As Afrobeats evolves into slower, soul-driven tempos, indigenous melodic rap is rising as the genre’s new powerhouse. From Benin’s street slang innovators to Lagos’ Afro-Adura poets and the drill kings of the East, these artists are reshaping Nigerian Hip Hop’s relevance in Afrobeats.
Since 2025 began, Street Hop’s renaissance has dominated Afrobeats, with at least one indigenous melodic rapper landing a countrywide banger on every major chart. Their secret? Street lingo, cultural motifs, and a sound that fuses Hip Hop’s grit with Afrobeats’ mainstream rhythm.
This sharp twist follows Hip Hop’s fight for relevance in Afrobeats, during a nationwide pivot toward R&B, Soul, and Emo-Pop. Spotify data confirms the change: in the last five years, Afrobeats has mellowed from an average 119.5 beats-per-minute to 114.9 BPM. Afro-soul now leads the subgenres, with Afro-pop, Afro RnB, Afropiano, and Pop making up the rest of the top five.
While the numbers reflect consumer taste, Nigerian Hip Hop tells another story of reinvention. Moving away from traditional US-inspired rap, the scene has birthed a stylistically diverse form of indigenous melodic rap that now thrives in the spotlight.
From popular neo-traditional rappers like Show Dem Camp, Vector, A-Q, Ice Prince, MI Abaga, and Ladipoe, to innovators like Odumodublvck, Psycho YP, Anti-World Gangsters, Mavo, the Uzama trio (Shallipopi, Zerry DL, and Famous Pluto), Zaylevelten, Jeriq, Aguero Banks, and many others, this new wave pulses with cultural undertones, sonic fusions, and storytelling rooted in the Nigerian reality.
New school Lingo
For years, rap purists and fans questioned whether indigenous Hip Hop (particularly Yoruba and Igbo Street Hop) could restore rap’s glory in Nigeria. Yet in the last five years, at least one street-hop act has broken into the limelight annually.
With fusion-heavy catalogues, many artists now identify as both street-hop and street-pop. But it’s the street-hop elements that consistently power their biggest hits.
A defining feature of this movement is the rise of catchphrases. Mavo’s 2024 breakout, Escaladizzy (with Wavestar), introduced the viral line “hotboxing at the back of my escaladizzy” and spawned a lexicon of slang: “Kilobizzy,” “Kilolo,” “Escaladizzy.” He’s even preparing a ‘Bizzypedia’ dictionary with Native Mag to document the trend.
Others have followed suit: Shallipopi with “Pluto Way,” Zerry DL with “Wara Wara,” Seyi Vibez with “Lo Seyi” and “Oblee,” Psycho YP with “Steeze,” Straffitti with “Thirsty Forever,” and Odumodublvck with “Black sheep for life.” These phrases extend Hip Hop’s core tradition of shaping language into Afrobeats culture.
Cultural compass
A lot of the newcomers are also clustered by region, style and fanbase as their music reflects a lot of their shared reality in those spaces. Regional clusters fuel this rise, with Igbo, Yoruba, and Benin movements leading the charge.
This year, the Uzama trio (Shallipopi, Zerry DL, and Famous Pluto) cemented their rise with Ewo, a collaboration that traced their journey from Benin City’s underground to Afrobeats’ mainstream. Individually, they’ve also soared: Shallipopi with Oba Pluto (2023), Zerry DL with Once Upon A Time (2023), and Famous Pluto with Feel D Mood (2024). Their collaboration this year shot them up the ladder as the only existing fraternal trio and the biggest breakouts from the Benin city/South South region.
Other Benin breakouts include Zhud JDO (Johnbull) and Tegaboi DC (Touch Am with Zerry DL). Their melodic rap fuses gritty storytelling with catchy flows, earning millions of streams. Mavo remains the region’s standout, clinching collaborations with Zlatan, Shallipopi, and Ayra Starr on Escaladizzy II. His slang-heavy artistry has pushed him into the mainstream, with over 12 million streams across platforms.
In the South West, Lagos’ Seyi Vibez, Balloranking, TI Blaze, Ayo Maff, Muyeez, and Superwozzy carry the torch. Their hyper-melodic rap draws from Juju, Apala, and Fuji traditions, producing aspirational anthems collectively dubbed “Afro Adura”.
The East has also surged. Acts like Jeriq, Highstarlavista, Hugo P, Anyafulugo, and Aguero Banks weave highlife and drill into their sound. Jeriq’s sold-out 22,000-capacity show in Enugu, following his 15,000-capacity success in 2023, confirms Igbo rap’s mass appeal. His collaboration with UK drill star Knucks (Ogbe in London) pushed the sound beyond Nigeria.
In Abuja, Odumodublvck and Anti-World Gangsters dominate the rap space, while Port Harcourt boasts Ajebo Hustlers, Dandizzy, Laime, and Vicoka. Meanwhile, Zaylevelten represents an “alternative” sub-scene, blending trap with Gen-Z slang and global youth culture on tracks like Show Me Love and Pawon.
All of these artistes have debuted on notable music charts across Spotify, Billboard, Turntable Charts, among others, in recent years, while maintaining their relevance within the Afrobeats mainstream.
Special moments
As we draw curtains on melodic rap’s uprising within the Soul and Pop saturated Afrobeats scene today, there are several other special moments that have contributed to Nigerian Hip Hop’s ongoing mission to remain relevant in the scene.
Rap beefs and strategic albums have kept the culture buzzing. Odumodublvck’s spat with Blaqbonez reignited debates, after Blaqbonez’s track Who’s Really Rapping (with A-Q) declared him Nigeria’s best rapper. Odumodublvck’s responses, both online and on 2:02 PM In London, alluded to his self-styled role as Hip Hop’s messiah.
While this rap beef dominated the mainstream, another underground act, Eeskay, has been steadily fuelling the fire with a string of diss tracks aimed at his former friend and collaborator, Odumodublvck. Titles such as Smoke Deetektor, Cook Am, Frying Pan to Fire (a SoundCloud release), and most recently Lamb Truck, drew attention within the scene. Odumodublvck responded only with passing commentary on social media.
Meanwhile, Olamide’s global-facing self-titled album and the posse cut 99 (with Daecolm, Asake, Seyi Vibez, and Young Jonn) spotlighted indigenous melodic rap on international stages.
Together, these moments show how Hip Hop, far from fading, is reshaping Afrobeats from the inside.
