When Weird MC went on hiatus from the Nigerian music scene, it took several years later before the mainstream music scene saw the rise of female emcees. Sasha P was one of those.
Sasha P
In fact, she led the pack. Widely known as the “First Lady of Nigerian Hip Hop,” Sasha P is a trained lawyer, businesswoman and motivational speaker.
She earned the first lady title because she was the first homegrown Nigerian rapper to gain international recognition at a time when there were very few Nigerian women in hip-hop music. Needless to say, her success proved to be inspiring for other female rappers and musicians. In time, a legion grew.
Her entry into the hip-hop scene started with musical collaborations. She was a signee at eLDee’s Trybe records. But she attained a much higher altitude at the Storms Record. Particularly in 2001, especially after the successful release of her debut album First Lady under her record label STORM, she became one of the most sought after female artists. With several nominations for various awards in Nigeria and abroad on her sleeves, she earned her place of respect to a reasonable degree.
This rapper who hails from Ekiti state won the 2009 “Best Female Artist” award in the UK at the Women in Entertainment Awards for her first single titled “Adara”. She was also nominated in dual categories (Best Female Video and Best Cinematography) by the SoundCity Video Music Awards for her second single Only One in 2009.
She was the first ever Nigerian female artist to perform at the 20th anniversary of the World Music Awards in October 2008. She was also the first Nigerian female artiste to win the Best Female Award at MTV Africa Music Awards (MAMA). Besides Adara, She released Gidi Babe on her birthday in 2009. She released a single in 2012 titled Bad Girl P.
What many considered to be Sasha P’s Achilles’ heel was her stage persona. She couldn’t elevate her craft beyond karaoke-grade performance. Her punchlines elicited huge expectations that she couldn’t meet. In time, showbiz turned against her. She was no crowd pleaser and she wouldn’t sexualise herself to sell out concerts. She eventually found a creative way out of the dimming stage lights: a career in fashion business.
Blaise
Blaise
Born Obafunke Martin Luther, Blaise is a Nigerian rapper with a voice that commands attention. Born in Lagos, she spent her childhood in the United Kingdom and Ibadan, the largest city in West Africa. Like Sasha P, Blaise had formal education at the tertiary level. She studied architecture and belonged to the University of Lagos school of hip-hop.
Growing up, she had been weaned on some of the best hip-hop records. Queen Lateefah, MC Lyte, MethodMan, ICE Cube, Weird Mc, JUNIOR & PRETTY had provided her with the template for the craft.
Fascinated by poetry, she began writing poetry in her secondary school and ventured more deeply into rap. Like Sasha P, she met eLDee in UNILAG and then Lequshe, Freestyle before Trybesmen was formed. By 2000, Blaise blazed into the scene with collaborative track, “Oya.”
She moved to the U.K soon after and returned to the Naija music scene in 2006 just in time to record one of the most iconic music albums in the history of Nigeria- The Definition Vol. 1 by DJ Jimmy Jatt. Released in 2007, this album featured 24 tracks and all the rap messiahs you can think of.Jimmy is the first Nigerian disc jockey to release a full-length LP in modern times.
The video for the lead single off the album, Stylee features Modenine, Elajoe and Tuface, earned him a Channel O Music Award nomination.
Back to Blaise, it was as though Jimmy Jatt reintroduced her to the industry with the song off the album titled “Too Much” alongside, BOUQUI, Sasha P and Khemistry. This all-star performance was pure fire- parading the best of female emcees also called femcees.
Blaise is one of the most elusive artists from Nigeria. She hardly grants interviews and never actively pursued a music career as a commercial artist. No album, no award. Still, she is an exceptional rapper, a word bender, made of swag. She could have been the best to spit rhymes in the hip-hop scene in Africa but she was so underrated. Sadly, there was no TikTok at that time to democratise publicity for an artist. Although she is now a married woman living quietly away from public glare, her contributions to hip-hop through collabos remain her indomitable legacy.
