It’s often said that Street Pop is synonymous with slang. I’ll take this further by declaring slang—or perhaps more accurately, street lingo— as what confers Street Pop with its distinctive sheen. What would Shallipopi’s mercurial run of form in 2023 have looked like if he had not foregrounded slang such as evian, men mount, oscroh, and plutomaniac? Olamide, the current patriarch of the Street Pop scene—despite his attempts at pivoting away from Street Pop, remains the most influential figure within the Street Pop scene—is arguably the best wielder of slang in this part of the world. His repertoire is endless: smellos, sneh, duro soke, omo wobe, pawon. There’s also Ycee, who in 2015 rose to prominence after deploying the slang Jagaban atop the hook of the eponymous record; and of course, Phyno who popularized the slang Alobam.
The common theme between these artists is that in their hands slang becomes something of a portal, ushering curious listeners into their inner lives, as well as the cultures that spawned them. It’s not just the slangs themselves that induce this effect but the dexterity and fluidity with which they deploy them, almost as if they were languages unto themselves. This is the phenomenon that’s most vividly at work in Mavo’s music. And so when you hear him, in Escalladizzy sing “Kilo this your cana I dey feel am for my head/Hotboxing in the back of the escaladizzy,” whether or not you understand every turn of phrase, you feel transported to the sanctuary of his mind, a realm streaked with speeding sport cars and occluded by copious amounts of cannabis smoke.
Since 2023, when he first started putting out music professionally, the 21-year-old upstart has coined scores of slangs—many of which are iterations of existing slangs suffixed with “izzy” (as in Easy). This has an interesting effect: his music feels entirely sung in a different language. Here, language becomes a kind of filtering system. Those unwilling or unable to parse his distinctive lingo tend to give up his music, declaring it byzantine or abstruse. Those who are however able to understand his dialect—which he has now canonized in the form of a print dictionary called Bizzypedia—are not only able to fully savor his music tend to feel as though they have ascended into a club. To paint a picture of the level of camaraderie between those in this category, there are entire threads on X dedicated to the exegesis of his lyrics.
And so in the days leading up to the release of his newly-released EP Kilometer II, even as the lead singles—Escaladizzy and Shakabulizzy electrified clubs and dominated charts—I began to tremble with nervous anticipation: this could be one of the culture-defining projects of this year or a colossal flop.
The EP’s title—Kilometer II—might suggest a smooth transition from Kilometer I; the project, however, couldn’t be more stylistically and thematically removed from each other. Most of the songs in Kilometer I are slow in tempo, melody driven and find Mavo teetering at the edge between hedonism and tenderness. Here he’s obsessed with a rotating cast of women, most times these women don’t reciprocate his attraction and so he tries to remedy this by showering them with gifts and money. It’s not love that he feels for his muses, if anything it’s lust, desire. But his wistfulnes, his yearning, is palpable.
By contrast, Kilometer II is fast-paced, percussion-driven, and sparsely produced. Here the wistfulness of Kilometer I gives way to a cavalier swagger, impelling him towards total hedonism. Consider how his tone changes when his focus shifts to the subject of women. “I kiss her on her lips and she calls me bad boy/ She say Kilo, you the baddest,” he sings in Shooting Star, the opening track. Later in the song he sings: “Me I want to follow her she no fit do me mumu.” In Shakabulizzy he sings “me I fit to give you money easy/ Buy her Valentino for her birthday.” In this project money or acts of generosity are less about wooing his muses than massaging his ego and announcing his ascendancy.
Another nexus around which the album revolves is cannabis. It’s almost hilarious how meticulously he goes about the business of analyzing, extolling, and proselytizing cannabis. In addition to Escaladizzy and Shakabulizzy where he exhaustively plumbs the subject, in Too Busy and Kilogram he recruits Kashcoming and Famous Pluto in the service of this cause. But it’s also fitting given that the project is entirely composed of thumping party bangers.
Ilashizzy, the penultimate track, is one of the most exciting and forward learning tracks on the project. From the outset, he reels us into a vibrant tableau. The setting is Ilashe Beach, a private, exclusive beach area in Lagos, famed for its luxury beach houses, pristine white sands, and lush coconut trees. Over a brilliant production that blends Brazilian Funk and Afropop, he supplies lyrics about a frenetic party. “Shey you no dey see the water? All the baddies dey the water? Money many be like water,” he sings.
Ultimately, Kilometer II marks a stark pivot in Mavo’s sound. If before he made music for slightly, unmoored and lovelorn young men, now he seems to have his gaze fixed on hazy nights at the club replete with clouds of smoke, welters of mint notes and scores of women. Old fans might feel nostalgic for the wistfully vulnerable music of his old music but even for those in this boat, the frenetic energy of his latest offering will prove a worthy compromise.
