‘It’s not noise. It’s a message’: the misunderstood misfits of Nigeria’s underground rock scene | Metal

Within the violet hush of a late-night doom scroll, I stumbled throughout her: a girl clad in lacquered leather-based and glinting chains, legs laced in harnesses. She stood mid-growl, clutching the mic as if to throttle it, her silhouette framed by a purple LED display that learn “Rock Nights” together with the title of the artist: Clayrocksu.Beneath the stage at Pop Landmark in Lagos, Nigeria, a sparse crowd of silver-studded misfits was filmed thrashing round in a trance. The efficiency provoked a small ethical panic within the feedback: cries of “demonic” and fears that Clayrocksu was “slipping into darkness”.The darkness Clayrocksu and others transfer via isn’t occult, although – it’s obscurity. Within the west, goth and emo subcultures provide outsiders a reputation, a tribe, however in Nigeria they barely exist. The trade right here forgets itself each few many years, and because the rise of Afrobeat, and later Afrobeats, rock has been sealed off or paved over. Nevertheless it’s stored alive by DIY reveals corresponding to Clayrocksu’s Rock Nights collection, WhatsApp chats, shared gear, and right this moment’s small scene – bands corresponding to LoveSick, ASingerMustDie and the Recurrence – is uncooked and defiant.Lengthy earlier than Clayrocksu et al ever screamed right into a mic, Nigerians have been shaping rock to their very own rhythm. Between 1967 and 1970, Nigeria fought a brutal civil conflict after the south-eastern area declared itself the Republic of Biafra. Within the aftermath, the Hygrades, who lit up the Nineteen Seventies with tracks like Within the Jungle, got here from the east together with the Funkees and the Doves – submit–Biafran conflict children with guitars, making an attempt to show trauma into sound. These early bands nonetheless leaned on the swagger of Hendrix and the snarl of Jagger, nevertheless it wasn’t till Fela Kuti – fierce, lyrical, unmistakably ours – that Afro-rock started to talk in a Nigerian voice.However extra instantly palatable pop, dance and gospel got here to fill the airwaves, whereas rock had no radio, no label push, no hype. Nonetheless, it lived on within the margins, and extra not too long ago fan-led WhatsApp teams corresponding to Rockaz World and Rock Republic have stored the flame going, together with the now-defunct Naija College of Rock weblog. Clayrocksu isn’t only a musician and now a member of the Recording Academy within the US, whose members vote for the Grammys; she’s additionally an envoy for the scene who arrange the collective Afrorockstars in 2024. It’s a type of Justice League for Lagos’s indie rock scene, the place artists band collectively, host reveals, and maintain the flame alive.Together with her month-to-month Rock Nights collection on maintain attributable to an absence of funding, Clayrocksu has teamed up with Lagos venue Kevwe and Cam for a band showcase known as Lagos Misfits Takeover. I head there to search out what’s left of Nigerian rock.“I don’t keep in mind a time once I wasn’t into rock,” Clayrocksu says earlier than occurring stage. As a child, she performed bootleg pop-rock CDs on her Walkman. Her dad was a rock head, too – much less edgy metallic, extra Bon Jovi and Michael Bolton – however when Clayrocksu began protecting his favourites, she lastly bought it. “I can’t clarify it,” she says of her love of rock. “The music known as to me, and I need others to really feel that, too.”She’s unfazed by the ethical panic she unleashed. “I don’t pay it any thoughts, actually,” she says. For the Afrorockstars neighborhood, “rock is simply a part of life, identical as their religion”. She pauses, fingers grazing the crucifix round her neck. “A few of them put on crosses, too.”She introduces me to LoveSick’s frontman Korny, a 31-year-old, soft-spoken man with a bald head and a Jason Voorhees–model hockey masks clipped to his pants, his fortunate attraction. “I purchased it the night time we received Battle of the Bands,” he says, referring to a Lagos occasion late final 12 months, which was LoveSick’s first ever reside efficiency. “I used my final money to purchase it from a vendor who stated every thing she sells is blessed. I wore it, we performed and we received triple what I paid.”He appears to be like each bit the nerdy IT options man, however that modifications when he takes the mic and growls via Guiding, a observe whose lyrics – “I’ve bought 5k [Naira, about £2.50] left in my checking account” – are about surviving Nigeria as a broke youth.The sound on the venue is tough, however “we will’t anticipate excellent sound like Afrobeats,” Korny shrugs. “The present should go on.” His voice – guttural, sharp, typically screeching – feels scorched. “I taught myself again in 2011,” he says. “Simply mimicking my favourites.” They have been Korn’s Jonathan Davis, Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington, Asking Alexandria’s Danny Worsnop. Now, he cycles via screams, growls and pig squeals. “It’s not noise,” he says. “It’s a voice. A message.”Brother duo ASingerMustDieAlso enjoying at Kevwe and Cam is brother duo ASingerMustDie. “Hope y’all are able to die tonight,” certainly one of them deadpans into the mic. The venue’s partitions are lined with portraits of legends like Oliver De Coque and Fela Kuti, watching over the night time’s rising acts, and ASingerMustDie’s set feels distinctly Nigerian – rock because the vessel, however with a message rooted in lived expertise. “It’s all about emotions, experiences, societal points,” the brothers inform me. Their music Córazon, as an illustration, was born from a poisonous love story and the concern that leaving would damage greater than staying.Telephones mild up throughout LoveSick’s set, and once more for Clayrocksu, as followers look to show they have been right here. Xavier, a fan of LoveSick, says he’s been into rock for about 13 years: he first heard it on Want for Velocity and Fifa, and it hit him like nothing else. “Energy chords and riffs break from conventional music patterns – they’re chaotic, however stunning,” he says. “In a spot as chaotic as Nigeria, rock helped me make sense of all of it.”For this crowd, it isn’t simply music, it’s making area to really feel seen in a rustic that doesn’t reward distinction. “Even when you don’t sing rock,” Clayrocksu tells me, “you’ll be able to nonetheless be one of many cool children with us.” ASingerMustDie’s new EP Songs to Die For is launched 25 August