Rap Joint Lagos

The Name  The name “Lagos” is said to have been derived from either the Portuguese name for a lake “lago” or the City of Lagos in Algarve, Portugal, which shares similarity of natural sea harbor with Lagos. It is also called “Eko” or “oko” by the Aworis or “eko’ war camp by the Benin conquerors. Eko is still the local name for Lagos. It is undisputed that the Aworis from the nearby mainland settled in the small swampy island that became Lagos before the 16th century.  The earliest recorded reference to Lagos was in 1472, when a Portuguese Explorer, Rue de Sequeira, visited the area and named it Lago de Curamo. Numbering about 5,000 as late as 1800, these inhabitants lived by fishing, farming and trading.  The Traditional Rulers A ruler known as Olofin governed the settlement from the neighboring Island of Iddo. Patrilineal descent groups founded by the sons of the first Olofin owned the land and fishing rights in and around Lagos. Members of these lineages enjoyed rights of usufruct, while strangers wishing to make their homes could obtain rights to farm or fish from the heads of the landowning lineages, known as the Idejo chiefs. At the end of the sixteenth century, the Kingdom of Benin conquered Lagos. During the 17th Century, Benin appointed its own rule, founding both the kingship and the lineage that has filled the position of Oba of Lagos to the present day. Subsequently, the palace moved from Iddo to Idunganran, where it still stands today. Three classes of titled officials emerged to join the Idejo in advising the King: Akarigbere, Ogalade, and Abagbon. The Oba conferred these titles as a reward for service to the crown and recognize wealth and influence. Often titles became hereditary in the first holder’s lineage. The rules of succession to the stool and the rights and duties of various offices remained fluid, giving rise to political conflict that became chronic in the mid 19th century. At stake were both the division of power and authority among offices and the choice of who fill particular positions. Resources tipping the balance in these contests included political acumen, influence with the Oba and other officials, and number and strength of one’s wives, kin, clients, and slaves. Slave Trade Lagos became the center of the slave trade in the late 18th Century and began to change very rapidly. The commerce in slaves created vast new wealth and concentrated it in the hands of a few big traders. Also, this wealth increasingly took the form of slaves, firearms, gunpowder, war canoes, and imported luxury goods; the requisites and rewards of the slave trade. The famous Madame Tinubu, for example, became a wealthy slave trader before her association with Oba Akitoye and continued to trade on her own after she returned with him to Lagos. Undoubtedly, participation in the slave trade greatly increased the resources of the Oba and certain chiefs, who used them to consolidate their political control over Lagos and the surrounding area. Consequently, the resources amassed through the slave trade played a part in the protracted succession dispute between rival claimants to the throne that dominated the political history of the mid-nineteenth-century Lagos.   Colonial Lagos  Great Britain abolished her own slave trade in 1807 and subsequently pressured other nations to do the same. Between 1807 and 1868, the Royal Navy patrolled West African waters enforcing anti-slave-trading treaties the Foreign Office concluded with Western and African Governments. Also during these years, a market for West African vegetable oils emerged in Europe. In 1849 Queen Victoria appointed a consul to the Bights of Biafra and Benin to check the slave trade and encourage the growth of legitimate commerce in the area. Soon both the consul and the Navy were drawn into a local political dispute. In 1851, the Royal Navy bombarded Lagos, replacing Kosoko, an Oba hostile to British interests, with Akitoye, a more compliant claimant. The bombardment dealt a severe blow to the prestige of the Oba, who now held office at the pleasure of the British. After a decade of continued political instability, Great Britain annexed Lagos Island and a small strip of territory on the mainland. Legitimate commerce gradually replaced the trade in slaves. The volume of palm oil, Lagos’s first major agricultural export, crept from 4,000 tons per year in the 1850s and 1860s to 12,000 tons per year in the 1890s, while that of palm kernels, a later export, soared from 7,000 tons per year in the 1860s to 48,000 tons per year in the 1890s. Following the annexation, the Colonial Office quickly established direct colonial rule over Lagos. A British governor began building colonial bureaucracy and legal system that in time usurped responsibility for most aspects of government. By the end of the first decade of colonial rule, Great Britain had created a rudimentary executive, treasury, customs, judicial, police, postal, printing, public works, and medical departments.  Ordinances enacted in the early 1860s introduced a new body of laws-common law, equity, and statutes of general application in force in England-established British Courts with jurisdiction over many matters. Commercial Centre  Lagos was not a typical nineteenth-century Yoruba town. Located on the coast, its inhabitants entered international commerce primarily as traders, not producers. Because Lagos lies at the mouth of a vast lagoon and network of creeks that stretch inward to major market towns, Lagosians faced fewer transportation problems than interior traders. Rapid population growth accompanied Lagos’ rise as a center of international trade and a colonial capital. The town grew in size to 25,000 by 1866 and 74,000 by 1911, swelled first by slaves and later by Yoruba and non-Yoruba, who flocked to the coast in search of economic opportunities and refuge from the Yoruba wars in the interior.  The Returnees Between the 1830s and 1880s small but important groups of liberated slaves returned to Yorubaland from Sierra Leone and Brazil. They were referred to as Saro and Amaro (or Aguda) respectively, these repatriates descended from Yoruba-speaking

