Mohbad: Let There Be Imole

Mohbad wanted to be wealthy beyond imagination before he turned twenty-eight. The Nigerian singer, rapper and songwriter said so himself in Holy, a confessional song bookending his debut EP. “Mo meditate/ million nu account ki n to pe 28,” goes a line which gained a prescience in the aftermath of the artist’s passing last Tuesday at only twenty-seven years old. It was as though he knew that he was racing against an inevitable existential clock.

He has, in other cases, also unwittingly foreshadowed his fate. As an obscure artist trying to make it out of Ikorodu’s hinterlands, where he was born and raised, he made covers of popular songs, with one of Kizz Daniel’s Fvck You setting him on the path to celebrity. He couldn’t have known at the time that, like Kizz Daniel, he too would suffer his own share of record label tribulations. This inadvertent prescience likewise underscores Sorry, the lead in his debut EP that doubles as a litany of his personal struggles and a letter of apology to his father. In perhaps its most memorable section, the song channels King Sunny Ade’s Esubiri Ebo Mi, a 1974 song the Juju icon made during his own quarrel with his record label. In Mohbad’s case, life imitated art frequently.

His art did not shy from contradictions, and the monikers he chose for himself provided the first hint. Although named Ilerioluwa Oladimeji Aloba, he would choose to go by the more concise Mohbad, a name bearing a promise of youthful amorality. He would complement it with Imole, a name at the other end of the morality spectrum. Meaning “light” in Yoruba, the name was inspired by Mohbad’s many visits to church as a child. “When we used to go to church then, they used to say ‘olorun imole seyi,’” he revealed in a podcast interview.

His music best embodied these contradictions, his attitudes in one song sometimes the very opposite of the next’s. In Ponmo, released during his early days at Marlian Music—a record label owned by Naira Marley—Mohbad’s vulgarian streak is in gung-ho mode. In borderline misogynistic language, the song takes on a popular myth about female genitalia. Similarly, the SB-produced, Zanku-capped Omokomo proposes a crude calculus of feminine worth: the higher her body count, the less value a woman has. Fittingly, a line in the song harkens back to Fela Kuti, the Afrobeat legend who, besides his musical genius, was also known for his problematic views about women.

Yet, Mohbad could also regard women with gentility. He shows how in Once Debe (featuring Davido) and Cinderella; in the latter, his usual raspy baritone gives way to a higher pitch as he promises an Edenic future to a love interest. He could be uncouth, but could also be tender. 

Titled as the English equivalent of his nickname, his debut EP, Light, asserts his versatility as an artist. Released in December 2020, the eight-track project shows Mohbad as capable of several moods and subjects. Both Sorry and Holy show him as self-aware and contemplative, while Ponmo foregrounds his risqué and flippant side. Although largely a religious prayer, Father Abraham also delivers social commentary. Taking on a range of topics, Mohbad showed he was anything but a one-theme pony. 

In an epoch crazy for Amapiano, only a few Nigerian artists localized the South African export as well as Mohbad did. This is perhaps most prominent in Feel Good, which gets its title and some lines from a 1965 James Brown song, and is one of the earliest examples of the marriage of Amapiano and Fuji, otherwise called Fujipiano, a cross-breed that Asake and Seyi Vibez would eventually champion. As Niphkeys makes Amapiano log drums behave like talking drums, Mohbad presents a hopeful message, mining his experiences for the ultimate zero-to-hero anecdote: “Emi omo ghetto/ Mo ti d’ajilo motor,” he sings. A former pauper is now a car owner.

Mohbad will also be remembered for both impacting and championing Nigerian urban street culture. In some of his songs, like the autobiographical Holy, he sings of a reality familiar to a certain kind of Nigerian: that is, young, poor, and systemically denied access to socio-economic opportunities. 

In KPK (Ko Por Ke), his breakout single with record producer Rexxie, he adds to an ever-burgeoning Nigerian street lexicon. Haughty through and through, the song poses a rhetorical question: “Ta lo so pe ko po ke?” translating literally to Who said it isn’t plenty? The expression, as well as the titular one, riffs on the phrase “opor,” which Zlatan and Naira Marley had popularized in their heyday. As the expression “ko po ke” took on a life of its own on social media and in the streets, Mohbad joined that rarefied class of Nigerian entertainers who have minted memorable phrases for public use.

Last October, he released footage on social media showing him bruised, and then accused Naira Marley’s associates of having inflicted him with the wounds. The assault, he said, happened after he made to replace his manager—at the time, he was managed by Naira Marley’s brother. Naira Marley denied the allegations, accusing Mohbad of being intoxicated while making them. Doubling down, Mohbad said, “everything he (Naira Marley) said on the live video is a blatant lie.” Later that month, Mohbad announced in a letter signed by his lawyer that he had terminated his contract with Marlian Music. The reasons included “non-payment of royalties” and “threat to life.”

The next month, Mohbad had happier news: he had launched his own record label, Imolenization. Ask About Me, one of his early releases as an independent artist, casts him as defiant despite career setbacks. He emphasizes this defiant fortitude through military associations: one line portrays him as a “soldier,” and another has him cocking a “sekeseke bula,” a Yoruba rendering of a pidgin term for a Dane gun. Still upset with his former label boss, he takes a dig at him in Tiff, the title a stylized spelling of “thief,” a term Mohbad reserves for Naira Marley. It is testament to Mohbad’s verbal skill that the title’s other meaning—a small quarrel—also fits thematically. Evidence of his wit can also be found in the line, “dollar, mo rise/why is naira going down?” a name-play comparing Naira Marley to the Nigerian currency and its propensity to depreciate. Mohbad, indeed, was cheeky.

In June, he released his sophomore EP, the eight-track Blessed. Its cover art perhaps mirrors the singer’s tortured interior life: eyes shut, Mohbad is trapped by a glass barrier, an image recalling a popular shot from the music video of Davido’s Fall. Mohbad would claim publicly that the episodes with his former label took a mental and physical toll on him, and that his former associates tried to sabotage his career by dissuading show promoters from engaging his services. In an interview with media personality Chude Jideonwo this January, singer Bella Shmurda, a close friend of Mohbad’s, claimed he had even attempted suicide.

Blessed, therefore, was created in a context of great travail. The EP’s lead, Beast & Peace, dredges up painful incidents from Mohbad’s personal life. He is, however, determined to be unfazed by it all, and this defiant streak characterizes Sabi. In La Pio Pio, his risqué side finds expression. Far from being a victim of his circumstance, Mohbad comes off in the EP as determined to brave a tornado with a smile on his face.

Mohbad was buried last Wednesday in Ikorodu, Lagos State, in a ceremony attended by family members, friends and fans. He is survived by his wife, Omowunmi, and their five-month-old son. Following public outcry over the claims Mohbad made while alive that his life was threatened, the Nigerian police announced last Thursday that it will investigate the singer’s death.

“I know there is a day/ all my pains will go away,” Mohbad sings in Feel Good. Well, well…