Music

Nasty C shares his love for Nigeria on the first episode of his ‘The Journey’ Series

Posted on by Adedamola Onabanjo

Art lives, breathes and grows wherever it takes root and its subjectivity is widely embraced when it embraces a host of cultures and influences which is why we’ve witnessed those who have traversed the ends of the world make headway with their music and amass a number of fans in different cities in the world. Prominent among those who have won with this phenomenon this year is Major Lazer; their recent visit to Africa afforded them a number of accolades and touched on the hem of their sound which is now saturating the crevices of different continents.

The phenomenon’s latest benefactor is Nasty C. The Rapper recently began a series tagged ‘The Journey‘ which takes him to different cities in the world he can blend in and call home. Among others, he will be visiting Berlin, London and New York. This month however he retraced his steps to Lagos in the first episode of the series and unlike the last time he was here which frankly was a bust, he got to truly live in, feel and feed off our culture and in his own words

“this was my best trip to Nigeria in the history of my career”

Nasty C gleaned a lot from us during his visit and in the same vein, we, well our artistes did from him. Here are five things that stuck with us from his visit.

  1. He thinks stage performances in Nigeria beat those in South Africa seeing as our population is greater and we show up.
  2. Nigerians are the life of the party and so performances are worthwhile because we turn up every time.
  3. He started music at age 9 with a self made beat he claims sucked but was the spark that ignited the fire in him.
  4. The name of his second studio album; Strings and Blings is a referral to connections and stems from his love for good times.
  5. Lastly he’s as talented as his music suggests. Evident in the foray of bars he dropped at every stop he made and it was beautiful to watch.

His Lagos journey took him right from the Airport to The Beat 99.9 FM to Cool FM to Soundcity FM to Universal Music Group Nigeria; a visit he coins “going back to the drawing board” where a discussion with an Executive hinted at collaborations with Nigerian artistes. This visit was aptly followed by ‘friendly’ work inspired visits and of course his first stop was at his frequent collaborator; Runtown and Adey’s terrain; where he claims they effortlessly recorded two songs.

The 21 year old award winning South African rapper followed this up with the creation of an ad hoc studio where he housed Nigerian rapper; Vector for same reasons he met up with Adey and Runtown. He finally pitched his tent in the environs of the alternative scene in Lagos where he recorded with Zamir, Odunsi (The Engine) and a host of others.

We hear he had a secret showcase in Victoria Island, Lagos sponsored by Universal Music Group and hosted by Joey Akan and Hauwa. The showcase yielded a Jam Session which saw him perform a number of his hit records including Hell Naw, Said and Gravy. For those in attendance, it was a hell of a night and boasts of better reactions than those he got when he joined Davido on stage last year during the latter’s concert.

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Nasty C has already taken the African Hip-hop scene by storm and in a few years, with the class of influences he’s amassing we see him doing bigger and better things than his predecessors even dreamt of doing.