Musicians everywhere adapt stage names. They can be profound, grandiose or simply humorous, but they always represent a way of distinguishing the artist from the person. In Nigeria, there’s something special going on with stage names. For one thing, they are nearly universal. They can also change over the course of an artist’s career. And they reflect the realities of Nigeria’s complex history, under British colonialism, military rule and the recent democratic period. Stage names riff on the domains of business, religion, politics, the military and the far reaches of the unique Nigerian imagination. This podcast offers a whimsical tour of contemporary artist names in this diverse musical nation. Produced by Banning Eyre.
Distributed 2/6/2018
