Ayo Maff Is The Prince Of The Streets

Ayo Maff’s very first trip outside the country was to go perform at London’s O2 arena. This was for Asake’s concert in September, an experience that he describes as “a dream come true.” In truth, the entire year has been nothing short of dreamlike for the 19 year old christened Ayorinde Mafoluku. His two-pack of Jama Jama and Another Day was an introduction to Ayo Maff’s bleak, unrelenting world, where good food is a luxury and drugs provide a much needed escape. For most, however, the big spark was Dealer, where Fireboy seconds him. They take turns praising the ability of a cryptic dealer to take pains away. Since then, he has strengthened his connection with YBNL, describing Fireboy as a “big brother” and alluding to receiving advice from Olamide and Asake. He evades the question of whether he has jumped in the studio with either of them, which can be interpreted as confirmation more often than not.

Like many kids born and raised in Bariga, he grew up listening to hood hero Olamide, who, like Maff is now attempting, made it out of the hood by pursuing a passion for music. But this adulation is more aspiration than imitation. Ayo Maff grounds his music in real life—his life. It is why he has no real influences. “I would say that nobody really influenced my music. My music is all about what I’ve been through. The things I’ve seen.” Some of these experiences are particularly moving, so they form repeated plotlines in his music: his father died at an early age, denying him the financial and emotional security required for a normal childhood. The closest thing he had to a father figure, Ojo, died under mysterious circumstances after being caught “in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Four years ago, aged 15, he left home in search of a source of income after watching his mother and four siblings suffer for too long. Ayo assures me that these are all real experiences. 

Nigerian music, especially the coarse flavor of Street Pop, is crafted on lived-in stories and experiences. Each artist processes grossly similar ordeals differently. Bella Shmurda’s High Tension unfurled the strings that tie poverty and family pressure to internet fraud in rural settings, chronicling his near-descent down that path until music provided an alternative. Olamide’s sophomore YBNL instead portrayed the streets as a fierce battleground, casting himself as the hardened capon. How Ayo Maff threads his own experience into his music is what makes it unique and personal. His music is cathartic because the streets he comes from have burdened him far beyond his years. “If you come from where I come from, you would understand that this is the reality,” he says. This is in response to the controversy that trails some of his lyrics, where he sheds a light on the darker sides of the place of his upbringing. Last Week, his July release, took many knocks for how Ayo Maff depicted a week in his life, showing a significant amount of time was spent obtaining or using Marijuana, or Igbo as it is popularly called: “Monday we go to school a ma lo’n fa loud/ Saturday I call my dealer Igbo don finish.” When trapped in the most dire circumstances, like Ayo Maff was in Bariga, sometimes the only escape you can afford is a mental one.

These lyrics generated some uproar on Twitter, with even police spokespersons setting aside busy schedules to weigh in on the discussion. If Ayo Maff was at all bothered by all of the controversy, he does not show it. “I don’t pay attention to most of these things, and I will never stop singing about myself and the things I know. Because we sing about these things, it doesn’t mean it’s what we do, but that’s the reality to be honest.” 

To Ayo Maff, to shun this motif of his music is to deny the reality of the life he has lived. He says growing up in poor circumstances in a Lagos slum was somewhat fun, but, “it teaches you how life is, it gives you a reason to make it.” Taking the initiative at 15, he left home in pursuit of a better life, but it did not come immediately. He had to perform a number of odd jobs to survive. He learnt tailoring for a while, but he didn’t complete his training. He used to do collating at a printing press. They were merely intended as side hustles, means to earn a daily bread, because Ayo Maff, for as long as he can remember, has always set his sights on music. In primary school, where most children are still learning the fundamentals of thinking and socialization, Ayo Maff was giving live performances. “When my primary school principal left, I composed a song for her, and I performed it in front of the school. That was actually the first time I performed to a crowd.” 

It’s been a tumultuous journey between the ol’ school ground and the O2 arena, but Ayo Maff was driven by a fierce conviction that this was what he was always meant to do. Like many other artists, the first barrier of opposition he encountered was within the family, as his mother felt music was a distraction, and he would be better off obtaining a proper education and then securing a white collar job. “As time went on, she understood that this is what I want to do. She’s also seeing the result now,” he says, before adding slyly: “Anyway she didn’t have a choice. Because I’m stubborn. I’m very, very stubborn. I kept going out of the house to go to the studio, go watch carnivals, performances, stuff like that.” 

Ayo Maff doesn’t necessarily intend to cater to a mass audience. He sings for that guy in the street who currently passes through the experiences that forged him, and for anyone else, who on some level, can connect with it. His debut EP, Maffian, was curated as an introduction to himself, and by extension, everyone like him. On Maffian, Ayo stays close to this mission statement. His vision of Bariga is sad without being pitiful. Are You There shouts into the void, asking for camaraderie in a world where amity and enmity can come in equal measure: “Are you there, are you there/ Can I rest on your shoulder/ Can I call you my brother, can I tell you my bothers/ sho le sho bi Ojo fun mi?” The last of these asks if a new friend can treat him as kindly as Ojo did. He recounts the deaths of his father and Ojo often, and repeatedly calls back to Dele, now in prison; but it is always in remembrance of the camaraderie shared and hardly ever in criticism of the system that put them all on the path of doom and waywardness. Lounging into a soundscape that is lower tempo than the 2016-2018 class of Gqom-inspired Street Pop and gentler than Afro-Adura, Maffian unfolds with a tamed verve, with beats that vibe and bubble under the surface of his gruff timber. Not very danceable, but the message therein hardly calls for dancing. 

On the video for 8 Days, Ayo rolls out a tribute to late street star Mohbad, interpolating him on the chorus by reworking a line from one of his last songs, Ask About Me. “Iku to pa iya teacher/ O le pa awon nigga,” speaking about how death can come for both old or young. Mohbad passed away barely months after its release, granting this line, in hindsight, prophetic weight. On 8 Days, Ayo prays that death, which slays both old and young, would spare those closest to him: He has already lost enough. Nineteen is too young an age to have lost not one, but two close figures, but confronting loss in music enables him to process it in real life. “It gets to me sometimes, I wouldn’t lie”, he says after a somber pause.” Most of the time I just get into the studio and let go of my feelings, I’d rather cry on the mic rather than cry out there.” This street prince has a lot more to be contemplative of than simply escaping the trap of his lowly financial status.

For the duration of our Google Meets call, Ayo Maff has on a black bandana, the likes of which he sports in nearly every music video and public appearance. He interchanges a number of different colors each time—black, blue, red, green—very unlike certain groups and their color-coded affiliations. His bandana is a different form of identification. “My bandana stands for the streets because if you go in the street, you see them almost everywhere.” Ayo Maff is wary of his upward trajectory distancing him from the place of his formation, so his bandana, much like his street-honed storytelling, will always be a compass that points back home.