By Olufemi Ajasa

The third wave of street music overcame mainstream, with artists like Seyi Vibez holding the longest number 1 spot on the Official Top 100 songs and albums chart published by TurnTable. Street pop musicians holds the larges’ part thanks to Biesloaded, a web platform that relentlessly promoted the genre, its culture – and even found time to boost MohBad, Portable, and Zlantan on its platform.

In 2000, street music was everywhere, and yet nowhere. Alaba marketers became the A-list famous promoters on the streets of certain areas in Lagos but were seen as pirates in the mainstream. Stars like Original Stereoman, Danfo Drivers, LKT, Oritse Femi, Olamide, and Terry G were rushed into the mainstream, given pop-dance tracks, and bled of what made them so unique in the first place, with the help of the Alaba promoters even while the music moved away from Cassettes to Spinlet.

A decade after, street music regained its stand as artists – Lil Kesh, Chinko Ekun, CDQ, Zlatan, Small Doctor, Idowest, Mr Real, and Naira Marley, came into the spotlight with blend of what made them unique . Thanks to Alaba music promoters, grew stronger controlling the largest part of the street market in Nigeria, as the market gravitate towards online streaming services like Boomplay.

Fast forward a decade, Street music was at an all-time high, thanks to a new generation of artists – MohBad, Bella Shmurda, Asake, Seyi Vibez, Shallipopi, Zerry DL, Balloranking – who have broken into the charts, awards and demographics way beyond the inner cities. Channels like Biesloaded, has helped artists like Zlatan with their online music platforms launched their music career.

Adewumi Adeyanju; co-founded Biesloaded, one of the biggest street online music platforms in Nigeria. “It wasn’t easy, but I always had an idea of what I was creating. So, I told my friend Ojimi to come on board” he says. “Obviously, I had no idea where it would be in 10 years, but Ojimi was willing to join me as a force. I waited a while hoping someone would pick on it, but no one did, so I jumped back in. A year in, we were able to break a fresh street talent with Zlatan on our platform”.