Wizkid, Davido, Falz: Life in Nigeria isn’t great, but in December, we all escaped by the beauty of concerts

Life in Nigeria will always have its downsides. But we can all embrace these fleeting moments of live music and concerts.

Nothing was on my mind as I walked down the crowded sandy beaches via Hard Rock Café for the ‘Wiz on the Beach Concert’. An hour later, a girl pushed out of the crowd, tears in her eyes. I instinctively moved towards her, asking for the cause of her woes.

“They just stole my phone in the crowd. They stole my phone,” she sobbed.

I understood her pain. I have lost devices before, I still lost one this year. The connection between a person and their phone is a spiritual and essential one. Each entity depends on the other for nourishment and maintenance. To cut that off is a sacrilege, the highest height of disruption, and tears are only the smallest price to pay as you start the journey to a new device. On stage, Wizkid was in his element. He was performing his hit single, ‘Ojuelegba’.

“Ni Ojuelegba oh, my people dey there, my people suffer, dem they pray for blessings.”

Ojuelegba wasn’t the only place with suffering people. Nigeria was suffering. The start of a biting petrol scarcity had just begun. All around the country, people lined up at fuelling stations, cars and kegs parked in hope and sadness. The owners stared into space with sadness in their hearts as the queues disturbed traffic, and slowed down productivity and merriment. Sadness can turn into anger, and it did when a soldier beat up a young man at a petrol station in pursuit of fuel. By the next morning, Christmas Day, the boy had died. Death came to their family at Christmas. Another hope cut short, another dream killed.

 

Life shouldn’t be this hard. We deserve better, we have earned better as a people and country. The day before, Wizkid had headlined his concert, ‘Wizkid: The Concert’, where he brought happiness to the hearts of millions of Nigerians with a reconciliation with Davido, his arch-rival. The excitement of seeing these two great artists coming together to declare peace flooded the country. And on social media, everyone jerked off to the promise of a peaceful future in music. No more ‘frog voices and duck faces’. The art united us all in happiness as it has always done.

But it has been a sad year. It would be impossible not to think about Nigeria, and the mass loss of lives at the hands of terrorism, the police and just about everything else. Everything in Nigeria is trying to kill you. It is a reality that we live with every day of our lives. Half the time, living here feels like playing the game ‘Pac Man’. You have to run from numerous bogeymen and their traps all year. This causes us to ache, and our families to worry. That’s why we gather around tables at concerts, open drinks and toast to God and ourselves for the gift of being alive. Blood have been spilled, but ours still flow through the right channels.

 

We mortals can’t avoid the cycle of death and life, but we can prolong the time of our passing, and enjoy the wait between now and our deaths. Falz offered that in his ‘Falz: The Experience’ concert.

On the December 27, I woke up to news of President Buhari’s son, Yusuf, fighting for his life. He had been in a bike accident, hitting his head, and gasping for life. The news made my heart sink. I didn’t know him in person, but he was just like all of us. Another soul, pushing to enjoy this one life. I still remember the first time I was in an accident. A car hit me, and as I bled from different holes, people rushed me to safety. I still feel the helplessness as I lay there for what seemed like an eternity, hoping that this wasn’t the end for me. I can write this article because I survived, and that’s why I connect with Yusuf and the pain of being physically broken.

That night, I watched Davido on stage, as he celebrated life and love at the ’30 Billion’ concert. OBO brought on Wizkid again, performing ‘Manya’, a song about love and the beauty of enjoyment. “Oya take all my money put am for your head oh…” they sang, danced and put on a show for the living. Still, at that concert, another lady was screaming in crystal clear phonetics, “someone’s got my phone!”

Sorry, my dear. They have stolen it. Another device parted from its owner. Sad.

But sadness cannot win. Over the duration of late November and all through December, there have been more joy than sadness in Lagos because of music concerts. I have seen more smiling faces and hugged strangers as we sang along and danced. Each hug and laughter was a reassurance that through the pain, we can find pure happiness, and push back the sad clouds of Nigeria. Every performer who has moved the crowd didn’t just make live art. They saved a weary heart and massaged the ache away. At these shows, people are transformed from ‘worrying humans’ into little children, driven by expression and innocence.

The best Nigerian music concerts and festivals have the potential to insulate you from life. While you are in that hall or space, you don’t remember the hurt and the pain. You block out the worries, the tragedies, disasters and our common reality of suffering. I admit it truly doesn’t go away. But it is pushed far away from your consciousness, into a place where you barely forget that it exists. Whether it is the juvenile brilliance of Simi or the sexy swag of Maleek Berry, the world becomes brighter, and your hearts lighter. December was an escape into music paradise.

That’s why it hurts so much when people commit evil acts at concerts, like robbery. It takes the worst humans on earth to gain entry into a place of happiness, to hurt people. These people have no humanity left in them, they are devoid of warmth, affection and all the qualities that make us uphold civilisation. They are demons, seeking to ruin the music, the moment, and our great magical escape. It is the one place that we can hold hands and be happy together in Lagos. They deserve the worst of life.

But the best moments at these concerts haven’t been the performers. It has been the people. At the height of any performance, I take my eyes off the stage and stare at the faces of the people in the crowds. Everyone has a spring in their step and an ethereal shine in their eyes. Their faces become angelic posters of gladness. And the passion, oh the passion.

I felt a lady’s spit hit my face as she screamed to Nonso Amadi’s ‘Tonight’. At Mayorkun’s concert, a young woman offered her butt to me, twerking with a professional skill that blew my mind. But the best of these happened at Olamide’s Teslim Balogun concert, OLIC 4. I met a man who smoked weed in his honor and shared a story of how his life was positively impacted by the YBNL champion.

 

Everywhere I turned and visited this December, Nigerian music was hugging someone, thrilling another, and improving the moments of thousands. Whether it is the pure vibes of Palm Wine Music Fest or the woke turnup of Brymo, there was also something for everyone. It is a blessing to gather, drink and enjoy this culture of fine music that we enjoy in this country. It is rare to find this every day, and so, when it happens, I chalk it up to God’s goodness.

And that’s why they are important. Nigeria’s darkness will never end. I have given up hope that we can all unite this country with a wave of noble ideals and fairness to each other. We won’t live forever, and today might be our last day on earth. But as we go, we will have few things to regret about experiencing the art in an environment where it makes our hearts come alive. It is temporary but effective.

Life in Nigeria will always have its downsides. It will push us all to the extreme and put us in situations and conditions that will test the limits of our sanity. There will always be dark nights, and evil will walk the day as it usually does in these parts.

But we can all embrace these fleeting moments of live music and concerts. We can hold on to these bright memories and remember that no matter how much we fall, our spirits can rise again and again with the music.

December 2017 was lit. Cheers to better days of Nigerian music in 2018.