The Uzama Brothers Are Wearing Their City on Their Sleeves

Last weekend,  the youngest of the Uzama brothers, Osahan Uzama, more known by his moniker, Famous Pluto, joined the ranks of his brothers—Shallipopi, and Zerry DL, both fierce advocates of Benin Street Pop—with the release of his feverishly anticipated single Na Scra. Before its official release, the song had been making the rounds on TikTok, where users fluent in the platform’s language deployed the song as the soundtrack to bubbly choreography and slapstick skits. So, it came as no surprise when the song made an emphatic showing on the Apple Music Top 100 chart, peaking at 11, just beneath Burna Boy’s Update. 

In an era when established acts often perform poorly on charts, Famous Pluto’s swift and strong showing was enough to spark conversations around him. And while a lot of conversations have centered around the momentum he appears to be moving with. The bulk of social media chatter about him is about something entirely different. Since he released Na Skraa, Afropop enthusiasts have regaled themselves with bitingly humorous quips that draw parallels between the Uzamas and the Migos, an American rap trio composed of relatives. One quip that has been gaining traction is “Uzamigos,” a portmanteau of Uzama and Migos. Another interesting tweet reads “The Uzama brothers should be a trio and call themselves the Migwos”—which is either painfully hilarious or offensive, depending on how you look at it. 

The obvious reason the Uzama brothers have drawn comparisons to the Migos is that they are both rap trios whose themes revolve around hedonism and debauchery. The less subtle, but perhaps, more important parallel between both groups is that they are both emblematic of their respective cities. Put another way, they fly the banners of their cities very boldly. Is it possible to listen to the Migos’ languid delivery or the darkly saccharine beats that cut through their repertoire and not feel transported to Atlanta? Since their early days, they have imbibed the culture of their city in their music, so much so that they have become avatars of the Atlanta Trap scene. Similarly, the Uzamas embody the nonchalant swagger of Benin City. From their distinctive delivery which blurs the boundary between rapping and talking over a beat, to their fixation on hedonism, to their predilection for slang like “OS”, “Barnie”, and now “Na Scraa”, their music echoes with the pulse of their city. 

One particularly interesting way they embody their culture through their music is how they explore unsavory topics without coating them in pretty language—Benin people, much like Eastern Europeans, are famously blunt. Take Na Scraa, which finds Famous Pluto propositioning a woman. Where your typical Afropop artist would probably lead with flattery or grandiose promises, he opens with lines that are so coldly calculating, so perfectly practical, as to elicit shock in an uninitiated listener. “I know dey waste time, ok make I just go straight. One round plus one round equal to two bone straight,” he raps. Here, he casually offers two wigs in exchange for sex. Coming from another artist, these lines would probably be incendiary, such as when Odumodublvck made a similar allusion on Shallipopi’s Cast and elicited the public’s fury. But framed against the backdrop of a whimsical beat and Famous Pluto’s playfully slurred delivery, they become hilarious at best, and tolerable at worst. 

This faithfulness to authenticity cuts through the work of the Uzamas. Listening to them elicits visions of Benin City. One can almost smell the beautiful red soil that drapes the city, hear the noise from the night clubs that line the streets, where young bodies sway to sprightly pop bangers, their skins coated in a sheen of sweat and their bodies pulsing with that transcendental frisson that night crawlers are all too familiar with. One can feel on one’s skin, powerful gusts of wind left in the wake of sports cars manned by the city’s nouveau riche—which in Benin slang translates to “new takers”—a Shallipopi song fading in the distance. 

The authenticity in their music imbues it with cultural heft. Without aiming for profundity, their music transcends merely serving as entertainment, instead holding kernels of an exciting culture that exists outside the Lagos culture scene. While this phenomenon isn’t without precedent, it feels refreshing, almost revolutionary in a culture that is increasingly becoming monolithic. 

In the early 2000s, just as Afropop had started to take shape, Mo Hits and Storm Records would emerge as major power brokers in Nigeria’s pop culture scene. Storm Records was founded by Obi Asika in 1991, but it wasn’t until the mid-2000s when artists like Naeto C, Ikechukwu, and Sasha P became part of the label’s roster, that it would become a major player in the pop music scene. Mo Hits on the other hand was founded by Don Jazzy and D’banj in 2004. The pair had just returned from the UK, bristling with ambition. These labels produced stars that asserted record levels of dominance but what made them especially culturally significant was how their artists embodied and projected the IJGB (returning Nigerian) culture. Their music inflected middle/upper-class Nigerian realities with the cultures of the countries they had each returned from. Consider the cosmopolitan outlook of Naeto C’s Kini Big Deal which fuses elements of Nigerian Pop with American Hip Hop in a way that echoes his reality as a product of multiple cultures. The same case can be made for the early work of artists such as D’Banj, Ikechukwu, Sasha P, and not least Don Jazzy. 

In the late 2000s, Chocolate City emerged as another cultural powerhouse, with Ice Prince, M.I Abaga, and Jesse Jagz, all from Jos, wearing their city on their sleeves; interweaving its essence with their lyrics and never passing up the chance to extol its virtues. Banky W’s EME, similarly espoused a tribal spirit—although in their case it was not confined to the culture of a particular geographical location. In the intervening years since the glory days of EME and Chocolate City, several artists have sprung up waving the banners of their cities. There’s Omah Lay, who has made Port Harcourt central to his art. There’s also Rema who constantly waxes about Benin City with reverential awe, spreading its lore through his music and in interviews. 

But something about this wave heralded by the Uzama brothers feels refreshingly different. For one, it’s more diffuse, spearheaded by three individuals—four if we include Tega Boi, who has also been prolific in recent times—as opposed to being championed by a lone soldier, like in the case of Omah Lay. More importantly, however, the rise of the Uzamas in many ways represents a shift in the dynamics of the music industry. More cities and cultural centers are stepping into the spotlight and challenging the pale homogeneity that has increasingly blighted the Lagos pop scene in the past few years.  It’s a beautiful sight to witness. In 2016, when foreign labels trooped into the country like sharks trailing the smell of spilled blood, many experts feared that global success would come at a cost to Nigerian identity in our music. And for a while, this fear materialized. Today, however, the local scene reflects the diversity in Nigerian culture. Look at charts across the country—Apple Music, Spotify, TurnTable—and marvel at the way they are more reflective of the plurality of Nigerian culture. A huge portion of Nigerian culture remains in the periphery. However, regarding cultural representation, we’re in the golden ages.