5 Nigerian Musicians That Have Stayed On Top In The Last Decade

The Nigerian music industry is one of the music industries that have remained a shining light for the rest of Africa and the world at large. This is because, over the years the country’s music stars have constantly remained focused, determined and churned out hits after hits with great and inspiring lyrics.

The industry wouldn’t have attained such a height without the great contribution and efforts of some of her fine musicians who have remained consistent and relevant in the last decade and more.

THE WHISTLER brings to you a list of five music icons in this regard who came out on or before 2009 and still trending:

2baba: Innocent Ujah Idibia, known by his stage name, the musician is perhaps one star that has redefined contemporary Nigerian music space with his globally celebrated solo single, African Queen in the debut album, Face to Face, released in 2004 after he exited his former music group, Plantashun Boiz. The artiste, regarded by many as a legend is also reputed to be the king of the country’s current music arena, whose shoulder is the platform on which contemporary music found its right footing. The artiste has remained at the top for this long because of his kind of music (not seasonal songs) and the consistency of his output despite the influx of new breed, great musicians from within the country. With six albums to his credit namely: Face to Face, Grass to Grace, Unstoppable, Unstoppable (international edition), Away and Beyond, The Ascension and several other singles and the highest number of collaborations (over 70) His latest singles, Amaka ft Perruzzi, Mama di Mama and Oyi released on the first of this month are testament that the music icon may still remained atop the music scene for a long time more. He has won a long list of awards, including, 1 MTV Europe Music Award,1 World Music Award, 5 Headies Awards ,4 Channel O Music Video Awards , 1 BET award , 4 MTV Africa Music Awards,1 MOBO award & 1 KORA award, Outstanding Contribution to the Entertainment Industry 2004 Award for Excellence, Music of the Year 2004 Excellence Recognition Awards, Best Male Video 2005 Channel O Music Video Awards, Special Recognition Award 2005 Hip Hop World Awards, Best African Act 2005 Kora Awards, Best Song of The Year 2005 G.C.E International Awards, Best New Act Male 2004 A.M.E.N Awards, Song of the year for “African Queen” 2004 Nigeria Entertainment Awards New York, Best Album of the year 2004 Nigeria Entertainment Awards New York, Best Hip Hop and R&B Artiste 2004 Nigeria Entertainment Awards New York, Musician of the Year 2004 City People Awards for Excellence, Best Male Video 2005 Channel O Music Video Awards, Best African Act 2005 Channel O Music Video Awards, Best African Act 2005 Kora Awards, The Outstanding Musician of the Year 2005 Black Heritage Awards for Excellence, Best Musical Artiste 2005 Afro Nollywood Award, African Song of The Year (Non Ghanaian) 2005 Ghana Music Awards, Best African Video of the year 2005 Channel O Music Video Award, Best African Act 2005 MTV Europe Music Awards, Nominated Best African Act 2005 MOBO, Africa Break Through Artist of the Year 2006 Nigeria Entertainment Awards New York, Musician of The Year 2006 The Future Awards, MTV Africa Music Awards Best Video for “Enter the Place” 2009 MTV Africa Music Awards, Best Western 2010 SoundCity Awards among several others.

P.Square: The musical twin brothers (Peter and Paul), one of the biggest and most successful music group to have bestrode Nigeria’s Music Space. The group, unfortunately, disbanded in 2017 due to irreconcilable differences between the two brothers.

In 2001, “P-Square” won the “Grab Da Mic” competition, and hence Benson & Hedges sponsored their debut album, titled Last Nite, which was released under Timbuk2 music label. P-Square was also nominated as “Most Promising African Group” in the Kora awards three months after the release of their debut album. They eventually won the 2003 Amen Award for “Best R&B Group”

In 2005, they released their second album, Get Squared under their own label, Square Records. This album was marketed nationwide by TJoe Enterprises, although they were still managed by Howie T of Adrot Nigeria Limited. The video for the second album held the #1 position on the MTV Base chart for four straight weeks.

The group performed with artists like Ginuwine and Sean Paul, Akon.

Late in 2007, they released their best selling album so far, Game Over. It sold 8 million copies worldwide.

In 2009, P-Square released their fourth studio album: “Danger.” The album features collaborations with 2Baba, J Martins and Frenzy. The first single called “Danger” is a hip hop song with a frog bass baseline similar to an Eminen song. The video affirms this with the presence of Clowns and staggered movements in front of the camera reminiscent of comical videos by Eminem. They are also known for the close resemblance which the twins have to American R&B singer, Usher Raymond.

On 4 April 2010, P-Square were named the Artist of the Year at the Kora Awards in Ouagadougou, Burkina-Faso while they were in London for a concert at the Troxy, and they will receive a sum of $1 Million Dollars as the award winners, in Ebebiyin City.

On 29 August 2014, P-Square released a single track featuring a top American Artist T.I which P-Square titled EjeAjo produced and co-written by VTEK EjeAjo official video featuring T.I which was also released 29 August 2014 on both TV stations, Radio Stations and Web blogs.

On 14 September 2014 P-Square released their 6th studio album titled Double Trouble

On 8 October 2015 P-Square were given Range Rover SUVs from Globacom as Glo Ambassadors for their sponsorship of the #DanceWithPeter TV Radio entertainment programme. The programme brings dancers from around the world to showcase their talents for prizes.

