Perhaps this is because they were mostly flashes in the creative pan – they were mostly one hit or one album wonders. While the musical talent of the era satisfied the entertainment needs of the era, they hardly attained iconic status. The fountain of creative abundance from these economic castaways even flowed to nearby relatively upscale Festac Town and gave birth to perhaps Nigeria’s greatest pop star in the last quarter of a century – 2face Idibia. Daddy Showkey, African China, Stereoman, Daddy Fresh, Yellowman Denny, Baba Friyo, Nico Gravity, Sound Sultan, Marvelous Benji and many other that ruled the music scene of the era were from that axis Lagos. Okokomaiko and Satellite Town were churning out pearls like a creative mine. Those often-forgotten ghettos in Orile, Agboju, Maza Maza, Amuwo, Kirikiri.

While Ajegunle was the pop culture Mecca of the era, the entire area around Apapa – a once upper-middle-class neighbourhood that stares at the Atlantic – was an incubator of creative talents. The nurseries that nurtured Nigeria’s burgeoning pop culture that has become ubiquitous in entertainment scenes around the world was dug up and manured in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. Mad Melon’s death is a big dent on Nigeria’s pop culture history. Last Thursday, the managers of the pop rave of the early 2000s, Danfo Drivers, announced that Mad Melon (Oghenemaro Emeofa), one half of the duo from Ajegunle, a suburb of Lagos famous for churning out sports and entertainment stars, died after a battle with an ailment suspected to be tuberculosis.

Danfo driver music youtube