How Did Vogue Boys, Now Phlenjo, Rethink Nigerian Party Culture?

There are a few things that define a classic Phlenjo party. At their epic Easter Cookout, you’ll find large water slides, bouncy castles, water guns and swimming trunks. Sometimes there’ll even be a wellness session and usually, an epic sound policy. At their Dirty Sexy Rave, you’ll find grime, an unpredictable mix of music, no table culture and crowds of young people letting loose and actually dancing. With most Phlenjo events, you’ll find freedom, play and an indescribable sense of being part of a large, intricately constructed adventure. 

Formerly known as Vogue Boys, the Phlenjo collective has created a lane for experiences that encourage unbridled self-expression and gathering spaces that blend underground music with heady fun. Unlike rave culture, which uses elements of mystique and intentional obscurity to facilitate its sense of freedom, Phlenjo favors day parties and outdoor events that feel like hanging out in the backyard of a really cool group of friends. The collective began accidentally, first as a production company, making films and adverts for a range of clients. Perhaps as a testament to the unforced nature of their gatherings, Phlenjo began accidentally. After throwing an end-of-year party for those same clients, they discovered, alongside their clients and everyone in attendance, an unprecedented talent for curating lasting experiences.

On the surface, there’s nothing particularly different about the ways their parties and gatherings are composed. Lagos, their main area of operation, is not short of day parties, large-scale festivals, and indulgent gatherings. Yet there’s something especially different about Phlenjo’s parties. They don’t have headliners, preferring for their community to dictate the vibe of the experience. They’re also notably unpretentious, in that they take the business and construction of enjoyment seriously while creating a space for enjoyment free of social hierarchies.

“I found that there's a lot that comes between people and a good time,” Ebuka Nwobu, creative producer and the founder of Phlenjo, tells OkayAfrica. “Some of them can be self-conscious or shy; what we always try to do is to remove as many of those obstacles as possible. [At] our water festival, for instance, what we discovered was that when everybody is drenched, that self-consciousness goes [away] because we're all now the same. It doesn't matter how expensive your hair is, it doesn't matter how your drip is, it will be soaked.”

Phlenjo began operating as Vogue Boys, a name that came after their artistic work was featured in Vogue magazine. In a funny twist of fate, they were sued by Vogue’s parent company, Advance, for copyright infringement, forcing them, in the middle of this year, to expand their vision and rebrand to Phlenjo, a variation of the Nigerian pidgin word “flenjor.” A cheeky combination of the words “flex” and “enjoy,” it means enjoyment. It is a word the collective hopes will travel well, alongside everything they do.

In the early days, Ebuka says the experiences were directed by the demand they saw from their community.  “You can be doing something for fun, but when the people that your fun project is serving start requesting more and more, you don't realize that there are people that love this thing to the point where they get offended if you say you're not going to do it anymore, you know?”

Chisom Nwobu, a producer at Phlenjo, says the energy from their first events has remained consistent. “The early days of Phlenjo parties, before we were even known as ‘Vogue Boys’, were absolutely as energetic as our current parties; that’s one thing that has remained constant through the years,” he explains. “It started with a bunch of people we know at a beach house in Tarkwa Bay having the time of our lives; it has since grown into something huge, but that energy has stayed all through.”

“It's just freedom,” Ebuka says. “And that's the case [because] of the marketing and the way we package the experience, we've been able to get everyone on the same page as to what is to be expected from this experience. People are willing to invest their energy, time, and trust in something as long as it's just created well enough where they understand what it is and they consent to be a part of it.”

An imperceptible vibe

In the past decade, the most successful events in Nigeria have all understood the importance of creating a market for inhibitions. That and spaces that are completely judgment-free. As more young Nigerians grow more progressive, their tastes and where they choose to gather have adjusted, or are being shaped by other young people like themselves, to match. Organizers like Phlenjo, who are also young people and part of a progressive creative class, are acutely aware of this. Coupled with this is Nigeria’s strong slant towards dysfunctional conservatism. The most pressing need many young people have in an infrastructure-fractured country is to escape it, to find experiences that distract them from the persistent difficulties of living here. This, in many ways, is also the allure of Phlenjo’s experiences. This is how gathering functions as a reprieve, however temporary. 

While Phlenjo’s Easter Cookout is occasional, their Dirty Sexy Rave has been their most consistent vehicle for youthful escape. Ebuka explains that for Dirty Sexy Rave, the idea was to simulate a completely Nigerian version of a warehouse rave, one completely removed from the classic expectations of rave culture. “I know in the [Lagos] rave scene itself a lot of people don't consider DSR a rave,” Ebuka admits. “I don't even take any offense to that because in the normal sense of a rave, it's not just EDM or house or anything like we play trenches, we play afrobeats, we play rap, it's whatever, but we really wanted it to be crazy. We would have cages where people can go in and dance.”

Chidinma Igwilo, a visual artist who has been attending Plenjo’s Dirty Sexy Rave since the first edition, describes Plenjo’s events as “wet, sexy, engaging and thrilling.”

“It’s real Nigerian music. Their parties feel like one big adult playground (especially the Easter cookout), an experience no one has been able to match yet,” she says.

Sevii Fatunji, a motion designer and another regular attendee, says the magic of Phlenjo’s parties is in their uniqueness. “I remember seeing a masquerade at my first DSR. I’d say introducing something unconventional like that has influenced the viewers, attendees, and culture at large to be much more experimental and expressive with ideas.”

Since they started in 2020, Phlenjo has taken this particularity (masquerade mascots, surprising props, zero headliner experiences) across the country and across the world, setting up performances during Milan and Paris Fashion Week and selling out a 4,000-capacity event last December. With its forced reinvention, Phlenjo has set its sights on bigger goals.  “As time goes on, we'll add a lot more events, but also produce experiences for people,” Ebuka explains.

For now, though, Phlenjo is entering into a new identity, one that is less accidental and cumulative of all the organic clout and devoted community they’ve nurtured over the years. “The dance floor is always turnt, and then the team also deserves their flowers for always taking into consideration the comfort of the community when choosing venues,” Fatunji shares. And from where the collective is standing, they aren’t done rethinking the most freeing ways to bring young people together.