10 Nigerian Producers To Watch In 2021

By Ifeoluwa Falola

The year of the producer is here. These are the names you should already know, the ones which had a quite great twelve months, and the ones you’ll be hearing about by next summer.

Nigerian pop is in a producer led era, and 2021 made it impossible to pretend otherwise. Beat makers are getting cover credits, signing label deals, building publishing catalogues, and in a few cases stepping out from behind the desk and onto the mic. The economics have shifted. The producers are louder. The producers are no longer a footnote on the back cover; they are increasingly the reason the front cover exists.

We put together a list of ten names whose work has earned a spot on our radar this year. Some of them have been around for half a decade and are only now getting their flowers. Others are barely two years in. A few are signed to majors. A few are stubbornly independent. What they share is that 2021 was the year their fingerprints became impossible to ignore. In no particular order:

1. Magicsticks

The Asake architect-in-waiting. If you have heard a song with that woozy, choir stacked low end this year, odds are it has his fingerprint. His drums sit further forward in the mix than the genre default, and the bass is doing twice the work most producers ask of it. He is the kind of producer whose records you can identify in three seconds with the radio half a room away. That is rare and valuable.

2. P.Priime

Already a Mavin name, but 2021 was the year his loops stopped sounding like loops and started sounding like songs. Watch the way his arrangements break the bar. Most Afrobeats production lives in tight four bar loops because the genre rewards it. Priime is increasingly comfortable letting the loop drop out, change shape, come back differently. That is a writer’s instinct showing through the producer’s hand.

3. Tempoe

Quiet, melodic, slightly off grid. The producers and other beat makers have been talking about him for a while before the public has caught on. There is a delicacy to his pads and a willingness to let songs breathe that is unusual in a market that often confuses density with quality. Expect a wider audience to find him in 2022.

4. Bullion Beatz

Newly signed to Dr. Dolor Entertainment as an in-house producer this year, Bullion Beatz is one of the more genuinely multi-toled names on this list. He produces, writes, mixes and masters which in a market where most artists need three different rooms for those four jobs is its own kind of competitive advantage. The label has been deliberate with his public rollout, but the work coming out of those sessions is already drawing the kind of attention usually reserved for producers two or three years further along. We are watching what he turns in across 2022, and we have a strong feeling we will be writing about him again sooner rather than later.

5. Andre Vibez

The Mavin staff producer with the cleanest drums in the build. There is a discipline to his mixes that you do not always get from beat tape graduates. Listen to where he places the snare. It is never fighting anyone.

6. Trxcy

Has been around longer than people think, and his stretch with artiste is the receipt. The interesting Trxcy records are the ones where she leans into a slightly grimmer low end than mainstream Afrobeats usually allows. The genre is catching up to her, not the other way around. For a female producer, she lives above the standard

7. Semzi

A reliably uncluttered ear. Knows when not to add a synth. In a year when half the Lagos production class was reaching for more layers, Semzi was reaching for fewer, and the records benefited.

8. Spax

The Mr Eazi go to. Keeps Banku pop alive without making it a museum piece. The trick with that sound is to honor the warmth of the original template without letting it feel like a period piece, and Spax has it figured out.

9. London

Hard drum specialist, cross Atlantic ambitions. The interesting question for 2022 is whether he plants his flag firmly on Afrobeats or splits time with the UK rap scene that has been quietly courting him.

10. Dexja

Established yes. But still on the watch list because the next chapter is the most interesting one. Producers who have already touched the ceiling tend to either coast for a few years or push into territory the genre is not ready for. We are betting he picks the second option.

Honourable mentions

Niphkeys, Phantom, Eskeez, Synx, Ozedikus, Genio Bambino. The bench is deeper than it has ever been. A year ago this list would have been six names with a struggle to get to ten. This year leaving names out felt unfair. Next year it will be worse which is the best problem this scene can possibly have.

See you back here in twelve months. We expect to be writing longer entries for at least three of the producers above.