Show Dem Camp Pays Homage to Old Nollywood on Their Latest LP, 'Afrika Magik'

You know Show Dem Camp when you hear them: it’s rap music with striking musicality, driven into the heart by their embodiment of all things African. The duo of Ghost and Tec has done this for so long, they know each other’s vision like the back of their hand. Their latest project, AFRIKA MAGIK, propels a dialled-in chemistry equivalent to master tennis players sending the ball back and forth. When OkayAfrica spoke with them a few days ago, it was clear what these concept creators had in mind. 

“One of the things we’ve been doing almost the past decade is interchanging between [their album series] Palmwine Music and Clone Wars, and both have a clear sonic identity,” explains Tec, “I mean, Clone Wars changes, but it’s fundamentally hip-hop, Palmwine [music] is more of a blend between highlife and hip-hop. But for this project, we wanted to lose the restrictions of what either of those sounds were and just create. We’ve been toying with this idea of AFRIKA MAGIK for a while now, and for us it was just an opportunity for us to create with no boundaries.”

Almost entirely produced by longtime collaborator Spax, the album sufficiently translates its ambition. We’re sent into elevated terrain early with the floating jazz cadence of the opener “Libations,” where flowers of adulation decorate the memories of Nigerian music legends such as Sunny Ade and William Onyeabor, among others. You feel the charge through to the neo-soul bounce of “Spellbound,” where Lusanda’s dreamy vocals muse about wanting a lover to stay. Similarly, Moonchild Sanelly maintains a spirited showcase on “Magik,” and both South African acts are just a duo from an album with eleven features.

The Aesthetic Nod to Old Nollywood

On AFRIKA MAGIK, the far-ranging sonics are hemmed in by aesthetic and conceptual nods to Old Nollywood culture. Although explored by alternative-leaning artists who’ve picked sonic and visual cues from the classic Nigerian home videos, in SDC’s hand, those cues are present — a pre-album clip had them recreate a famous scene featuring Jim Iyke and Nonso Diobi — and also utilized as a way to break up the music into sizable bits. 

On this album, they feature skits in important parts, a tradition SDC have employed since their early tapes, which had Wegele Radio and their last solo tape, Palmwine Music 3, whose adaptation of Folu Storms’ radio personality brought delicious social context to the records. There was even more film inspiration infused into this project as Tec (real name Wale Davies) is one of the producers of My Father’s Shadow, whose measured storytelling has seen it become the toast of international curators. It clearly influenced how they approached AFRIKA MAGIK. 

“For me,” explains Tec, “going into filmmaking gave me a whole new inspiration for what Nollywood [represents], especially the early iteration, the late nineties, early 2000s. ‘Cos I’ve seen what it actually takes to create a film, how many departments, how many people. It’s a whole industry; it takes an actual village to create a film. There was no industry really at the time when they decided to make these Nollywood DVDs, and people created through that independent spirit that turned them into global stars. I remember the first time I travelled to the Caribbean, and they were telling me how they binge Nollywood movies there, and they knew the characters. They ask me, ‘You know Genevieve [Nnaji], know Ramsey [Nouah]?’ They know all our people.” 

Having stayed independent throughout their career, Tec sees this album as a homage to those inventors and their pop culture relevance. So does Ghost, who finds a parallel between those Nollywood creators and their own direction. “I like the shock value, the humor, the storytelling, everyday life that you can see that definitely happens to people, but obviously exaggerated in certain [ways],” the baritone-voiced rapper says. “I like the fact that, in Nollywood, just like we do in our own music, you laugh at our pain and struggles that happen daily in Nigeria, ‘cos you have to smile and suffer, kind of thing. It very much aligns with our ethos of how we create.” 

Listening to Show Dem Camp speak is akin to a masterclass in authenticity. Their legacy to modern Nigerian music is quite unparalleled, even if not unprecedented, as communities like The Trybesmen did something similar in the early 2000s. However, SDC has executed their communal ethos while furthering their own music and showing no signs of slowing down.

With AFRIKA MAGIK, they tap again into the potentials of the plenty, but it’s a sensibility some other artists might have felt insecure about. How does one know they’re staying true to their artistry even while making such gigantic leaps into the arms of collaboration and experimentation as they’ve done? 

“The term ‘selling out’ is when you’re not true to yourself,” says Ghost, “Being true to yourself is when you’re creating something, especially with our kind of working relationship, we bounce ideas off each other. We have deep passion for the music, we have our ears to the streets. Being true to yourself should be the main goal of any artist.”

Tec goes the philosophical route. “I think it depends on, ‘what is success to you?’ I think that’s the first thing you have to define as an artist,” he says. “For me, success is to have created music with my friends and people I care about, to tour with that music, to reach fans with that music, and most importantly, to say where I’m at at this stage of my life. If I go back and listen to Palmwine 2 or to Clone Wars, I can tell the phase I was in. It gives me an outlet to process things, to actually share things, to manifest things into fruition.”

He expands on this idea of self-perception. “I say this not to be flippant, I’m not trying to blow. So I’m not going to chase a sound just for the idea of more popularity. I would actually like to keep my fan base. I’m not trying to get a wider fan base or do something against my character and the in-built quality control we’ve set for ourselves. When people sell out is perhaps when they do things that are more geared towards blowing than artistic integrity.” 

Collaboration: Show Dem Camp’s Community Ethos

Collaboration is an established ethos of the group, one that’s supplied to cult prominence an avalanche of stars over the years. Nigerian superstar Tems recently shared that the duo was one of the early believers in her craft. A relationship that has extended into five solid collaborations, the latest being “You Get Me” on AFRIKA MAGIK. The trio of BOJ, Moelogo, and Ajebutter22 is so frequent on SDC tapes at this point that it feels unnerving to call them guests. It’s always a full house with the duo – a practice they take pride in. 

Last year, their joint album No Love In Lagos with the visionary brother duo The Cavemen was a crowning moment for the live music scene. Joining hands with the highlife-influenced group and guitarist Nsikak, they led a creative room which produced some of the most outside-leaning rap music we’ve heard from these parts, although for SDC it was rather a strengthening of the musical bridge they’ve built since the first Palmwine tape. 

“We’re very collaborative artists,” explains Ghost, “being in a duo, it just comes naturally to us. To work with these artists, it comes more from respect for their craft, actually listening to their music. Seeing if we have records or sounds they can work on; for example, Spax on the song with Moonchild. We’ve heard her on so many rap records, and we thought she’s dope, and for her to be on our record, doing something different, it’s something that happened organically. The new sounds that you hear are [a result of having] our ears to the ground, and having a good ear for African music tracks.” 

Like they do throughout the conversation, Tec picks up the point where Ghost left off. “Our whole ethos is really about community,” he says, “we’ve done that from the beginning of our career, we’ve had shows where it was just SDC they were booking, but with our own booking fee, we’d bring a whole gang of different artists. For us, it’s not about us; it’s building. And I feel that the idea of a community, a village of artists and talents, and they lend their services and talent to each other, for me, it’s a very beautiful thing. We’ve been able to show up for other artists the same way they’ve shown up for us.”