The email we get here at naijajams can really be a mixed bag - on one hand, there are the conventional messages, but other times, we’re left scratching our heads. For example, today someone requested “4 or more tickets to the 2face concert.” Thankfully, for every email like that, we get quality material from Nigerian artists all over the world.

Until today, I’d never heard of the UK-based Naija rapper, ChiiDo, but after listening to a few bars, it was clear he was top class. Check out this fresh and funny music video for his first single, Pidgin English, off his debut release, “Afro knowledge…from Naija to London” due out this September. The video is great! I love that he’s rocking traditional in London while rapping in broken - quality material here folks!

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DJ mixes featuring Naija music (and I’m not talking the ₦300 Alaba market style) are somewhat far & few between, and of those, the quality is somewhat mixed. So when the Chicago-area based Dee Money posted up his most recent mix, Naija Gbedu Part 2, I knew I was in for a treat.

Having heard his work previously I knew it would be sweet, but this was really something else! Combining current naija hip-hop/r&b tunes with older classics and smooth mixing, tracks you wouldn’t hear played together, work brilliantly. He even throws in a classic Sir Victor Umwaifo track towards the end!

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The other day Mode9 mentioned he was on tour in Germany and it reminded me that I’d yet to post about the tour that I first heard about several months prior, on an episode of Nigeria International.

The Urban Africa Club: Lagos tour brings the “Urban sounds from Lagos” (albeit very much from the hip-hop/pop perspective) to Germany in a five-stop tour. Reportedly on the roster are, Eedris Abdulkareem, African China, Ade Bantu, Rule Clean, Ruggedman, Mode9 and One Kilo.

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Making waves through the Nigerian underground rap scene, Mode9 is a hero among the true hiphop heads. But if you’ve missed hearing about him, missed our interview with him, haven’t taken notice or never knew he was Nigerian (based in Lagos), his videos Formidable and Elbow Room get airplay on MTV Base… so nap time is effectively over!

Here’s a fresh earlier music video for the song, The Recipie. The video features mode9, fellow swat root members, a cameo by ruggedman & more! Unfortunately the video stops half-way, but thought it was worth showing anyway.

enjoy.

Mode9 - The Recipe 4MB (WMV)

(right click, save target as)

Check out the Mode Nine photos in the gallery

(link to photos)

http://www.modenine.net

(official Mode9 website)

Last week, an especially insightful comment left by a recording studio executive from Northern Nigeria appeared on “Thoughts on the Nigerian Hip-hop Scene (part 1)”. Mike shares real-life studio experiences and provides insight into the future of Hip-hop for Nigerians.

Mike writes:

I run a recording studio in the North and have to say that a large number of clients come in a try to sound like American rappers. They insist on swearing, rapping about guns etc. etc. and do it all in this weird ‘choppy’ fake American accent. At the end of any recording we have to go back and bleep out the swearing so it becomes playable on the radio stations.

Having said that we have a number of artists who we are working with who have international appeal and on that basis we have established a record label. Having played samples for many people in Nigeria of the two female singers they almost all think that the artists are from UK or USA. They have relatively neutral accents. I took the music of the 4 artists to the UK where I played it for some industry professionals there and they said that what we had produced was as good as anything in the UK charts. The music was played for someone from BBC Radio 1 last week and we got the same feedback.
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You know that feeling you get when you discover something special, something rare or extraordinary? It’s the feeling of finding a sealed 1985 Dele Abiodun album in a dusty San Francisco record store. And it’s the feeling I got early last year when I first heard the music of Mode 9. His unique sound and fresh attitude immediately sets him apart from the often cliche naija hiphop acts and rappers, but we wanted to know more… so we decided to sit down and allow Mode 9 the opportunity to share a few words on himself, his music and the state of hip-hop in Nigeria.

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