Is It Time To Do Away With The “Big Three” Categorization?

Days ago, as fans of Wizkid and Burna Boy clashed over a slew of inane topics ranging from who started the trend of sprinkling water on fans during performances, to who had the better verse on Gunna’s album, music journalist, podcaster, and internet personality Joey Akan insinuated himself into the conversation in the splashiest way imaginable. “Afrobeats got 3 records on Gunna’s album. All three records suck. And our performances were not only muted, but profoundly underwhelming. That’s a bigger problem, than contrived ‘organic’ beefs designed to anesthetize their fan base into numbness for good music,” his tweet—which has now been viewed some 1.1 million times—reads.

It’s not the first time Akan is stirring controversy. Over the years he has largely bolstered his public profile by taking extreme positions on trending cultural—mostly music—topics. Earlier this year, he spent months relentlessly deriding the Nigerian Alté community for reasons that are as vacuous as they are head-scratching. He skewered them for not adapting their sound to appeal to mainstream audiences. It’s almost as though he was oblivious to the reality that the alternative scene exists as a counterpoint to the mainstream and that capitulation to popular culture essentially defeats its purpose. In a distasteful series of tweets, he also ridiculed Cruel Santino for making “nintendo music,” referencing the artists sophomore album which taps the rollicking excess of Anime and vintage games

This time however, Akan followed his initial diatribe with a spate of tweets that reveal his actual grievances. The Afrobeats “Big Three”—the collective term referring to Wizkid, BurnaBoy and Davido—seem to be unassailable even in times when their contributions to the culture are spotty at best. Even in moments when younger artists like Rema, Ayra Starr and Tems perform above and beyond, they appear fated to live in the shadow of the Big Three. “I’ve also gotten to the point where I believe that the term ‘Big 3’ is a millennial invention to organise creative class hierarchy based on impact,” one of the tweets reads. 

The solution or recourse to this bind, Akan contends, is for the younger generation to wholly reject the shadow cast over them by creating their own characterization, a new but contemporaneous analog to the “Big Three” tag. “Rema, Omah Lay, Victony, BNXN, and the rest who are class standout acts need to do away with that classification, and create a new path that honours their work, and its place in our current music industry. “Big 3” is an intangible from millennials. Where is the Gen Z intangible?” Akan offers in one of the tweets. 

The topic of the Big Three, the disproportionate power they wield and the possibility of a reshuffling of the existing order, are topics that have been discussed for years, gathering more force and pertinence in recent years. The concept of a “Big Three” or any iteration of the phrase, is neither unique to Nigeria or the Afrobeats scene. The earliest usage of the format seems to trace back to 20th century geopolitics and business. In the context of World War II, the Big Three characterization was deployed to describe the main powers among the Allied forces and their respective leaders: Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States, Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom, and Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union. In the mid 20th century, stalwart automobiles companies General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler were also referred to as the “Big Three.”

Over time, the heft and distinctive ring of the format led to its wide adoption in fields and contexts far removed from its original domain. Big Pharma and Big Tech—iterations of the phrase—have made it into everyday vocabulary, deployed by everyone from marketing professionals and journalists to regular people. The closest analog to the Afrobeats iteration of the phrase today exists in the world of Hip Hop, American Hip Hop to be specific. Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and J Cole, have for years now been considered the Big Three of Hip Hop. 

Indeed this was central in last year’s epic beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake. In First Person Shooter featuring J Cole, from Drake’s For All The Dawgs, J Cole invokes the characterization. “Love when they argue the hardest MC. Is it K-Dot? Is it Aubrey? Or me? We the big three like we started a league. But right now, I feel like Muhammad Ali.” In Kendrick Lamar’s response which arrived a year after through his verse on Metro Booming’s Like That. “Fuck sneak dissin’, first person shooter,” he raps. “Motherfuck the big three, n*gga, it’s just big me.” And with that he started what turned out to be one of the most exhilarating moments in all of Hip Hop history. 

It’s hard not to see striking parallels between Hip-Hop and Afrobeats’ Big Three. They rose to acclaim around the same time—the early 2010s—and have maintained a tight grip on the pulse of the culture ever since. Several generations of prolific artists have come after them but no one has usurped them. It’s also interesting that both sets of artists have gone through rough patches, periods of diminished creative prowess or output, but even in this state they still remained the flag bearers of their respective genres. It somewhat evokes the trope of a king upsetting his successor by his refusal to pass on. In folklore, the story typically ends with the forceful ouster of the king or worse—his poisoning.

It’s trite to say that the Big Three categorization in Nigerian music has somewhat occluded, if stymied, younger acts. The question of the solution—if such a thing exists—has however baffled artists and critics alike. It’s important to note that blaming the Big Three—Wizkid, BurnaBoy & Davido—for this situation is unfair. After all, it’s not like they convened a meeting in which they crowned themselves and subsequently forced everyone into addressing them with the tag. In reality, what happened was that the media started addressing them with the categorization and it eventually stuck. Herein lies the solution. 

Akan is correct in his diagnosis of the problem but his solution, which entails the younger artists creating a new categorization that “honors their work,” is clearly not practical. Last year, Rema through his culture-shifting experimental album attempted to expand the Big Three club with the addition of an extra seat. “No more Big Three, there’s now a Big Four,” he proclaims in HeHeHe. For all the excitement and chatter this bold assertion occasioned, the Big Four characterization has hardly caught on. If Rema, who is arguably the leader of his generation had little success in effecting a small change on the existing order, what hopes do the others have in conjuring an entirely new order? Not to mention the implausibility of artists, most of whom are inherently egoistic, agreeing on a new system. 

The task of creating a new categorization or updating the hierarchy to provide a more accurate representation of the state of the music scene and consequently offer more cachet and visibility to the younger generation of artists falls to the media—music journalists, critics and OAPs. This cannot be overstated. Likewise, the power of naming things cannot be overstated. It’s a kind of creative act that exists on the plane of the divine. It’s a way of conjuring order from the primordial soup that is the deluge of unstratified information that exists in the universe. To name is to give form, to give heft, to something that was hitherto vague. To some degree, that the new generation lack fitting categorizations to memorialize the giant strides they made is a failure on the part of music journalists in the country.

In 2023, The Native Mag, by way of a feature story, proclaimed the “Rise of a new big three”—Rema, Tems and Asake. When it was released, the story stirred some controversy. Some viewed it as a premature attempt to throttle the hegemony of the “old” Big Three, others were indignant at the specific choices for the New Big Three. Since then, not many publications, critics or media personnel have been willing to take such big swings. And this is a huge part of the problem. It’s the job of the critic and other relevant cultural leaders to plant the seeds of these conversations. On a parting note, in thinking of this new future it’s important not to fall for the trap of limiting the slots to accommodate just three people. Rema, Asake, Tems, Ayra Starr, and Omah Lay—in no particular order—have in the past three years cemented themselves as unassailable forces in their generation. Who is to say we can’t have a New Big Five as opposed to a Big Three?