On 24 February 2016 News of how Globacom decided not to renew its Ambassadorship deal with the duo, albeit renewing the contract with other Ambassadors hit the news. This was as a result of fallout between the company’s representatives and Peter, one half of the P-Square twins during the grand finale of the Dance with Peter talent hunt show.

The group has won several national and international awards.

The group is gifted with the power of great vocals, wonderful lyrics, captivating dance steps and consistency of singles releases.

Another aspect of the group that has made it stand out for this long and undefeated is because of the fact that the P.Square brand is family knit, which involves the group’s elder brother, Jude as their Producer, making it a family affair. Also till date, no musician or group has been able to break their dance steps delivery in videos. The group was before their break up the richest musician in Nigeria.

The brothers are currently pursuing their solo careers, with the Stage name of Mr. P and RudeBoy. But the break has not affected their success stories. Their latest singles and collaborations, such as Together and Zombie have shown that the twin brothers will hold Nigeria Music scene spell bound for a long while.

Timaya: Self named Niger Delta militant, Initimi Alfred Odion popularly known as Timaya is a dancehall, ragga, afro hip hop artiste that has continued to make headlines for the good and bad reason, has remained consistent, unique and releasing hits after hits after the release of his official first album, True Story, released in 2007 with the lead song Dem Mama Soldier which became an Instant hit. The artiste has gone ahead to release five additional albums namely Gift And Grace (2008), De Rebirth (2010), LLNP Long Life N Prosperity (2011), Upgrade (2012), Epiphany (2014) which are all success story. The artiste has countless singles and collaborations with the latest singles as Bam Bam ft Olamide and Kom Kom ft Patoranking, released last year. One thing that has made the artiste relevant is his power of consistency and the beats and also his great vocals. Timaya has proved that despite being long and one of the early arrivals on the countrys music landscape he will still continue to trend and relevant as long as his strength can permit him. His voice is always heard on songs each year. He has also won a lot of awards including ,2011:Best Afro-Dancehall song, ” Plantain Boy” (Won) ,Nigeria Music Awards,2008: Album of the Year, True Story (Won)The Headies, 2008: Best Reggae/Dancehall Album, True Story (Won), 2009: Best Reggae/Dancehall Album, Gift and Grace (Won), 2009: Best Collaboration, “Good or Bad” (with J. Martins and P-Square) (Won), 2009: Artiste of the Year (Nominated) 2010: Best Collaboration, “Kokoroko” (with Kefee) (Won) Nigeria Entertainment Awards.

M.I: Jude Abaga also known as M.I. His role in the music industry cannot be overstated. He has been responsible for bringing out many upcoming artistes such as Wizkid, Vypa, Jesse Jagz, Ruby, Pype, Tone Ice Prince, Brymo and the latest is KhaliGraph Jones. He has been described by many Nigerian hip hop fans as Nigeria’s “Hip Hop Messiah”.[17] MI has done a lot to bring a Northern presence to the Nigerian music industry, he depicts the perfect example of bringing Nigeria together.

He is the founder of Loopy Records, and he is signed to Chocolate City. M.I also works in music production with Chocolate City, and has produced albums and songs for his label mates. The most notable of these being in 2011 when he produced two songs off Ice Prince’s album Everybody Loves Ice Prince and Ruby Gyang’s Good Man off her “This Is Love” Ep.

Jude began his music career when he returned to Nigeria in 2003. Finding his place in an industry dominated by the likes of Modenine, Ruggedman and Eedris Abdulkareem, he quickly commenced the production of mixtapes with his friend Djinee. This led to the critically acclaimed single “Safe”, (a song which he parodied popular Nigerian songs in its lyrics) which gathered impressive airplay by African radio and music video stations such as MTV Vibe. The track also earned him awards at the Nigerian Music Video Awards, City People, N.E.A among others. Also regarded as a king of rap, not just in Nigeria but Africa as a whole, he has six albums to his credit including Talk About It (2008), MI2 (M.I album) (2010)The Chairman(2014), The Rendezvous: The Playlist (2018), Yxng Dxnzl (A Study Of Self Worth) (2018)

Tripol of Blaze-A-Mic describes M.I’s flow as “easy going but packed full of punches”. Similarities in styles have also been drawn to renowned rappers such as Kanye West, Lil Wayne and Jay-Z. Those who know M.I. well have also compared his ego with both that of Kanye West and Jay-Z

M.I’s latest album in 2018 shows the rapper has no plan of retiring soon from the arena as he has kept to his trade with vigour and passion, despite the great number of rappers springing up from everywhere.

Timi Dakolo: Born on January 20, 1981, Timi Dakolo is a Nigerian singer. He emerged winner of the inaugural season of Idols West Africa in 2007. With his victory, he got a recording contract with Sony BMG, in addition to other prizes. Since then the Soul Music star has not shown any sign of leaving the musical stage soon with his great vocals on each of the songs he sings, and in return becomes a huge success. The likes of Iyawo mi and Great Nation proved to all lovers of good music that Timi is really out for business. His last single, released late last year titled I NEVER KNOW SAY is an instant hit.