It’s Saturday night outside a club in Brooklyn, New York. The queue of stylish men and women, many of whom wouldn’t be out of place in a music video. It looks like a typical crowd for a New York Hip-hop club, come to dance to Jay-Z or Lil Wayne. But it’s not, and they haven’t. In fact, inside the club there’s barely an American track to be heard, because this crowd isn’t particularly interested in listening to American music. Instead, the majority of the tunes the DJ spins are the latest urban hits from Nigeria, and the punters, mainly young Africans, are hooked on every one. It’s all part of the biggest boom in Nigerian music since the 1970s, with clubs from New York to Paris to London to Nairobi playing club hits from Lagos.
Lagos, a city teaming with people and buzzing with energy but also home to a deep-rooted spirituality. Lagos is the New York of Nigeria. If you want to get anywhere in music, that’s where you’ll find the best opportunities, as well as the worst pitfalls. So when we first sat down with SammyLee for an Exclusive Interview, we immediately realized what we were dealing with.
Watch his Official Music Video for Celebrate now and you will see what we mean.
The video Featuring D-Black and Directed by O.J, opens with like the trailer to a hit movie with SammyLee decked out with bling and beautiful women. Africa, like a bubbling melting pot at the heart of today’s most exciting musical movements… Africa, like a cry of rebellion ringing in your ears… Africa, like an enduring mark on all the television screens of the world…
Africa, like…SammyLee
By Alex Faulkner
