How Small Doctor made Nigerian pop from Fuji music

Opposite her, the unruly, excitable gbajumo known as Small Doctor, who finds both Yoruba and English two hands playing tag with a piece of hot yam. Yet, Kukoyi is anchor, Small Doctor the guest, and celebrity the pretext.

Small Doctor may look like a thing to fold over the laps and bathe with a soft, soft sponge, except that 2017 makes it the 13th anniversary of his graduation from Oniwaya High School in Agege, Lagos, situating him on the outer fringes of the millennial generation. From 2004 on, Temitope Adekunle shuffled from hustle to hustle—selling sachet water, conducting and driving danfos, riding okadas—in support of music, which he claims to have started professionally since 2001.

In 2015, he hit the mother lode when his song 'Mosquito Killer' was nominated for the Headies. The award eventually went to Olamide, but Small Doctor had risen above the fray.

When Kukoyi inquires from Small Doctor what genre of music he sings, the response is hip hop. This was in 2016. Since then, Small Doctor has more accurately pinpointed his genre as Fuji pop, as in this Punch interview from early 2017, although he’ll insist he’s comfortable in any genre.

Small Doctor is not the first to attempt taking Fuji pop through an infusion of hip hop. He will not speak 20 words without shouting props to Pasuma. And it is Pasuma who has most notably put effort into springing from the confines of Fuji’s niche. He has collaborated with mainstream pop acts and their producers. In 2015, he released 'Quality', an all hip hop song but for the Fuji growl and lilt of his voice. Pasuma, wonder of all wonders, has even tried to ride the tidal wave of Afrobeat with 'Change'.

Like 'Change', 'Quality' is a critique of society with a narrative pursued articulately. Pasuma even released videos for both songs, videos in which the attempt at courting a wider audience is blatant. In the 'Quality' video, the busy antics of the Fuji artist are absent. Instead, Pasuma is leather-jacketed on occasion and riding a hoverboard. Despite these, Pasuma hasn't quite crossed over to pop from Fuji.

What is Small Doctor doing differently?

First, there’s a case to be made for the Zeitgeist. It is the era of the hyphen pop, an era where contemporary artists either attempt to mainstream niche genres or repopularise bygone popular music. Pop audiences have been receptive, their tastes now seemingly more eclectic. Olamide's and Reminisce’s ibile exertions have done much to wear down the audience’s immunity; harsher 'afflictions' may now infect at will.

But given Pasuma’s continuous failures, this can’t be all there is to it.

In another interview, Small Doctor describes how he elevates the streets into his art. Mosquitoes and the constant mortal combat of man and nuisance are a fact of life in the tropics, a fact more pronounced in the grittier areas of urban centres. It is easy then to imagine vendors pushing wheelbarrows full of anti-mosquito defence systems, a vendor’s allure in their mouths. This allure, gleaned on a good day, is what Small Doctor transposes into the chorus of 'Mosquito Killer'. Anything, absolutely anything, can be inserted into a song, he says. Given his recent successes, it’s tough to fault him.

How does a Small Doctor hit come together? On 'Quality', Pasuma is like 9ice and has shunned the edge of drums for a rounder sound. The song is not so much a reflection of Pasuma’s social context as it is a critique of it. Small Doctor takes the opposite route. His songs edge closer to Fuji, the drums front and centre. 'Penalty', for instance, takes the idea to the extreme and is all drums. Lyrically, it is 99 parts reflection, one part critique.

Lyrically, 'Penalty' is a hot mess, a dunghill, a magpie’s nest, dada-esque, an absurdity, a penalty kicked into the side hoardings. Small Doctor collects all manner of artefacts: from King Sunny Ade—“eni nko/ola nko o/otunla ewe/awa la nilu atorin/e maa jo lo”; from a once-popular mnemonic device—“Nile/Niger/Senegal/Congo/Orange, Limpopo, Zambezi”; from the 'My Belle, My Head' soundtrack of Jagua, an old favourite of Nigerian television series. Does this schizophrenia mirror the spontaneous creativity the streets often demand of those who stalk them? Maybe, but it signifies the laziness of the contemporary pop artist too. To cap the song off, there are spots of acknowledgments, a veritable Yoruba musical ritual.

A survey of contemporary Nigerian pop will reveal schizophrenia, as incoherent freestyle, as method. And the pop audience seems preoccupied with dance, which means sound is primary. The programme for the pop artist is now to prosecute schizophrenia with aplomb; take 'Song X' from point A to point B by any means necessary. Small Doctor is representative of this attitude.

Nigerian pop artists now understand that their audiences (unconsciously) come to the party to pick up souvenirs, something to take away, something to remind them where they’ve been.

Once upon a time, Pasuma understood this, as the popularity of his old hit 'Orobokibo' testifies. If he still does, it’s not a habit he’s brought to pop. D’banj, though, is the touchstone of the contemporary practice of pop souveniring, leaving a string of souvenirs—"no long thing", "you’re on a long thing", "fí lẹ̀", "koko" and so on—in his wake. Lately, the mantle seems to have fallen upon Lil Kesh. Small Doctor understands this gimmick quite well and alludes to just that fact in a 2016 interview with HipTV where he admits to constantly working to brew souvenirs from the streets’ ferment.

What slangy expression can be more deliciously absurd than “o gba penalty lo throw-in”? Absurdity is the import of the line but who hasn’t tried to resolve the image in their heads? Who hasn’t pictured a football pitch, pictured the 18-yard box, pictured how far away the pitch’s side boundaries are? Is it ever possible?

Shot by Unlimited LA, the 'Penalty' video put paid to speculation. Rather than think in grand, apocalyptic terms, perhaps misplaced penalties in the order of the throw-in were perfectly possible on miniature pitches? The video, pared-down and colourful, also marks a departure from the usual gritty aesthetics of Small Doctor's videos, emphasising his new status and signaling a calculated attempt to bring his brand closer to pop.

As Small Doctor alludes to in 'Penalty', stasis is death in mainstream pop. Being current, fresh and fashionable is how you complete an escape from penury.