ROCK IN NIGERIA
A maligned genre makes a comeback
in 2013, Bianca Okorocha, a Nigerian artist who performs as Clayrocksu, received a DM from a Twitter follower. It was an invitation to Metal and Romance, a party in Lagos focusing on rock music — a genre long plagued by negative stereotypes in Nigeria. When she got there, she couldn’t believe what she saw: a whole community of fellow rock fans. “It was one of the happiest moments of my life,” she recalls. Though rock thrived in Nigeria in the Seventies, after the Nigerian Civil War, it quickly faded in popularity. In the country’s hyper-religious society, some branded the genre as evil, or a manifestation of the occult. But Nigerian acts like Okorocha’s Clay and the Misfits, metal band 1 Last Autograph, and the punk-inspired Oma Mahmud are leading a new wave. With artists like Burna Boy entering the Western pop mainstream, could Nigerian rock be the next breakout sound? Okorocha thinks so. “If we can combine the rock that we love with Afrobeats,” she says, “it may go a long way.”