There is no question that Lagos’ active music industry gives her an inherent chokehold on all things urban culture. The city’s cosmopolitan nature creates resource platforms as well as glitz and glamour for artists to springboard their careers. However, this no man’s land advantage, gives everyone coming in from out of town, near or far, equal opportunities to do as they say and ‘blow’.
For a music industry with no middle ground, the competition for the top spot becomes a stifling competition. Perhaps this is why Sammiecolt is attempting to ship the game with “Ibadan”, a single that owes its allegiance to the ancient city of Ibadan instead.
It should be said that Sammiecolt is not the first person to tribute a song to Ibadan. Nearly two years ago, Q-Dot attempted a similar feat with a song of the same title. But while Q-Dot tinged his sleeper hit on Ibadan’s traditional folk-influenced Afropop, Sammiecolt raps bars that say a lot more about him than it says about the city he represents. The rapper has been round and about as he claims on the track, ‘I’ve been to the Osun state, I’ve been to Enugu, I’ve been to the north (Ibadan!)’.
Presumably, to show his strong ties to Ibadan, despite having a feel of other relatively cosmopolitan cities, Sammiecolt features Dremo on “Ibadan”. Dremo himself rose from Ibadan before bagging a record deal with Davido’s DMW. His verse is petulant and somewhat uneventful but is aggression matches Sammiecolt’s re-entry, a necessary third verse.
The superior production and mixing on “Ibadan”, a result of collaboration between by Synx who recently worked on Bella Alubo‘s “Radio”, and Suka Sounds, the nifty sound engineer who worked on some of the biggest songs of the last two years from Wizkid, Brymo and Banky W amongst others, is a statement in itself. One that questions why there is still an influx of upcoming artists coming to struggle for crumb shares of listeners with A-list acts Olamide, Davido and Wizkid in Lagos when they could just grow considerably by building low from where ever they are.
Through Sammiecolt’s eyes, ‘there ain’t no city in the west side / compete with my city’, yet “Ibadan” is not a call out to any denounce any city of its platitudes. Rather, it’s a way to channel some of his own experiences. Sammiecolt, an outsider from Abia state, spent his formative years in Ibadan, with interludes in between, while he studied electrical engineering at the University of Nssuka. “Ibadan”, tells us that where we are from is only both a big and small part of who we are. The line, ‘Gucci Versace and Prada/ Rocking Designers/Feeling Like Shabba Ranks’, may sound unimaginative, but It also disillusions the so-called Lagos dream as the center of the lifestyle and urban culture universe of the country.
Stream Sammiecolt’s “Ibadan” below.
