A generation ago, the sound of Yoruba urban life belonged to Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, K1 De Ultimate, Saheed Osupa, and Pasuma. Today, it belongs to Asake, Seyi Vibez and Portable. The names have changed, the beats that echoed their creativity now sound differently, and the technology that magnified their creative prowess has transformed the whole process of recording and marketing music.

Yet, this transition is not unprecedented. Every generation of Yoruba music has produced its own dominant voices and sounds. There was a time when Juju was considered a departure from earlier Yoruba musical traditions, just as Fuji would later emerge from Wéré and establish itself as the soundtrack of urban Yoruba life.

What is now regarded as traditional was, at one point, contemporary and new. Perhaps this explains why the rise of Yoruba Street Pop has generated so much debate. To some, it represents a break from Yoruba musical tradition, an era of discontinuity where we would struggle to identify a contemporary musician in the rank of Ayinde Barrister or the Apala maverick, Haruna Ishola. To others, however, Yoruba Street Pop may simply be the latest chapter in a long history of Yoruba musical reinvention.

Every Yoruba Sound Was Once a New Sound

Today, when traditional Yoruba music is mentioned, Fuji, Juju, and Apala come to mind. But these were all new sounds at some point. The evolution of Juju, for instance, started with the pre-colonial Yoruba percussive music. Pioneers of what is now called Juju music adopted the Christian harmonies and choral structures. They also adopted guitars which made their sound distinct. It became the choice genre of leisure for the educated elite frequenting bars and social clubs.

Apala also emerged from wéré, a type of musical expression known within the Muslim community. These two musical genres were very modern in their respective era of dominance. Yet today they have become emblems and legacy of traditional Yoruba music. Hence, we can say that modernity is era-dependent and Street Pop in Yoruba language has contributed to the relegation of this genre to the realm of tradition where nostalgia abounds.

Just like Apala, Fuji emerged decades ago from Wéré (ajísàrì), a type of music usually sung during Ramadan to wake fasting Muslims to observe sahur called sàrì in Yoruba language. The music was sung in celebrating Eid-al-Fitr and Eid-al-Adha. By the 1960s, singing competitions sprang up and led to the emergence of the first generation of Fuji artists, one of which was Sikiru Ayinde Barrister. Even though Fuji had its roots in Islamic religious practices, it evolved quickly to serve the Yorubas’ multi-religious society and was adopted by traders, artisans, transport workers, market women, and informal workers.

Fuji and the Sound of Urban Yoruba Life

Praise-singing, storytelling, and social commentary linked Fuji to the long chain of Yoruba traditional music while its themes of hustle, aspiration, religious devotion, prestige, and community resonated with the youths of the 1950s-2000s generation. The party nature of the Yorubas were also served with the performances of Fuji bands at weddings, child naming ceremonies, home dedications, funerals and conferment of chieftaincy titles.

Beyond private ceremonies, community celebrations across Yoruba towns and cities, of which Mushin Day is one example, provided another stage for Fuji's popularity and cultural dominance. Political gatherings and the birthday parties of prominent Nigerians also regularly featured Fuji performances, further entrenching the genre as a soundtrack of Yoruba public life. It was at Chief Razaq Okoya's 80th birthday celebration in 2020, for instance, that Bola Tinubu's presidential ambition was publicly declared and subsequently echoed in song performed by K1 de Ultimate, illustrating the extent to which Fuji had become intertwined with Yoruba social and political life.

Back then, Fuji represented the sound of everyday Yoruba urban life. Today, Fuji remains an important part of Yoruba cultural life through established acts such as K1 De Ultimate, Saheed Osupa, and Pasuma. Yet, as its audience aged and a new generation emerged, urban Yoruba music began to evolve once again. Unlike Street Pop, which continues to produce new stars across generations, Fuji's greatest challenge appears to be succession, raising the question of whether another genre has assumed the role it once played among Yoruba youth.

The Emergence of Yoruba Street Pop

Yoruba Street Pop emerged from conditions remarkably similar to those that produced earlier Yoruba genres. Just as Fuji grew alongside new forms of urban leisure, Yoruba Street Pop arose from the realities of twenty-first century city life: rapid urbanisation, youth unemployment, digital technology, and the search for identity in a globalised cultural sphere. While the audience for Fuji consisted of artisans, transport workers, and traders, Yoruba Street Pop has drawn its fans from students, apprentices, and young professionals. This is also reflected in the departure from communal family-oriented celebrations to organised concerts in an enclosed venue.