Hip hop began in New York City in the 1970s. Found by African Americans, Latino Americans, and Carribean Americans in the streets of the Bronx, the formalization as a movement beyond music was set forth by Afrika Bambaataa, founder of hip hop collective, Zulu Nation. He outlined four core principles of hip hop: Rapping, DJing, Breakdancing, and Graffiti. These core principles are the defining forces in the music and cultural street style of hip hop.  Afrika Bambaataa was not the first person to spin records or write graffiti, or to celebrate emceeing or b-voting, but these four elements coalesced under his aegis when he started throwing hiphop parties. Writers have often, conveniently, credited the origin of Hiphop to a holy trinity founders: Afrika Bombaataa, Clive “DJ Kool Herc” Campbell, and Joseph “Grandmaster Flash” Sadler.  However, the origin and influence of Hiphop was wider. Hiphop has a strong West Africa influence and lineage. It’s lineage may be traced to the Griots in Senegal, who have engaged in spoken-word story telling for ages. Also, there is strong influence from Fela’s music, which Afrika Bombaataa discovered on a trip to Africa. Subsequently, he would play music he found in Africa particularly Fela and King Sunny Ade during Hiphop at his shows. It can be inferred that he discovered Fela’s music in Lagos being the afrobeat Legend’s base.  Others with a claim to the foundation of Hiphop includes Brooklyn Grandmaster Flowers, disco group the fat Fatback Band, jazz poet Gil Scott-Heron, smooth talking mid century radio personalities like Frankie Crocker and Jocko Henderson, swaggering rhymester Muhammed Alia and jazz legend Louis Armstrong. Rap wasn’t officially recorded till 1979.The genre grew behind the scenes through block parties in much of the 70s, where DJs played percussive breaks of popular songs using two turntables; and then EmCees would rap in a chanting vocal style, over the DJ beats. The first track to gain mainstream popularity was “Rapper’s Delight” by The Sugarhill Gang.  The 1980s were a real break out point for hip hop. Kurtis Blow dropped the single “The breaks” in 1980 and the track became the first rap song certified gold. In the years following, many acts would release genre defining hits, including 1982’s “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock”. Also notable is the socially conscious statement, “It’s like that”, by Run-DMC. Audiences and artists alike would embrace the core principles defined by Bambaataa, with minority groups fully embodying the culture in urban centers through the music, breakdancing and graffiti in the streets. The fluid intersection between hip hop and the streets meant that make shift parties and music spontaneously erupted and people began using their bodies to make beats, giving birth to beatboxing, where people use their lips, tongues, and voices and other parts of their body to make beats to rap and dance to.  Heavily mirroring the streets in which it emerged, hip hop soon left the realm of purely party jams as artists began infusing stories from the violence in the streets in their rap, giving birth to gangsta rap. Featuring hardcore lyrics on drugs, violence, misogyny, and the harsh lives of ghetto youth, music by artists like Ice T in the East Coast and NWA in the West Coast, changed the tone of rap as their songs spread across the United States. With the rise of gangsta rap, early female pioneers, Queen Latifah, Monie, Salt-N-Pepa, began to lose appeal as labels favoured their more aggressive male counterparts, whose music had more demand. The decline in female hip hop artists has continued in hip hop well into today as female MCs still struggle to start and build a career in the industry. During the early 80s although popular, hip hop didn’t have commercial success, as it was largely ignored by music establishment. But with the breakout success of gangsta rap, music industry executives took notice, creating a formula to amplify the glorification of the fast life: violence, sex, drugs, and of course money, money, money. The 90s saw a new breed of rap artist emerge who embraced this formula to widespread appeal. Pioneers like Jay Z, Dr. Dre, Puff Daddy, and Andre Harrell capitalised on the new direction to build successful music empires around their craft and various associated acts. Throughout the 90s, artists like Notorious B.I.G., Nas, Tupac, Snoop Dogg, were bringing in millions of dollars for themselves and their record labels in record sales, sold out concerts and endorsement deals paving the way for the genre across the States and globally.  And the appeal of rap artists began to cross over from music into other areas of entertainment. 2pac in Juice. Will Smith in The Fresh Prince. LL Cool J in In the House. DMX in Cradle to the Grave and Romeo must Die. Eminem in 8 mile. The list is endless, from cameos to starring roles, rappers have since the 90s crossed over from the rap game to the film business. Since the early 2000s hip hop has become a multifaceted and diverse genre intersecting with various mainstream and underground cultures, to create a larger than life lifestyle that lives beyond the music and shapes global culture. Some artists however, still continue to fly the flag of “Retro hip hop”, some new, Kendrick Lamar, J Cole, Logic, to name a few, create music with a heavy focus on lyricism, and old heads like Jay Z, Eminem, and Nas, have released new music in this decade. Eminem’s last album dropped in January 2020.  Many purists do not consider the style of hip hop music that dominates the airwaves today hip hop, with some arguing that the new wave lacks the style and substance of hip hop’s origins; whatever side you’re on, no one can deny the influence that retro hip hop has had on all of today’s rap culture and all culture globally.

My first encounter with hip-hop has to be Craig Mack’s “Flava in ya Ear (remix)” featuring The Notorious B.I.G., LL Cool J, Busta Rhymes & Rampage, off Mack’s 1994 album “Project Funk da World.” I remember I was 12 years old and at the time, there was a show on MTV called “Yo! MTV Raps”, which only came up by 11 o’clock at night every Wednesday. “Yo! MTV Raps was a two-hour television music video program, which first aired on MTV Europe from 1987 to mid-90s and on MTV US from August 1988 to August 1995.” The show was past my bedtime and I remember I would stay up late at night waiting for it to come on just so I could see that black and white video. For me, it was that Puff Daddy intro, when he was tapping 2 bottles together, and he goes “bad boy come out and play.” For me, the relationship with hip hop started from there.  Hip hop embodies expression to me and my DNA is very much around expressing yourself to the fullest and that’s what the music and the culture was for and that’s why I have always said we are partners in crime!