In a hotel in Lagos a group of Nigerian millennials in bucket hats, small sunglasses and androgynous clothing are having a party. Someone is filming the scene and will compile the best clips for a music video for the song “Alté Cruise”.
The single, by musician Odunsi The Engine, featuring Zamir and Santi, is a nod to the alternative scene in Nigeria, a music-centric movement called alté, which cherishes individualism and experimentalism in a culture where fitting in is an unspoken rule.
“It’s not just about the music, it’s about freedom,” says Santi. “People don’t think it’s possible for you to be a Nigerian and have freedom to express yourself.”
Nevertheless, alté musicians are soaring to the top. Odunsi was a supporting act for Afropop producer and recording artist Maleek Berry at the Hard Rock Cafe in Lagos in December last year. Now, just a year later, Odunsi is playing a gig to promote his new album, rare., in the same venue on December 24.
Working on a new song at Warner/Chappell Music’s recording studio in London, Odunsi looks like any fashionable up-and-coming musician. Dressed in black and covered in vintage jewellery, he raises his middle fingers in the air in solidarity during his favourite parts. “Alté describes someone who is a bit different, a bit edgy,” Odunsi says. Although he didn’t coin the term — it is believed to have first been used by the Nigerian group DRB LasGidi in around 2010 — his album rare. has given the name prominence.
“The song, being almost like a cult success, kind of made the conversation go further,” he says. “People were asking what it is, and different people came up with their definitions and how they felt about it.”
Alté was born out of a rebellion against mainstream music. In 2016, Drake released the song “One Dance” featuring the Afropop musician Wizkid; it is the second most streamed song on Spotify ever. Wizkid’s style has become synonymous with contemporary Nigerian music, with African genres such as “Afrobeat”, “Afropop” and “Afrofusion” currently dominating international charts. But alté artists aren’t catering to a mass audience. “I think the lifestyle is kids just being able to express themselves without Nigerian entertainment industry restrictions,” says the musician Lady Donli.
Many alté artists began their careers on SoundCloud, which allows performers to have full control of their music and its promotion. Lady Donli began by writing songs in her bedroom, which she says is a fairly typical start for alté artists. “We just dropped our stuff on SoundCloud and people picked it up and because of that, we started building a small following,” she explains. “People started coming to our concerts based on the music they heard. So there was a serious shift in the industry because there was a way things were done before and the alté generation came and destabilised that.”
Despite this, alté shouldn’t be mistaken for a genre. The alté community grew out of the bonds the musicians formed with each other, having been lumped together as “alternative”. Though they are all genre-bending, their music is not the same: Lady Donli is more neo-soul; Santi moves through genres from indie to dancehall to hip-hop; Zamir’s first solo album is hip-hop with a clear trap influence; and Odunsi mixes R&B and African rhythms. These artists help each other to perfect their own personal styles and work together on different aspects of production, collaborating on albums or dancing in the background of videos. “We are like a workshop: when I shoot my videos, Odunsi’s there to help out on what I do because we do it ourselves,” Santi says. “There’s just a sense of family,” adds Lady Donli.
The alté community thrives on nostalgia for the 1970s and 80s. Nigeria saw an influx of foreign music in the 1970s which, coupled with the economic boom, gave rise to a generation of young musicians keen to experiment with their sound. Songs such as Oby Onyioha’s “Enjoy Your Life” were hits at the time. From fashion to music, there was a clear American influence, which enticed groups of culturally rebellious youth.
“The songs in the rare. album are inspired by Nigerian funk. Back then Odunsi’s songs would have been regarded as that, but now [they are] regarded as alternative,” says Santi.
The same sense of nostalgia makes its way into the alté community’s music videos. Santi, who directs his own, is inspired by Nigerian 1990s horror: in the video for “Freaky” there is a heavy religious undertone, much like in the movies of the time. The trailer for the song includes clips from a 1999 thriller made by controversial Nigerian evangelist Helen Ukpabio. And even the music video Santi directed for “Alté Cruise”, which is stripped of terror, is reminiscent of the home video style in low-budget movies of the same era, underlined by the use of a heavy VHS filter effect.
Odunsi believes “Alté Cruise” perfectly sums up the group ethos. “The video was documenting the moments that we all had together, shows we played, our friends, male friends, female friends, spots we go to, just everybody,” he explains. The alté community might be a tightknit group of friends, but it is striking a chord with a new generation of Nigerians.
