their songs sold out like wildfire. They topped charts nationwide, shifted attention from the prevailing old genres, and took the Nigerian pop sound to gain significant airplay on radio stations like never before, practically becoming a blueprint for making the music as commercially viable as possible.

However, the group split in 2004 as 2face opted for a solo career and released the classic solo debut album, Face2Face, with the hit song African Queen kick-starting his journey to becoming one of Africa’s biggest entertainers. On the other hand, Faze released his debut album, Faze Alone, which sold 1.2 million units after its release, while Blackface changed his style of music from RnB to Reggae music which also gave him a lot of street love and recognition. Regardless of their individual success, we would still love to see them together.

Psquare

Unlike other groups which usually have friends or strangers who become friends, this duo had twin brothers which make the details leading to their split rather touchy. Active from 2003-2017, the two brothers Peter Okoye and Paul Okoye. They were called “Double P”, “P&P”, and “Da Pees” until they eventually settled on “P Square”.

They released six albums, namely Last nite, Get squared, best-selling album Game over, Danger, The Invasion and Double trouble. If you were a regular at the clubs in the early 20’s you probably vibed to bangers like Busybody, Do me, and E no easy chop my money. They also featured a plethora of foreign artists like Rick Ross, T.I, Akon etc. They kept releasing music hits until the duo split over differences in management.

Remedies

With hit songs like Shakomo and Omoge, The Remedies consisting of Tony Tetuila, Eedris Abdulkareem and Eddie Remedy were quite famous in the 90s. They even had a deal with Kennis Music, Nigeria’s biggest record label at the time. 

The group fell apart due to irreconcilable differences. Tetuila became popular for tracks such as Omode Meta, Morning Time, Hit My Car and My Heart Go Jigijigi while Eedris Abdulkareem stayed in the limelight for songs like Oko Omoge, Mr Lecturer and Jaga Jaga. Eddy Remedy has been away from the spotlight for a while.

Kcee Presh

This group became popular after winning the Star Quest TV show. The name of their group was coined from their first names: Kingsley and Precious. They had two albums together and will be remembered for a couple of hit songs, like Shokori Bobo.

Presh would later say he walked away from the group because he did not get to do his style of music.  Kcee went on to release smash hit Limpopo under Five Star Music act whilePresh released Say dem say ft Davido under Eric manny records.

Maintain 

Popularly known as The Boys from Ibadan, Olu Maintain, Tolu and Big Bamo ruled the Nigerian music scene with hit Singles like I Catch Cold and Nibo la wa gbe lo. The group split in 2005 with Olu Maintain going on to release Yahooze. Big Bamo released Fi jo ko wo je and Popotiti, while Tolu focused on his banking job.

Infinity

They were a gospel group that became popular after releasing their hit songs Olori Oko, Aye Ole and Only Praise in 2007. They ended with only one album together with the exit of Kehinde Akinbode, now known as K’ore, who would later admit that members of the gospel group were not practising what they preached.

The now-four-man-group tried to stay together after his exit, but they were not as prominent as before. 

TrybesMen

Also known as Da Trybe, they are often described as “one of the pioneers of hip hop in Nigeria.”

The three original members; eLDee, Kaboom and Freestyle, met in 1994. They released their first album, L.A.G Style Volume 1, in 1999, which garnered several reviews. Their hits included Trybal Marks and Shake Bodi. Two members, eLDee and Freestyle, recorded solo albums after the group broke up. 

X-Appeal

X-Appeal was a musical group with Jazzman Olofin (Aolumuyiwa Olofinkuade) and Lexzy Doo (Adeyemi Michael Adeleke). They met at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) and formed the group X-Appeal. They released their album Bo Mess, which was a hit. After some time, they eventually parted ways and pursued their solo careers.
Jazzman thrilled with his hit singles like Raise Tha Roof andSexywhile Lexzy enjoyed his share of fame with the song, Baby Skeske but their status as rave of the moment was cut short after a few years.