On 15 May 2026, armed men raided three schools in the Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State: the Baptist Nursery and Primary School, Yawota; the Community Grammar School, Ahoro-Esiele; and L.A. Primary School, Ahoro-Esiele. 46 individuals were abducted—39 pupils and 7 teachers. An assistant headteacher, Joel Adeshina, was killed in the attack. 3 days later, the abductors released a video of one of the teachers, Michael Oyedokun, confirming that he had been murdered. That same day, about 42 students were abducted from Government Day Secondary School, Mussa Central Primary School, and State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) Secondary School in Mussa, Born State.
42 days after the abductions, rapper Folarin ‘Falz’ Falana released an EP, Break Time. The EP begins with the exhortation, “We had moral instruction the first period/We stopped listening, refused to pay attention,” building on the mythos of his 2019 Headies Album of the Year-winning classic, Moral Instruction, and its reinterpretation of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s revolutionary message. Falz spends the remainder of that introductory half-minute, aptly titled Sound The Alarm, calling for a return to consciousness. Shaming the decision to laugh through the country’s worst period. And all the shimmying around to avoid accountability. Sound the alarm. It’s break time.
In releasing Break Time, a dark metaphor doubling as much-needed recess for the country and a sobriquet for the forced interruption of these abductee students and teachers’ lives, Falz is a chronicler of the times. The project’s official artwork is a pencil sketch of a classroom, colourless except for red and green-hued backpacks and notebooks strewn across the floor. And if this doesn’t drive the point home, you have track 4 of 5, Ole, a searing critique of the times. Buoyant trumpets and saxophones. Marching band percussion. A lone blowing horn draws attention to his words. “For under your nose dem kill a whole brigadier general/Dem no dey fear, try dey hide their face? e dey for camera!” “For under your nose dem carry people children go/Plus school teacher wey dey teach, cut him neck post the video” Falz raps in explicit detail so you don’t pretend to misunderstand what’s being tabled: to not know all that’s happening all around us. When you zoom out to the broader industry, you witness a stark reality—an artist by himself in chronicling the sorrows of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu era.
1771 days before the Oyo and Borno abductions, rap duo Show Dem Camp (Olumide ‘Ghost’ Ayeni and Wale ‘Tec’ Davies) released Clone Wars Vol. 5: The Algorhythm, the fifth and final instalment in contemporary Nigerian music’s greatest series, Clone Wars. The social commentary-packed mixtapes are of the same school of thought as Break Time EP. And you would be remiss to find stronger documentation of those five respective periods of Nigerian history elsewhere in project form—at least on the latter four volumes: Vol. 2 – The Subsidy Mixtape, Vol. 3 – The Recession, Vol. 4 – These Buhari Times, and the now half-decade-old Vol. 5-Algorhythm. Time stamps are self explanatory from their subtitles, including Vol. 5, which chronicles the year 2020: COVID-19 lockdown, #EndSARS, and associated sociopolitics, with characters ‘Big Liko,’ a humorous caricature of Nigeria’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, ‘Mr. Lai the PR Man, a caricature of former Minister of Information Lai Mohammed, and Imbrim, a fictional corrupt politician, serve as external narrators.
If you weren’t there, you might not understand the thrill of listening to the snippet for New Norm. Or Show Dem Camp having to release All The Above on Audiomack alone due to sample clearance issues. Or the almost immediate mass approval from hardcore hip-hop heads and regular enthusiasts alike, many of whom were more familiar with their Palm Wine series and first got introduced to what then music journalist Motolani Alake described as the ‘Run The Jewels’ facet of the duo’s career, so-named after the group consisting of rappers El P and Killer Mike. He also described the Palm Wine run as being adjacent to legendary Atlanta duo Outkast, and their first-ever project, The Dreamer Project, as their Mobb Deep phase. While this writer doesn’t necessarily agree with Alake’s comparison for all the tapes—CW 1 and 2 are more Mobb Deep-leaning—it’s a fair categorisation. CW4, These Buhari Times would be equivalent to Run The Jewels’ RTJ 2, as their most cohesive, lyrically pristine effort, while CW5, The Algorhythm is RTJ4, the final tape in the series and the most musically accomplished effort, is where they stamped down their OG status with occasional hard-line pessimism (An intriguing bit of trivia is that Show Dem Camp have previously sampled Outkast twice—Nothing Long on CW1 samples Chonkyfire while Ladipoe’s singular cypher on CW2, Poe’s Pledge, samples Aquemini).
