Afropolitan Vibes Festival offers nostalgic delights

It was the men of Styl Plus singing some of their hits. Last many saw these members of the group they were boys. They were also a trio. Now a duo without Tunde, Styl Plus tapped into a nostalgia for their love songs that seems to recur ever so frequently.

They started with ‘Runaway’ and ended with ‘Olufunmi’, all the while receiving the back-up singing attentions of a crowd surely recalling certain past episodes in their own lives.

In all of the time that has passed since those songs were hits on Nigerian radio, some things have remained the same. Shifi has remained the pillar of Styl Plus, anchoring verses. Zeal, eternally young, smiled, danced, and hyped up the crowd between songs. Looking untouched by time, both might have been preserved in ice.

Now in its fifth year, the Afropolitan Vibes Friday concerts has itself remained unchanged. Mostly. The venue has changed as has its once free entry. Yet, it has attracted same mix of the urbane and the suburban dwelling. Ade Bantu still leads the house band BANTU, which has played more or less same songs over the years, turning familiar tunes into delirious anthems. Its co-producer Abby Ogunsanya still stands—a little unreadable, a little anxious—on the side of the stage.

Perhaps to emphasise the appeal of its past, the headliner was an artist who had turned up on the stage before. MI Abaga came on to applause; his first appearance on the show years ago is one of the most praised.

The rapper proceeded to perform songs from his older projects as though keeping with the theme. An engaging performer, MI delivered to whoops and claps. But for fans of his newest work Rendezvous, Abaga’s decision to perform only songs from his first two albums out of his seven projects, felt like a let-down. His set, give or take a few digressions, wasn’t vastly different from his first Afropolitan Vibes appearance.

The festival was more than its Friday concert. Such acts as Ric Hassani, Funbi and Lady Donli gave intimate performances during the day, Hassani proving a quite engaging storyteller. There were masterclasses on guitar playing by the artist Bez, songwriting by Brymo and production by Sess and Oscar Heman-Ackah. The last two offered insights into the creation of their work on such songs as Simi’s ‘One Kain’, P-Square’s ‘Collabo’ and Falz’s ‘Way’.

The festival’s last event was a “soundclash”, which had dancing attendees going from one end of the expansive Muri Okunola Park to another. It featured such known DJs as DJ Neptune and DJ Lambo and DJ Consequence, alongside the Afropolitan Vibes regular DJ Java and the European DJ San Gabriel. But the night’s true star was the young and tireless DJ Busy Mills. With his impressive turn as hype-man, he embodied the Afropolitan Vibes movement at five: young, eager and built to thrill.