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Chijioke Ngobili, Lecturer in Music, University of Nigeria

100 years of pop music in Nigeria: what shaped four eras

Nigerian musician Fela Kuti and his band in Harlem, New York, 1989. Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images

The global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the early months of 2020 shut down nearly all physical and social human activities. For musical practice this meant near death. Performing music is, after all, one of the oldest forms of social human engagement.

In Nigeria, the shutdown of concerts and public music performances was swift. Not even the Nigerian–Biafran War of 1967 to 1970 could shut down all of Nigeria. In fact, popular music activities boomed in Lagos as bombs rained on Biafra.

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