Lagos in contemporary Nigerian music video: Brymo’s “1 Pound (The Documentary)”

Scholarship on the relationship between Lagos and Nigerian cinematic practice often focuses on the video film, emphasising the city’s symbiotic relationship with Nollywood. This article is an attempt to expand the purview of the debate by arguing for the music video as a significant cinematic product capable of yielding a more complex picture about the city and the forms of cultural expression it fosters. Using Brymo’s “1 Pound (The Documentary)” as a specific example, this contribution explores the appropriation of the city into the performer’s image. Through a close reading that takes into account the different components of the music video form, I highlight the ways its multisensory qualities are deployed to engage several narratives about the city while simultaneously creating a unique image inextricable from that of Brymo, the star. Lagos, I argue, ultimately transcends a one-dimensional background for the enactment of the video’s narrative and becomes a character itself.