The people who say Naira Marley and Zlatan are not rappers suffer from a condition that we will call ‘Hip-Hop Purism.
It’s October 2019, Naira Marley is still a vanguard to the hypocritical and ‘idealist’ standards of Nigeria. Coming off the back of ‘Pxta,’ his fifth single of the year, ‘Mafo,’ his hugely anticipated collaboration with hitmaker, Young Jon finally dropped.

‘Mafo’ is a Lagos-Yoruba street language/colloquialism that means ‘don’t fret.’ ‘Fo’ is Yoruba for, ‘break’ and ‘fo’ is also a metaphor for collapsing under pressure. So, in essence, Naira Marley was telling people not to fret. In this context, Nigerians living in diaspora are the target of his message.
As a recently returned Nigerian who spent over 10 years in the UK, he could attest to the joys of living in Nigeria and what ‘home’ truly means. He tells his fellow Nigerians living in diaspora not to fret about coming back to Nigeria. In a world where the Nigerian dream is tweeting one’s love for Nigeria from an American colony, his verses were social commentary.

Standards of symbolism, poetry and storytelling definitely vary, but this is in no way dissimilar to anything Kendrick Lamar, Future or Kurtis Blow make or made. Naira Marley makes rap music and he is a rapper.

The only problem is that people didn’t listen - some don’t understand his language of delivery. For a lot of those who understand his language, their minds are set on what a rapper should be and not what a rapper is. A major problem is that a lot of these people don’t understand what a rapper is.
Read more >>http://www.9japuse.com/naira-marley-and-zlatan-are-rappers-examining-hip-hop-purism-in-nigeria/