VECTOR'S THE PURGE: BREATHING LIFE INTO THE GAME

MI HAD IT COMING

There couldn't be a better pointer to how dormant Nigerian hip hop was than MI walking away unscathed with a proclamation as audacious as You Rappers Need To Fix Up Your Life.South African rappers were killing ours out there but this guy too was below par and singing like his peers.He released a pop culture friendly album after that and just months later was back to his opportunistic best exploiting the low-pressure ambience of the rap scene to tell us he wanted to resurrect hip hop in Nigeria with his crew and had 3 albums coming.MI may be the biggest ever rap artiste Nigeria has produced but he wasn't half the rapper he once was.Like Vec rightly said on The Purge-"African rapper number one my ass.Boy,the Flavour left".

MI was more or less a personification of the problem-our rappers simply stopped being good enough but MI rather than cop to the fact that he slipped off,was telling others they needed to up their game.Of the 3 albums released on his hip hop mission,AQ & Loose Kaynon's The Crown was the only one qorth talking about.Blaqbonez sang and nursery-rhymed through his while MI was appalling with the excessive attempt to sound foreign over some lame songs.He was telling us Pusha-T ought to be grateful to be mentioned in the same breath as him and was preaching against racism where he lives (Nigeria,just so we are clear).The Martell Cypher came and rolled past without a single line worthy of mention.Then a second one dropped after Blaqbonez declared himself best rapper in Africa with 4 guys from Chocolate City still chest-thumping like they were doing something out of the ordinary.Vector had enough.Heck,even if it meant resurrecting a 'deaded' beef,MI and his baggage needed to be put in their place.

IMPACT ON THE CULTURE

Vector's The Purge featuring Payper and Vader was the number one trending topic on twitter just hours after it was released.Rap is a contact sport and beef is a highly appealing aspect of rap culture especially for fans outside the genre.The Purge is quite simply the strongest surge Nigerian hip hop has felt in quite a while.No desperate chorus trying to appeal to a wider range of fans and no fancy beat to conceal a lack of substance.Albeit for just one track,we were back to talking dope punchlines and metaphors-3 lyricists unleashing a most brutal verbal assault.

There's been several degrees of revolt against the subsisting order by some top rap acts in the past and in all cases,a shred of purity is sacrificed with each level of conformity to the status quo.The Purge is classical rap music and it highlights just how viable pure content still is.

They say if you shoot at the King then don't miss and MI took quite a hit from Vector.That is a landmark and there couldn't be a better wake up call to naija rappers.'Accountability' is key.Anyone wishing to assume flagbearer status must be up to it.Rappers have been quiet for too long.