The 10 Best Nigerian Music Videos of the Year So Far

This August, OkayAfrica presents the best Nigerian pop music videos release so far in 2018.

It's a bountiful year for a medium that continues to showcase invention and vitality in this new golden age of Afropop.

Read ahead for our the 10 Best Nigerian Music Videos of the Year So Far.

Tiwa Savage "Ma Lo" feat. Wizkid & Spellz

Shot on location at The Shrine, director Meji Alabi depicts Lagos nightlife as a heady and hedonist bliss featuring large amounts of smoke and drink, scuffling thugs, loving couples, steamy dancing, palm fronds and the charming tag-team of Tiwa Savageand Wizkid. It's a visual feast that improves on an already winning song produced by Spellz. The video went on to shock Nigerians online by amassing 500,000 views in its first day.

Brymo "Heya!"

The naturalism espoused in Brymo's music is crystallised on the song and video for "Heya" in which, clad in just a sheaf over his nether regions, he emotes on themes of life's simple essential wants on a grand piano looking at the expanse f a Lagos lagoon.

Falz "This Is Nigeria"

Nigerian rapper, Falz has been known to use his sharp brand of humor to address social ills in his country. Today he's taken it a step further with the release of a new song and video entitled "This is Nigeria" and the outcome is an audacious, decidedly necessary critique of Nigerian society inspired by Childish Gambino's viral video "This is America." The song was reportedly banned by the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission just last week.

Davido "Assurance"

Davido's idea to shoot "Assurance," an ode to his true life lover, in idyllic Barbados is fully realised by the director who explains in a note to OkayAfrica: "The thing about Chioma and Davido is that the love is real. The chemistry and energy is real. And although video models have their own chemistry—there's something about a backstory and knowing that this shit is real love."

Patoranking " Available"

The earliest and best realised grafting of South Africa's gqom and gwara grawa to Nigerian shaku and pop sensibilities. The use of colours with strong chromatic contents may beg to be noticed, but it's the sharp and snazzy editing that holds attention in Patoranking's standout visual.

Wizkid x Terri x Ceeza Milli x Spotless "Soco"

The music video for "Soco" features an excellent staging of still models and agile dancers, graffiti and on-trend dances,. There's also the sensible use of teal and spot-on performances from the quartet of Wizkid and his Starboy mates on what is already the perfect pop song.

DJ Enimoney x Reminisce x Tiwa Savage x Slimcase "Diet"

In this year of the shaku, where nary a music video (and Instagram post) is made without the shaku dance, "Diet" scores high marks for artfully collaging the major talking points of Nigerian pop in the first half of the year with trendy phrasing. "Diet" includes faultless features from Tiwa Savage and Reminisce, and an elegant house beat by Sarz, all egged on by hype man of the moment Slimcase.

WurlD "Contagious"

What do Fela's afrobeat and United Colors Of Benetton have in common? Pristine and elegance is to be found in the tasteful combination of hypnotic dance and colour palate that evokes WurlD's Yoruba heritage, his debt to Fela, his blue hair dye, and the universality the Nigerian-American preaches.

Burna Boy "Ye"

Ever a magnetic screen presence, Burna Boy, as well as his models, dancers and entourage are the living part of a set that would also work well on it own as an exhibition of fluorescent light sculptures.

Yemi Alade "Heart Robber"

Specific items and combinations bring distinct glamour to Yemi Alade's videos. The coral-coloured evening dress she wears is delightfully regal, but more interesting is the band of men and women in white turbans and print-heavy trousers & waistcoats that offer an Arab-African vision that makes one seriously consider an alternate reality of cultural cohesion.