Right from the Intro, an unidentified recording proclaiming a new generation arising from Nigeria’s metropolises as vox populi, vox dei, there’s no letting up the gas until the final notes on the celebratory horns of Bright Skies blare. In between, the duo rap with all the experience of a decade-plus in hip-hop, shedding personal weight from 2020, and speaking for the general populace. On the Tomi Thomas-featured Rise of the Underdogs 2, Tec laments the Japa wave and systemic societal rot in Lagos, unholy unions of cheating, hypergamy, and fraud. He ruminates on the continuous search for an even keel on Draw Me Closer. Focus on Drive sees Ghost contemplate the irony of being harassed by SARS for the crime of owning a high-end phone, a device that’s actively altering his mind through attention-targeting algorithms. Passing the baton to Tec, we get a lesson on the then-Buhari admin’s attempted #EndSARS coverups (“In these Buhari Times, it’s getting harder to record/ ‘Cause these guys will deny everything you saw” “Told us all a million lies/Wèrè wey no need disguise”). Wèrè, a Yoruba word referring to insanity, and adapted as ‘werey,’ had become inalienable from popular speak at the time—and even till date—as part of the “Sọrọ s’òkè wèrè” calls directed at Lagos State Governor, Ɓabajide Sanwo-Olu, in the course of the protests.
There was the sleeper hit, Tycoon, featuring standout Mojo AF and Alaga Ìbílẹ̀, Reminisce, verses. The former’s “Sojo (Soldier) wey suppose defend us lo pawa ni Toll Gate” line referred to the Nigerian Army’s infamous 20.10.20 shooting at the Lekki Toll Gate. And then an incredible six-track run beginning with New Norm, a mellow piano-driven track on inter-tribal unity featuring one of Ghost’s best ever choruses. The grey-bearded self-acclaimed ‘pen wizard’ imagined a world where late Libyan dictator, Muhammar Gaddafi achieved the One Africa currency. Questionable, but understandable as he further talks about the economic implications of the lockdown (“Momsy taught me gratification should be delayed/But she didn’t have that year 2020 hindsight” “Masks on and the poor trynna eat the rich”). Tomi Thomas returned with all the panache of a reggae star on Vipers. And Ghost was once again a standout here, interrogating the Truman Show-esque nature of the internet with narrative warfare. Who knew that it would get worse? Well, everyone. Everyone knew.
The absolute crown jewel of CW5 is Ghost Rant, which is exactly as it says: Ghost ranting, in the tradition of solo deep cuts like Tales of A Side Nicca on CW3, The Recession, and Just In Case, on CW2, The Subsidy Tape—an emotional letter to his daughter on how to live in the event of his passing. COVID-19 altering our lives. Violence on the streets during the #EndSARS protests. 20.10.20. The Federal Government’s denial of DJ Switch’s IG Live. Irony of soldiers attacking citizens. And in what is, till date, one of the saddest commemorations from the protests, flowers for late Oke Obi-Enadhuze, a product designer shot down just hours after tweeting, “Nigeria will not end me.”
