Op-Ed: Sabi Boys are making expressive masculinity cool again

Ayra Starr broke the internet when she revealed the album cover art for her upcoming LP, “StarrGirl.” The reveal makes a compelling case for the top two best pre-release campaigns in modern Afrobeats history, rivaling Rema's HEIS, which featured mysterious gothic symbolism and revived long-dead Illuminati allegations in 2024. 

The purple-themed cover art, paying homage to the 24-year-old’s Yoruba roots, quickly became an inspiration for several forms of art: animations, paintings, reimagined concepts, a purple star filter, even a Starrgirl game. It sparked a cultural movement and inspired an eccentric embrace of the gele.

Even as this trend assumes a reservation to women and girls with its centerpiece being a head wrap that’s traditionally feminine, her male fans have fully embraced it. They've taken to TikTok, X, and other platforms to show their gele-tying range, several proportions of the headpiece, and just how well it sits.

In Nigeria, expressions of traditional femininity in men result in an instinctive assumption about their sexual orientation, emboldened by the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act (SSMPA), signed into law in 2014 by President Goodluck Jonathan. It is always met with targeted harassment, ridicule, and physical violence.

It might be puzzling to reconcile that reality with the swarm of boys and men unapologetically identifying with the symbol of the purple gele, considering Nigeria’s violent culture against effeminate boys and men. However, when traced to the source, Ayra Starr, it starts to make sense. In 2022, responding to a curious fan who asked for a backstory to “Cast,” a single from her debut album 19 and dangerous, she asserted that she “made Cast for anyone tired of living life by a template made by society,” and that “...cast is for anyone who dares to be different.” Ayra’s core, since her emergence in 2020, has been the boundless, creative, non-conformist expression of oneself, reflective in her lyricism and fashion presentation.

For Modesayo, a visual artist who created the viral purple Starrgirl filter and routinely designs posters inspired by the singer's music, this outlook, and especially the lyricism in 19 and Dangerous, impacted his self-perception. “I listen to them and subconsciously emulate that attitude towards how I approach life. I'm more confident in my skills, designs, and myself.“ 

Jasper, 22, who joined the purple star trend, wore an intricately styled Gele in a Nigerian lecture hall, and was unbothered by the scrutiny it attracted. “I was not afraid of anything. Listening to Ayra just makes you want to sing, and representing the young Nigerians in the international space is inspirational for me.”

Mark, another young man, is also a passionate supporter of the singer. Having watched her break out in a male-dominated space piqued his interest. “We only had Gen Z boys when she came; it was just so interesting to see a girl being so cool and still doing what she needs to do with music. I don't exactly care what people would say. Putting on a Gele as a trend is not something I'll [ever] be afraid of doing.”

All around Nigeria, feminine-presenting men are a spectacle, and not in a way that attracts a harmless, intrigued admiration but in a hostile, violent manner. In April, a 100-level student of Madonna University, Williams Fubara, allegedly suffered seizures and was later confirmed dead after a series of targeted bullying and assault by his classmates for his perceived effeminacy. This is just one case among the myriad that make the news, and an even tinier dot in the unreported ones.

The Historical Nuance of African Masculinity

The idea that feminine presentation in African men is inherently immoral or un-African is void of nuance. Across the continent, ideas about masculinity have varied across cultures and time. The Sapeurs of Brazzaville — a Congolese historical subculture that inspired black dandyism — are said in a report to “explore staples not much used in men’s fashion, like powder and blush colors and jaunty evening silk scarves.” The Wadoobe men — a pastoralist subgroup of the Fulani dating back to the 11th century — are renowned for the great value they place on adorning their bodies with elaborate jewelry and wearing bold, conspicuous makeup. 

Lesiba Mabitsela, cofounder of the African Fashion Research Institute, in conversation with OkayAfrica, noted that "We have to think about how much of our ways of being are attributed to the colony, and how we continue to perpetuate those acts of being in the post-colony."

The Northern Nigerian group Yan Dauda, who — before the advent of Islamic hegemony — were prestigious for their association with the Bori cult — an indigenous Hausa religion which gave status and identity to otherness and people of lower class — is also one of the many examples of non-linear masculinity. Their declining social status and increased stigmatization are perhaps the most telling example of how colonial legal systems and religious reforms reinforced rigid ideas about gender in African societies.

A recent story featuring an older-generation Yan Daudu, Saadaat (56), is said to “wear discreet eyelashes and just mild makeup, in order not to make trouble” when going out in public. His student, Nour, a younger-generation Yan Daudu, says, “At home, if I feel happy, I dress fully, with heavy makeup, and just dance,” thereby referencing the restrictions imposed by the Sharia penal codes enacted across 12 Northern Nigerian states in 2000.

The purple gele trend, beyond being a possible re-emergence of historical expressions, means a safer community for queerness. It's evident in how Ayra has cultivated her fanbase that she has cared about being socially acceptable, and that her fandom, in turn, has keyed into this identity. The platform and persona she continues to cultivate through her interactions with what is considered odd in mainstream Nigerian culture may make it easier for her male fans to feel a sense of belonging. 

In 2024, she shared photos of the C6 festival in São Paulo, where her Brazilian fans held placards reading, “we are your Sabigays.” Later, in an interview, she said: “When I met my fans, and they were calling themselves Sabigays, I was like, this is the most iconic thing to ever exist from a Nigerian artist ever!”