By the 2010, Street Pop began to form, taking over from Fuji and other genres that have intermittently ruled. Olamide who started out as a Yoruba rapper changed his style to be more dance-oriented. With the success of “Duro Soke” and “Eleda Mi O” off his third album Baddest Guy Ever Liveth in 2013, Olamide’s songs placed less emphasis on lyrical complexity and used more street slang. He also sampled K1 in “Anifowose” – a track in the same album. The song brought together Olamide’s rap delivery and K1’s Fuji sound, placing Fuji’s vocal and melodic style within a hip-hop setting. This combination made elements of Fuji accessible to a younger audience accustomed to rap and street-oriented music, while showing that traditional Yoruba sounds could be reworked without losing their originality .

Olamide laid the groundwork of what Small Doctor and others would come to build a brand on after 2016, thereby bringing street language, local slang, and everyday Yoruba experiences into mainstream popular music to create the space for artists whose musical expression frames street culture.

Is Yoruba Street Pop the New Fuji?

Fuji’s Islamic roots are not just about its use during Eid but about the use of prayers, chants, and call and response. Yoruba Street Pop has consistently modelled Fuji when it comes to the adaptation of the latter’s Islamic traits but has refined these to fit the taste of both the religious and irreligious street-dwellers.

Small Doctor gave Yoruba Street Pop a distinct grassroots identity. In “Penalty” and “Mosquito Killer”, he transformed ordinary street experiences into forms of communal entertainment, using humour, slang, and participation to create a sense of collective identity. Much like Fuji before it, his music resonated because it spoke directly to the lives of those who inhabited the streets from which it emerged. He has collaborated with Wasiu Alabi Pasuma in the past and has also shared stage with fuji musicians at different times.

Seyi Vibez's rise reflects another extent to which Yoruba Street Pop has become a vehicle for articulating the realities of contemporary urban life. Unlike the celebratory tone that often characterises mainstream Afrobeats, his music frequently dwells on struggle, faith, survival, betrayal, and aspiration. Sung largely in Yoruba and infused with the emotional intensity, Islamic terms, and Aladura themes, his songs resonate with young Nigerians navigating economic uncertainties and social mobility.

Asake on his own has drawn on Street Pop's streetwise narratives, Fuji-inspired chants, and contemporary influences such as Amapiano and created a sound that has been accepted far beyond Nigeria. Much like Fuji before it, Asake's music revolves around themes of struggle, aspiration, divine favour, community, and celebration.

The relationship, however, extends beyond themes and chants. The use of percussion instruments, log drums, and call-and-response structures in many contemporary Yoruba songs has helped preserve Fuji's sonic imprint in modern music. This influence has increasingly found expression beyond Street Pop, with artists such as Burna Boy and Adekunle Gold, with a recent collaboration with Adewale Ayuba and Yinka Ayefele on “Many People”, further demonstrates the enduring appeal of Fuji elements in mainstream Nigerian music.

In a 2024 interview, Asake stated that he feels more comfortable expressing himself in Yoruba. Asake taking pride in his mother tongue is typical traditionalism and he has so far reached milestones not expected of an indigenous artist. Yet, Asake's appeal remains firmly rooted in the streets. Like Fuji before it, Yoruba Street Pop first found its audience in mainland Lagos communities such as Ikorodu, Gbagada, Agege, and Mushin before attaining wider acceptance. In this regard, Asake’s global success reflects a familiar pattern in Yoruba music: sounds that emerge from local communities before travelling far beyond them.

What Has Changed?

The differences in Fuji and Street Pop lie mainly in the length of each track, the mode of distribution, choice of fusion, and demographic of audience. Fuji tracks, like every other music of the era, can be as long as 45 minutes while Street Pop confines to Afrobeats' 2-4 minutes standard. This difference reflects the preference of music listeners and the global shift to shorter tracks. Street Pop also emerged in an era in which the internet had already become universal and driven mainly by digital sales and streaming, unlike the cassettes and discs that dominated the market earlier.

The nature of performance and production has also changed. Live performances shifted mainly to concerts instead of individual parties, reducing praise-singing significantly. Street Pop artists today fuse their sound with House, Amapiano, and other western sounds, while earlier Fuji artists incorporated influences such as highlife, as Wasiu Ayinde K1 did. Sounds that were once created with bands are now largely produced with computer-made beats.

Finally, the audience has become more globalised, thanks to the universal appeal of English language, the internet, and the African diaspora of which the Yorubas are a substantial part of. Many of the cultural traits and functions Fuji portrayed decades ago are now also being appropriated by Yoruba Street Pop. If present trends continue, Yoruba Street Pop may well become Fuji's eventual successor, much in the same way Fuji itself succeeded Wéré. This, exactly, is what Yoruba Street Pop does today: keeping the Yoruba tradition by evolving and adapting to societal changes. It is a case of reinvention, not replacement.