Additionally, Ghost Rant houses a line this writer terms the manifesto of the Clone Wars series: “The Clone Wars series are time capsules, future generation momentos.” Each tape is a repository at its core. Each song bleeds into a broader narrative of being Nigerian, even the more introspective, personal ones. Streets and Humans, the penultimate tracks on CW5, tackle this in equal measure. The former has Ghost speaking about voting as the only way out in 2023, with featured rappers, Moss and Alpha Ojini, attacking police and military brutality, and defending the Feminist Coalition. Ojinni rightly predicted the oncoming wave of emigration that hit post-pandemic, many young Nigerians fleeing a country intent on killing them. On Humans, the Camp tackles the vile rape of 22-year-old Vera Uwaila Omozuwa, and the even viler ideology that rape can be induced by one’s dressing or actions. It’s one of the more pessimistic tracks in their discography, Tec asking questions of the efficacy of hashtags but preaching a feminist alignment nonetheless.
We can’t talk about the completeness of CW5 without the skits—interactions between ‘Big Liko,’ in search of a PR solution to the crisis of his ass literally being on the internet, and his PR Man, Mr Lai. Or the malevolence of Imbrim proclaiming “Wọn ò gbọ́dọ̀ dream (They must not dream)” Class warfare is something Ghost and Tec have always drummed home on these tapes, from Hunger Cries on CW4 to KANO SKIT on CW2—where Imbrim talks about being summoned to the Fuel Subsidy probe—down to Victoria Island of Broken Dreams on CW1. That balance between subjects and the exasperation of the 2020 experience was captured explicitly, a capsule for then, now, and the future.
Speaking on the relevance of Clone Wars Vol. 5, Culture writer Dennis Ade Peter, breaks down the importance of the tape as a showcase of the group’s musical dynamism, with less of the gra-gra rapping of earlier installments. Additionally, that encapsulation of the moment, literal recordings of the uncertainty that came with 2020 is well established here, in his opinion.
“At the time that it [CW5] was made, the angst of 2020 had turned into a lot of uncertainty, people trying to figure out what they want to do next. I think that’s why it’s a little inferior to CW4 which was surefooted in what it wanted to say, the same way the audience was sure of what they wanted to say. In CW5, there was no neat conclusion, and it captured the time. Even when I was trying to review it back then, I didn’t know what to make of it: some really good rapping, some really good production, but it just felt like they were saying, “We’re all f**ked” but not in a way that doesn’t provide hope. It felt like SDC was among us feeling the same listlessness and loss of hope, but at the same it also carried the energy of ” At the end of the day, we still have to trudge forward,” Ade Peter explains via X.
Additionally, he points out the tape’s arrival at the tail end of a Nigerian hip-hop renaissance as crucial. In the aftermath of M.I. Abaga’s You Rappers Should Fix Up Your Lives, the hip-hop scene experienced a new lease of life and the introductions of acts like Odumodublvck (on Alpha Ojini’s VIGILANTE BOP) who would take over the scene. So the tape was Show Dem camp, saying “The OGs are still here and they’re talking about really important things even though the young guys are still doing their stuff.”
When all this is considered, you begin to wonder why we’ve not had a close equivalent in the past 3 years of the Tinubu administration—or even in the years beforehand. At the very worst, hip-hop projects should have sprinklings of sociopolitically aware songs. Something, anything at all, showing that rappers are in touch with the outside world to the point of being less self-serving. In Afropop circles, the decline in sociopolitical music has been long documented. Alignment with the establishment has eaten deep into the zeitgeist, with artists’ praise-singing of government cronies now more commonplace than when Wizkid hailed everyone and their godfathers on 2014’s In My Bed. That’s all well and good—it’s not. However, hip-hop should fundamentally be a voice for the masses. Even at its most mafioso, drug-toting ranchiest, hip-hop should have a soul. The underground scene should be a counterfoil to the genre’s pop extremes. But at the moment, this is a rarity. Gone are the few intentional conscious rap placements on mainstream Nigerian hip-hop tapes. Gone. Gone. Gone with the malodorous wind.
