Nigerian rap duo, Show Dem Camp, Nigerian highlife band, The Cavemen and Nsikak David, a renowned Nigerian guitarist, all pulled in their fortes to bring to life ‘No Love In Lagos’, a 10 track studio album with a run time of 32 minutes. The album was released on August 9, 2024.
This joint project marks Show Dem Camp’s eleventh album, The Cavemen’s third and a debut for Nsikak David. The album is a fusion of afropop, highlife and alte music, these elements are evident in the drum arrangements and guitar flows which are the joint influence of The Cavemen and Nsikak David, Tec and Ghost’s rap melodies provided the right consonance for each track to blend smoothly into these genres.
As the Nigerian alte culture continues to take massive turns, new and reformed sounds are being discovered on the go as new talents debut daily. For this reason, the official announcement of the release of ‘No Love In Lagos’ stirred some tingle of excitement in listeners as listeners looked forward to seeing what type of proportion their collaboration would yield. This proportion (balance) is what will be reviewed in this article.
So, how balanced was the album?
To analyse this, we’ll start off by looking into the production and arrangement. Producer ‘Spax’ has production credits for all the tracks on the album. Spax has been a day one to Show Dem Camp. He also produced and co-produced all the tracks on ‘Palmwine Music 3’, SDC’s 2022 album. Elements of igbo highlife and palmwine music are found all through the album, which has placed this project high up on the sonic cohesion scale. The composers and performers were found dwelling high in their core, this inturn aided their deliverability.
Guest appearances from Obongjayar, Tim Lyre, Ruti and Moelogo. These names are the movers of the alte culture and their presence on a highlife-infused album shows versatility. Ruti is known for her seemingly high vocals, her performance on ‘Train’ must have been a thoughtful process to fit into the already existing flow in the tracks rather than setting a new pace and it is surely objective to say that the track would not have hit the same in her stead. Apart from the main artists, Ruti (from this writer’s view) had the most impact on the album.
Overall Theme and Consistency
In their interview on the Ebro Show, SDC revealed that the theme behind ‘No Love In Lagos’ was attributed to lone and self focused hustle. Almost (if not all) all the tracks on the album speaks on hustling and self affirmations. ‘Dey tell you say you no reach, believe in yourself and see. Dey tell you say you no reach, abeg give them point and kill.” on OMFTR and when Moelogo said “K’araye mase yeye mi, As I dey on top, make I stay on top” on Blessings, lines like these are found throughout the album.
Overall Impact
Show Dem Camp, The Cavemen and Nsikak David added to their catalogue a highlife infused album at a time when the raving trend appears to be amapiano and street pop. This album in this writer’s view should be tagged as a “successful experiment”. The Nigerian music market has become a battle ground where not just the talented but versatile, business minded and futuristic talents can lead.
SDC has always been a leading force in the alte arm of Nigerian music and The Cavemen right from their debut in 2020 have proved to the market that they came to lead and not join the crowd. There may no longer be new sounds but with music and collaborations like this, we have the opportunity to consume our favourite sounds in new narratives.
