11 - Dressing en Style: Fashion and Fandom in Niger

Summary

In the eyes of countless Nigerien male youth, no one currently epitomizes style as successfully as Wizkid, the young Nigerian pop sensation who was catapulted to global stardom in 2016 after the chart success of “One Dance,” the song he produced with Canadian rap artist Drake. That same year, Wizkid, whose real name is Ayodeji Ibrahim Balogun, was named Nigeria's best-dressed pop star by Vogue magazine (Frank 2016). On the African continent, where he has practically become a household name, he is extolled as much for his trendsetting looks as for his crowd-pleasing sound. He is undoubtedly the most famous ambassador of the Nigerian musical movement known as Afrobeats. Afrobeats (to be distinguished from the jazzy Afrobeat sound pioneered by Nigerian artist Fela Kuti in the 1970s) combines Congolese soukous, Ghanaian highlife, Ivoirian dance music, and Jamaican dancehall. In Niger, Wizkid's adoring fans scrutinize his fashion choices but also emulate them—no matter the cost. Many of them have incorporated in their wardrobe the skinny jeans, colorful T-shirts, bomber jackets, and trucker hats favored by their idol; they also copy his hairdos and his way of talking; some of them go as far as taking the alias, Wizkid. In recent years the Afropop wunderkind has expanded his sartorial repertoire to include styles ranging from high-end fashion brands to athleisure to traditional Nigerian clothes. Whether he appears in casual streetwear or formal made-to-order clothes, he ends up setting new trends—the red beret “look,” the colorful high tops paired with an all-black outfit, and so on—which his devotees quickly embrace. In sum, the Lagos-born artist always seems to be on the cusp of reinvention. One might even argue that his reputation as a fashion guru rests largely on his ability to smoothly navigate a wide, everevolving range of sartorial styles so as to keep his followers engaged and wondering about his next move.

Though Wizkid is not associated with a distinctive look or style, many of the clothes he wears are rapidly adopted by fans aiming to develop a sartorial personality that identifies them as followers of the star. In 2016 a style known as Wizkid became popular among adolescent boys after images of the Nigerian star, wearing cut-and-paste logo tees from the luxury streetwear brand Hood By Air (or HBA), circulated online.