Ade Peter concurs with this summation, linking this dearth to the apolitical sheen of the Afrobeats to the World wave, the decline in conscious rap music globally, and also altered audience attention. Citing a recent essay of his on why Afrobeats can’t really be politically aligned with Nigerians, he posits, “In the past, hip-hop was influencing Nigerian pop, but now it’s vice versa. And Nigerian pop is at the point where nobody is singing from a place of Nigerian reality. The younger artists are just following that template. Because now they’re saying, ‘Oh, rap doesn’t sell.’ Even if you want to blow up with rap music, you have to tap into what the audience can relate to. And what can the audience relate to? Escapism music.”
Culture writer, Tomide Marv, who’s also involved in the Nigerian hip-hop underground scene as rapper VRSD, agrees but is more cynical in his assessment of the ‘Tinubu Times’ drought.
“There was no rise of sociopolitically aware music in Nigerian hip-hop to start with. Shoutout to Falz, Paybac, Boogey, SDC, [and] a lot of people we might not even remember. But if we’re being honest, there are few people that we can really say dedicated time to this thing. Others have only talked about social life from the aspect of: what babes are doing; what’s happening in the dating scene and the love lives of Nigerians; ‘Oh, police shot a Yahoo boy because they thought he was a Yahoo boy, then they found out he was an artist going to a show,’ then the sad rap storytelling,” he begins.
Clearly aggravated by the dearth of conscious raps, he adds, “Oh, my chain cool. My swag cool. The CEO raps. The Katakata Ranger raps. The fun raps. The glitch raps. The Tenski, Scotty Olorin type of raps. Even taking it back to the days of M.I, it was just flex, braggadocious, addressing who they have a beef with, one song about boobs or shape, some thanksgiving to God songs. People like Olamide and Reminisce talking about the streets. Ycee just trying to tell all that ‘We’re the coolest.”
In his opinion, even outliers like Ozone and Moheed made projects with mere glimpses into the socioeconomic lives of Nigerians rather than an all-encompassing dive. Marv reserves acknowledgement of detailed documentation to a select few alongside the Camp, like Paybac Iboro whose Cult! , The Biggest Tree, and OMOBOY THE MIXTAPE projects intersect between mental health, politics, and everyday living, rooted in specific time frames, and from a personal POV. “Who else? Who else? The Eastern rappers are singing about swag, bangin’ up, fashion. So that leaves us with the people being emotional about their relationships and money. But if we’re looking for people who are really dedicated, we have none.”
Marv closes his tirade with a double-edged analysis of SDC’s pan away from the Clone Wars side of town. On one hand, he understands the honesty of Ghost admitting they’re no longer in that headspace by virtue of new commitments. On the other, he sees it as a class issue—the duo’s willingness to move away from discussing these issues now that it’s no longer their socioeconomic reality. It’s a summation that ultimately, unfairly burdens the duo with the failures of the rest of the class.
On the evening of the fifth-year anniversary of Show Dem Camp’s Clone Wars Vol. 5, France played Morocco in the 2026 FIFA World Cup quarterfinals. This writer tuned in to SportyTV’s YouTube livestream of the match and was met with a sight in the comment section: two users spamming the same three word sentence repeatedly in all caps: TINUBU MUST GO. That was more documentation than some artists will ever accomplish in the four or eight years of Mr. President’s leadership.
Elections arrive in six months. The closest we’ve gotten in terms of advocacy is Falz’s Break Time. And most artists couldn’t be paid enough to care. Perhaps, if the escapism music was good, this conversation would be a non-issue. Alas, even that is in decline. Heaven alone knows how many times Nina Simone has rolled over in her grave as yet another cultural commentator invokes the quote about an artist’s duty being to reflect the times. But heaven also knows that the late great critic Greg Tate was right when he wrote, “It is to some degree the function of celebrity to obfuscate, if not choke off, the conversation about income disparity and wealth distribution in this country.” A statement about America in the era of Jay-Z’s 4:44 that also works for these Asiwaju annals. Bang bang!
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