Earlier this week, revered American rapper J. Cole made his first trip to Nigeria for what would be his first performance in the country. The rapper was billed to perform at the famous Eko Convention Centre on Lagos Island yesterday (April 27). The event was announced in the first quarter of the year and fans have since been anticipating the rappers coming.
Although Cole headlined the concert alongside Nigerian music heavyweights; Wizkid, Davido, M.I Abaga, Tiwa Savage and more, the event was attended by thousands of vibrant fans who have longed to catch a glimpse of the Dreamville rapper.
Here are three important things we took away from J. Cole’s stellar Nigerian premiere performance
J. Cole Has A Cult Following In Nigeria
Although it could have been said that people showed up en mass as a result of supporting acts; Wizkid and Davido, the events that played out right before and during the rappers set makes any of such claims completely baseless.
Wizkid’s set was followed by and electrifying performance by Davido which ended at about 1:00am. The dreamville rapper was immediately announced to take the stage but what followed was a shocker. Fans chanted J. Cole! J. Cole! J. Cole! in excitement, but didn’t get to see the rapper until about one hour later.
His technical crew mounted the stage and sluggishly conducted a set up for the rappers performance leaving fans to wait indefinitely. Although this set-up was very needful, the dilatory attitude of the technical team couldn’t go unnoticed. But amidst the one-hour long delay, fans waited patiently. Actually, Nigerians waited for up to an hour without lamenting.
The degree of patience exhibited by guests at the event only means one thing; Cole can do no wrong in the sight of his Nigerian fans.
There Are Thousands Of Real Hip-hop Fans In Nigeria
The rapper performed singles from his debut Cole World, 2014 Forest Hills Drive and 4 Your Eyez Only albums and fans rapped passionately to every single song. Cole also played three songs from his barely 2-week-old “KOD” album, and it was an absolute sing-along.
“Damn, I guess I was f***ing up by not coming to Nigeria earlier”, he proclaimed in reaction to the audience feedback and love.
To see thousands of Nigerians rap the words of a new album that passionately is a proof that there are millions of hip-hop loyalists in Nigeria. It was also gathered that a number of people who attended the event were not resident in Lagos. Fans came in from Benin, Ibadan, Port Harcourt etc to witness Cole’s performance.
That’s loyalty!
Nigerians Don’t Know What They Want
Going by the degree of passion that Nigerians displayed towards J. Cole’s coming, it is quite confusing that our local hip-hop artistes are not considered in the league of A-listers (don’t act like you don’t know what one is talking about).
For the longest time, hip-hop has not been a dominant genre in Nigeria and rappers like Boogey and AQ who have consistently dished out par hip-hop records (in the context of substance and skill) have not enjoyed a fragment of the love that Nigerians showered the American rapper.
It has now become very clear that rappers are not the problem. At least 4,000 people turned up for Cole last night – how many people will turn up to support Nigerian rappers who are equally putting out solid materials?
How many Nigerian hip-hop lover actually buys the album and learn the lyrics of Nigerian rappers? Or was yesterday simply a show of eye-service?
