"Iyalaya Anybody": Street Lingos and Pop Culture

(By Pius Adesanmi) - In its pristine cultural background in the Yoruba world, “iyalaya” is an obscenity hurled at your opponent in a brawl to display contempt for his or her maternal lineage. It is usually accompanied by the insulting palm and five-finger flash we call “waka” in the face of your opponent. The consequence, as you all know, is often a bloody nose and an unscheduled trip to the hospital. However, as cultures evolve across generations, new meanings emerge and old words or expressions and are sent on new errands by the human imagination. ...
          The mere mention of “iyalaya anybody” brings to mind the Nigerian musician, Olamide, and his famous spat with music industry icon, Don Jazzy. No Nigerian needs to be reminded the details of this spat which shook the African entertainment industry to its roots and set Twitter and Facebook on fire for weeks. With the whole world watching, Olamide had shot out at the audience, “iyalaya anybody”, while dissing Don Jazzy.


When we are done here, I want you all to go to YouTube and watch the clip of that episode again. Watch Olamide’s poise and posture; pay attention to the tenor and cadence of his voice; do not miss the streak of confidence with which he screamed “iyalaya anybody” at the audience. Iyalaya anybody and what it entails in popular culture is the summation and the biography of the 21st century postmodern African youth. Iyalaya anybody is swagger. It is a thematic of the self as borderless and unleashed. Iyalaya anybody involves a projection of the self into horizons of derring-do, of exploration, of adventure. It is the unmooring of the human spirit and imagination. Iyalaya anybody says I am young and I can self-project into spaces and places never before imagined. It is human potential untethered.

“Iyalaya anybody” is the philosophical base and portrait of the kind of youth demographic that has been at the heart of Africa’s resurgence and promise since the beginning of the new millennium. A confident youth demographic that dares sans frontieres! It is the abundance of this youth potential all over the continent that makes Agenda 2063 so confident, so sure of herself, so certain that Africa will not be marginal in the scramble for a future underwritten by invention and innovation. If Agenda 2063 is betting so much on the ability of the continent’s youth demographic to rise up to the challenges of the global knowledge economy, it is because examples abound across the continent of momentous shifts in culture and economics midwifed by youth innovation and invention. Nigeria has been the pacesetter and trendsetter in this respect.

Consider the fact that as recently as the 1990s, Africa’s consumption of culture was largely dependent on Hollywood and the American music industry. Then came the reinvention of musical genres across the continent and American musicians were driven out of the dance floors and party halls of the entire continent. The Francophones started this continental cultural rebirth. I am sure you all remember how an entire continent and her diaspora swayed to the magical rhythms of “Premier Gaou” in a transcontinental and transnational burst of musical jouissance. I am sure you still remember how Awilo Longomba entranced an entire continent from Johannesburg to Nairobi via Lagos and Accra in the 1990s.

I mentioned earlier that “iyalaya anybody” is no respecter of borders and boundaries. From behind the language Iron Curtain in Africa, Awilo Longomba and Magic System burst across Anglophone Africa in the 1990s. The recalibration of the African musical landscape that they inaugurated was what prepared the ground for Innocent TuFace Idibia of the African Queen fame and Soni Nneji of the Oruka fame to conquer Africa and the world. Think of how far Africa’s musical innovation has come since then. There is even a generation of Nigerians on Facebook and Twitter for whom TuFace, African China, Mad Melon, and Soni Nneji are old school because this latter generation came of age on Azonto, Dorobucci, Eminado and Shakiti Bobo.

But also think of what has come with the rebirth of music: economics, entrepreneurship, industry, employment. Everything I have said about Africa’s music industry could be said for Nollywood. Indeed, much more could be said for Nollywood in terms of how the derring-do and innovative spirit of Nigerian youth created an industry that eventually said “iyalaya anybody” to Bollywood and is now giving Hollywood a good run for its money.

One asset that Nigeria’s and Africa’s youth demographic has in terms of channeling innovation and the knowledge economy in confronting Africa’s contemporary challenges and mapping her way to the future is the dysfunction of the African state and the near total absence of imagination and critical intelligence in running the state. Sounds contradictory, innit? …

Pius Adesanmi, March 22, 2016
“Iyalaya Anybody”: Pencils, Nigerian Innovation, & Africa’s Path in the 21st Century,"

Keynote Lecture at the 5th Innovention Series of Verdant Zeal Group, Lagos, Nigeria