Where Did Storytelling in Nigerian Music Videos Go?

If you were born before or just at the start of the early 2000s, you would have been old enough to follow the rise of some of Nigeria’s now legendary music acts. You will have met 2Baba (fka 2Face Idibia) first as part of Plantashun Boiz before a vibrant solo career that inspired generations of musicians. You would have also witnessed the propulsive sharpness of Eedris Abdulkareem, and his penchant for biting critique of corrupt governance and social ills. In the late 2000s, you’d have discovered Banky W, Wizkid, Olamide and Tiwa Savage, all pioneers and contributors to Nigeria’s sonic and visual landscape. More than anything though, you would have witnessed a generation of playful and adventurous storytellers, illustrating and reflecting the varied manifestations of youthful living in Nigeria through their music and by extension, their music videos. 

As Nigeria’s music industry evolves commercially, attracting investment and global attention, the visual elements have also changed. They’ve turned glossier, shinier, yet are often in need of a good story. In the past, Nigerian music videos were often modeled around aspirational qualities, similar to visual codes found in hip-hop culture. But along with these aspirational codes (expensive cars, massive houses, wads of foreign currency piled high or flashing across the screen, designer labels leaned too close to the camera), they also adopted a strong narrative spirit. Take 2Baba’s “If Love Is A Crime”, for instance, where he plays a lovelorn protagonist trapped in a love story entwined with tragedy. The video, released in 2006, is interspersed with cuts of 2Baba at a beach, a poetic contrast to the turmoil happening in the main narrative. 

Or even Wizkid’s video for his 2011 hit “Pakurumo”, which opens and is guided by a rib-cracking skit featuring now record-breaking filmmaker and actress Funke Akindele, Linda Ejiofor and Fuji legend Pasuma. In the video, Wizkid is accidentally booked for a show meant for Pasuma and vice versa. Later on, both artists find themselves playing to completely different audiences: Wizkid at a traditional Nigerian party where Fuji music (at that time) would be typical, and Pasuma at a hip party filled with young people listening to a contemporary kind of Nigerian music. Yet, it doesn't pose a problem at the end of the day, signaling the wise truth that Nigerian music is hardly separable from itself. It can speak to and draw from all influences, including Fuji.

These thematic codes and agenda-setting narratives have long vanished from the logic of Nigerian music videos in recent years. What seems more prominent now is an exhibition of African sensibilities. A penchant for beautifully constructed shots often devoid of storytelling details that engage with the contexts, energy, and complications of being Nigerian today.

Where did the stories go?

“My earliest impression of Nigerian music videos was that they were so maximal, a lot was always happening,” Wale Oloworekende, a culture journalist and editor, tells OkayAfrica. “I just enjoyed that as a form of storytelling. I think it ties into how Nigerians approach visual storytelling, which is almost like a spillover from Nollywood.”

Today’s music videos have jettisoned aspiration and theatrics for something shinier, more pop-culture focused and often less rewarding: perception. Much of what makes up Nigerian music videos these days is typically exhibiting the artists’ alliance with and/or staunch proximity towards their most native African identities. You’ll find videos shot in rural locations that lack any enriching detail or narrative exposition about those areas in correspondence with the music. During his earlier days, Davido's music video for his 2014 hit song “Aye” featured a funny critique of vanity and body image in a story shot entirely in a rural setting. In it, the rurality is less of a costume or an aesthetic choice; it is simply part of a larger and arguably compelling story.

You’ll also find, in today’s videos, a penchant for shock. Flying dancers, garish costumes, elaborate sets devoid of any narrative easter eggs, quick, action-packed motions that forget to be playful, fun, or say anything about the context within which the artist has made the song. As Nigerian music videos continue to feed into and build fantastic and fantastical signals of contemporary Africa, they have unfortunately failed to build a well-defined image of what it means or could mean to be a contemporary African. This is what storytelling often did for us in the past.

It told whoever was watching how we thought about the world, how we party, what we like eating, what we think is valuable or can be aspired to, how we love, how we fight, how we rage, how we dream, and how we want to be. It cared less about how we were perceived or, for that matter, nor did it employ African sensibilities without context, depth or narrative necessity. It is of course worth noting that

What is influencing the story?

Afrobeats — Nigeria’s most important cultural export after Nollywood — currently contributes $2 billion to the global music economy. The industry itself has received significant investment and foreign interest. The implication of this interest has manifested in an expanding industry more assured of its power, culture-shifting opportunities for the genre’s biggest faces, and a westward gaze in imagery and sound. Nigerian music is always in conversation with the West — even when it believes it isn’t. 

It’s an insidious mechanism that has put African artists in a position where they are either reacting to Western influences or subconsciously feeding into it. One could box the recent phase of Nigerian music videos into two silos: visual sensibilities that establish non-specific ideas of Africanness and videos that enforce an implausible African sensibility in traditional Western spaces. In the latter category, a recurring motif in a handful of music videos by some of the country’s biggest stars often involves golfing or hunting in England's countryside. Sometimes, it involves role-playing Western nobility with its attendant imagery of servitude and garish subservience, this time housed in white bodies instead of the Black bodies they have often been forced into. It’s a politically vapid position devoid of a strong story or, at the very least, undeniable subversion. Meanwhile, there continues to be a shocking disconnection between the stories on screen and the realities of contemporary African life. 

It is worth noting, of course, that this isn’t a motif that is present in all contemporary Nigerian music videos, but it’s a prevalent sensibility that isn’t probed enough. 

Oloworekende agrees with this. He believes that while there is a dearth in storytelling, the industry has also seen a rise in excellent and inventive filmmaking. “The barrier for entry has been lowered, so there’s a lot of not great stuff out there, but there is also great stuff if you take your time.”

Ultimately, other commercial considerations such as brand sponsorships and label interest have changed the logic behind music videos, but as we keep barreling towards global expansion, it would be incredible to carry the narrative along with the music.