From the Shadows of BBNaija, Laycon Finds His Voice on Stage

By Iyke Bede

Throughout his stay on the Big Brother Naija reality television show, Olamilekan Agbeleshe, popularly known as Laycon, maintained a calm demeanour. With his recent performance at the Koga Studios in Lagos, however, he deviates, revealing a fierce alter ego with an agency.

The rapper had just returned to Nigeria from Ghana, where he embarked on a promotional tour for his debut album, ‘Shall We Begin’.

Like he entertained his fans (Icons) in Ghana, returning to Nigeria, he focused on select home-based fans.

The album, released last April, marked a continued success for Laycon, having accrued 20 million streams across digital platforms in its first three weeks of release.

He describes the album as a project conceived from his life experiences, a quality he believes makes it relatable to not just his fans but also to music lovers and critics alike.

“I write from my experiences,” he says. “I don’t try to confuse my audience, I don’t want to impress them to the extent they don’t get the message I’m trying to convey.”

Ahead of Laycon’s performance that evening, Nigerian singer Ikuforiji Olaitan, better-known as Oxlade, opened the show with his latest track ‘DKT’. Backed by a live band uniformly dressed in yellow, long-sleeved overalls, he took the audience on a musical journey paddling with smooth vocals on the backdrop of soothing instrumentals. He later performed ‘Kolo’, and wrapped his session with the earworm ‘Away’.

Following the album’s tracklist sequence, ‘And So She Spoke’, a track with spoken words of prayer from Laycon’s mom was the ideal opener for the rapper.

Afterwards, the ‘Verified’ rapper emerged on the stage dressed in a black robe with gold accents, a string of cowries wrapped around his head, and white markings made across his face to project a godlike image.

He performed the gutsy ‘God Body’. During this performance, he takes centre stage swaying his long dreads from side to side to match the song’s energy. Undoubtedly, his rap skills shine through as the enthused crowd joined in to sing along.

However, he couldn’t maintain the same level of energy on ‘All Over Me’, which required more singing than rapping. Laycon experienced a fair level of difficulty vocalising but managed to pull through just fine.

After several tracks and costume changes, he performed ‘Wagwan’ to the delight of fans. Laycon felt effortless on the track. “The second verse of this track was freestyled,” he told this reporter.

For the rest of the evening, he reaffirmed his sole purpose of entering the Big Brother Naija House – to promote his music career. Having actualised this feat of breaking into the music industry, the hunger in his eyes further reveals that the rapper has mapped out plans to dominate the music scene soon.