What Rema’s Homecoming Show Says About Concert Culture in Nigeria

On the 30th of August, Rema returned home to Benin City. It was his official homecoming since his rise to fame in 2019. The city stirred with excitement right from the airport, where emissaries of the Oba, draped in traditional Benin regalia, ushered him into the city with songs of welcome. Days after, escorted by the governor, he attended the groundbreaking ceremony, and laid the first block for an arena called “Rema’s Dome.” The honor is not light, it bears the trappings of a valiant soldier returning home from a triumphant conquest. The Oba of Benin himself received him at the palace in a ceremony rich with history. The city and the wider world buzzed with news of his return. The air was thick with excitement but also suffused with nervous anticipation. The revelry of the week culminated in his show at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium, a fitting end to a week laden with historical heft.  

Rema took the stage gussied up in an all-black outfit and custom-made black bat wings. Red strobe lights flashed. Smoke pyrotechnics enveloped the stage adorned with black, spiky stalagmites. The crowd, a sea of 10,000 fans, roared as he trotted up the stage. What followed was one of the biggest, yet best-organized concerts in Nigerian history. A colossal victory, given Nigeria’s notorious history of concerts mired in technical and organizational issues. Since the concert, didactic missives have swirled around, criticizing other botched shows of the past and presenting the concert as proof that excellent concerts can be delivered in Nigeria. 

While this position holds merit, it’s simplistic and belies the full scope of the problem. A better way to contextualize the ramifications of the concert and perhaps parlay its successes into broader wins for the industry would be to ask better, incisive questions. What is the situation of concerts and touring in the country? What factors are responsible for this situation? And what forces shaped Rema’s homecoming concert into a success.

The first question can be broached easily. Concerts in Nigeria today are marred by a slew of problems. Production issues. Extreme tardiness and lackadaisical performances. Logistical issues; everything from poor crowd control to the flow of the event. Underwhelming set design, and sometimes the absence of accompanying live instrumentation. Fans are treated without respect. Major events are also largely limited to Lagos and Abuja. Curiously, most of these issues are absent or not as pronounced when these same artists perform in other parts of the world.

Burna Boy’s last show in Lagos exemplifies a lot of these issues. He mounted the stage seven hours late and instead of apologizing, he broke into a protracted rant which saw him insult his fans using expletives like “God punish una.” He later explained that he had been at the venue hours before the show began and that the delay was due to technical issues. Everything from his conduct to the production at that show went against his reputation of being one of the most brilliant performers from Nigeria. As it is with most entrenched problems, the causes of poor quality of concerts in Nigeria are both manifold and convoluted. Some of the issues can be chalked to a lack of proper planning and a culture of mediocrity. But most of the issues stem from our status as a third-world country with a hobbling economy. A certain level of capital is required to deliver a world-class show. Live instrumentation, elegant stage design, talented personnel, and world-class production—all require enormous capital. With inflation and the cost of living crisis at historic levels, most Nigerians simply cannot afford to shell out the amount of money, in ticket fees, that these shows require. 

The pervasive lack of infrastructure—roads, venues, and institutional support—makes embarking on a nationwide tour difficult, if not dangerous. The appalling security hazards further compound this problem. As it is, hosting concerts and touring are difficult and not economically viable for the artists. They’d rather turn to countries where audiences have disposable income to regularly spend on concerts. These countries, mostly in Europe and America, typically have infrastructure that makes hosting concerts seamless.

What then is the solution? It’s a difficult question to address. The problems are multilayered and tethered to a complex web of socio-economic problems. But perhaps Rema’s show can offer insights on how to navigate these issues. The first lesson to be gleaned from the success of the show is that given Nigeria’s imperiled economic state, a high degree of institutional and governmental support is required to execute a show of that magnitude. Regular tickets were placed at 5000 Naira. A significant distance from the typical 25000 Naira tag of an artist of his caliber. The show was heavily subsidized by the Edo State government, as well as other external sponsors such as Heineken. 

Olabode Otolorin, a marketing executive at Mavin Records, credits the buy-in from Governor Obaseki, who appears in the promotional video for the concert, with contributing to the success of the show. He also adds that the endorsement of the Oba of Benin, as well as the princely welcome Rema received, imbued the event with cultural capital. “It made it feel like a proper homecoming. It made it feel like a story, someone who left the town as a teenager now returning to the city as a fully realized hero.”

Outside the overt sponsorships and capital infusions that contributed to the show’s success, the meta-narratives around it transformed it from just a concert to a cultural event. Rema has always proudly brandished the banner of his culture. At the O2 Arena last year, he deployed imagery from his culture, of which bats were a prominent motif. He opened the show straddling a sculpted mythic horse and wearing a replica of the iconic Queen Idia mask. The mask is one of the prominent spoils of the punitive invasion of Benin City by the British in 1897.  The original remains in the British Museum. Following the show, he was accused of demon worship. The response from his camp was swift. He clarified the misconceptions, if not allegations, and doubled down on his Benin heritage. “This was an artist that is no longer shy about where he came from and wanted to bring the world to Benin,” Otolorin said. 

Several other factors contributed to the event’s success. The organization from Rema’s team. Hours of practice logged in before the day of the event. Improvisation to deliver a world-class experience with a limited budget, made evident by the stage design. However, external financial backing and cultural significance were the most significant forces that shaped the event into a success. Thankfully these two factors of the event are replicable and interdependent. An event with a significant cultural cachet will easily attract capital. A teeming war chest similarly makes it easier to establish cultural relevance. 

The Caribbean islands, a cluster of nations with similar economic hardships have, by dint of their famous carnivals, perfected this formula. Every year these carnivals attract high-profile guests due to their cultural significance. The likes of Rihanna, Ashanti, Nicki Minaj, Lewis Hamilton, and Chloe Bailey, have attended carnivals in the Caribbean and participated in the revelry. A good number of celebrities are regular attendees. These carnivals, which celebrate the region’s rich heritage, attract global audiences. This in turn provides a platform for emerging and established acts. 

Nigeria, with its rich and diverse cultural landscape, can adopt this model. Artists and relevant stakeholders including the government, and state governments, in particular, should rally and create sustainable, long-term, culturally relevant events. Events with enough spunk and relevance to attract the biggest stars in the world, and the concomitant deluge of foreign investments. The possibilities are endless. A framework like this will galvanize the economy, open the country up to foreign talents, put eyeballs on emerging and established acts, create more revenue streams for artists and industry professionals, and unite the youth of the country. All these are within reach. Rema’s homecoming concert merely opens a vista of possibilities.