{"id":87343,"date":"2015-07-07T10:00:09","date_gmt":"2015-07-07T14:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=87343"},"modified":"2015-07-07T11:04:15","modified_gmt":"2015-07-07T15:04:15","slug":"one-night-in-lasgidi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/07\/one-night-in-lasgidi\/","title":{"rendered":"One Night in Lasgidi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Clubbing in Lagos.<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_87344\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/teju-cole-okayafrica-earbuds-64.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-87344\" class=\"wp-image-87344\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/teju-cole-okayafrica-earbuds-64.jpg\" alt=\"Teju-Cole-Okayafrica-Earbuds-64\" width=\"600\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/teju-cole-okayafrica-earbuds-64.jpg 1500w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/teju-cole-okayafrica-earbuds-64-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/teju-cole-okayafrica-earbuds-64-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/teju-cole-okayafrica-earbuds-64-1024x1024.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-87344\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image: Underdog<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>Teju Cole wrote the following piece to accompany his new mixtape for Okayafrica\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.okayafrica.com\/tag\/africa-in-your-earbuds\/\" target=\"_blank\">Africa in Your Earbuds<\/a>\u201d series, mixed by Chief Boima.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/213547119%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-lE1Zm&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;visual=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It doesn\u2019t really get good until about\u00a0one <small>A.M.<\/small>, but you do want to be there by then, because you\u2019d like to get in at least two solid hours of dancing by the time the clubs shut down. Afterward you run the gauntlet of cops on Falomo Bridge. \u201cOga, anything for us?\u201d \u201cEhn, don\u2019t worry, on my way back.\u201d And on the way back, you lie. \u201cOfficer, I already saw you before na. You no remember?\u201d Naturally, you\u2019re not trying to drive to the mainland at that hour. You\u2019ve made arrangements to sleep in some island neighborhood, assuming you\u2019re not rich enough to already live there: Ikoyi, V.I., Lekki 1, Lekki 2, Lekki 3, Ajah. At this hour, you\u2019re taking the uncannily clear roads at speed, stopping not even for traffic lights. The breeze is blowing, the great lagoon sleeps. Twenty-one million people are in whatever form of shelter they call home, these human energies at rest, numerous as the stars above the endless city. The past two hours begin to come back to you, a blur of moves and bodies, and the two or three things you saw and were reluctant to believe, good things, bad things, badt guys, as Lagosians say, and bad gyals dem. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Day is for thought, and night for clubs. Night I\u2019ve spent in clubs in at least a couple dozen cities by now, in as many countries. American hip-hop generally rules the scene, chart toppers mostly. A surprising number of DJs, from Stockholm to Cape Town, know their old-school selections. But in the past few years, contemporary Nigerian dance music, Naija jams, have been taken in by enthusiastic audiences at out of the way clubs in the U.S., huge crowds in East African stadiums, and on mainstream radio play in the UK. For the duration of the set, you are transported to Lagos Island on a\u00a0Friday\u00a0night. Saturdays are dry because there\u2019s church\u00a0on Sunday. Sundays are nonexistent because there\u2019s work\u00a0on Monday. Wherever you are, it\u2019s\u00a0Friday. You are transported to Lagos, Lasgidi, Eko City, the Gidiopolis, as stars like D\u2019banj, Wizkid, or Davido ignite the floor. You enter a specific space inside the urban Black Atlantic, and only later do you remember that you are, in fact, physically elsewhere: in Brazzaville, in Berlin, in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n<p>Like any big and active cultural practice, there\u2019s a basic core of forms that sustains the rapidly changing specifics. Last year\u2019s Lagos playlist isn\u2019t this year\u2019s. This year\u2019s will share elements with next year\u2019s, but no one knows yet what next year\u2019s big hit will be, what minor inflection will introduce a whole new feeling to the music. Such is the rate of change that a song from three years ago already sounds old-fashioned. In that sense, there\u2019s no \u201ctypical\u201d Lagos playlist. It must be specific to the date. Tiwa Savage\u2019s \u201cEminado\u201d was 2014, Naeto C\u2019s \u201c5 &amp; 6\u201d was 2011, 9ice\u2019s \u201cGongo Aso\u201d was 2008.<\/p>\n<p>So, this playlist is a fiction. I mix time periods freely, the same way the music itself (finely mixed for me here by the great Chief Boima) mixes influences: propulsive rhythms, soukous-inflected guitars, <em>coup\u00e9-d\u00e9cal\u00e9<\/em> beats, Ghanaian flow, Afrobeat interludes, razor-sharp modern production, house, jazz, pop, rap, dancehall. This is a Lasgidi of the mind, representing a meld of many club nights in Lagos and alternate Lagoses through the past decade. It is a cauldron of that vertiginous self-confidence that anyone who knows any Nigerians knows well. It contains a nod towards a genealogy of the form, including some of the early hits of the genre. I\u2019ve also included, for they ought to be included, some key recent moments from the Nigerian diaspora: folks like Wale and Nneka speak to this world, as well. This is music that has come a long and joyous way in a very short time. Dance to it\u2014note its persistent tone of joy\u2014then come back and listen to it.<\/p>\n<p>The time is\u00a03:30 <small>A.M.<\/small>\u00a0You find your car\u2014no, the guy who\u2019s going to collect money for nominating himself as your valet shows up and shows you your car. You pay him. One of your gang is the designated driver or, depending on how you roll, you have a driver who has spent the night waiting. (You\u2019re a bad leftist as, from time to time, all leftists in Lagos are.) You leave the club in a great mood, and this time you feel like spreading the love. The police officer flags you down at Falomo Bridge. You roll down your window and, without saying a word, smile, and hand him N500, before you disappear into the night.<\/p>\n<p><em>Teju Cole is the author of <\/em>Open City<em> and <\/em>Every Day Is for the Thief.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Clubbing in Lagos. Teju Cole wrote the following piece to accompany his new mixtape for Okayafrica\u2019s \u201cAfrica in Your Earbuds\u201d series, mixed by Chief Boima. It doesn\u2019t really get good until about\u00a0one A.M., but you do want to be there by then, because you\u2019d like to get in at least two solid hours of dancing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":853,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7646],"tags":[18646,5227,18651,18647,18650,18648,14324,18645,18649,12012],"class_list":["post-87343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-look-2","tag-africa-in-your-earbuds","tag-audio","tag-chief-boima","tag-clubs","tag-lagos","tag-mixtapes","tag-nigeria","tag-okayafrica","tag-playlists","tag-teju-cole"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Teju Cole on Clubbing in Lagos<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The author 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