For three exciting days, Budweiser brought the city of Lagos to life with its perfectly curated BUDXLagos, a global programme that connects and spotlights outstanding creative minds in music and pop culture from around the world.
Returning for the second time, the event focused on exciting emerging scenes such as Tokyo, Ho Chi Minh, Lagos and beyond and the cultural expressions in music, arts and technology.
Split into daytime and and nighttime sessions, participants were greeted with a blend of mind-boggling experiences, including homegrown artistes who shared insights on several topics around music, fashion, culture, Nollywood and women thriving in entertainment via carefully curated sessions. These sessions saw celebrities like Banky W, Adesuwa Etomi, Toke Makinwa, DJ Obi, DJ Lambo, Reminisce and Teni The Entertainer, among others, share insights on how to become a successful entertainer in Nigeria’s super competitive entertainment industry.
Teni, for instance, talked about her family being her biggest obstacle when she decided she wanted to go into music full time. According to the “For Your Case crooner”, their reasons were simple: her older sister was already a popular singer and one entertainer in the family was already enough. She explained how she pushed through and eventually won them over with the success of her career.
Creative Director and founder of Orange Culture Adebayo Oke-Lawal on the other hand, opened up to participants about his motivation on starting such a unique brand and the challenges he faced. According to the fashion designer, the hate he received only proved to him that there was an intense and urgent need to change the narrative of the metro sexual male whose fashion voice was being drowned in Nigeria. “I was bullied because I dressed differently, liked colors that weren’t considered for men, my voice was too thin. Orange Culture became a brand that was created to be a home for people who saw masculinity in a different light”
On-air personality Toke Makinwa on her part tackled the issue of unequal pay in entertainment and a total disregard for the female gender. She explained however that one simple way to overcome the unfair treatment of women in entertainment is to become exceptionally good at your craft that no one sees you as a female on-air personality, a female DJ, or practically a female anything. “The prefix disappears because you are simply the best among men and women,” she told her audience.
Popular for breaking the world record of longest ever set spending 240 hours spinning, DJ Obi explained during his session on ‘The Longest DJ Set of All Time with DJ Obi’ that most times presentation is what may be hindering the success of some budding entertainers. He came to this conclusion when he realized that he had inadvertently taught a lot of Nigerians to appreciate house music, a genre of music quite unpopular in these parts. “During my world record breaking deejaying set, I learnt that you can teach people things because eight out of the ten days I deejayed, I only played house music and I realized I was able to teach people about a genre of music they didn’t know they liked. I presented it to them differently and they accepted it.”
The master classes, which were billed to last for only a couple of hours, eventually took more time, as participants couldn’t get enough of the celebrities. Fans were intrigued by the compelling tales of the celebrities.
At the end of the daily sessions, guests were ushered into a hall at Queen’s Park, Lekki, which had been transformed into a concert with strobes, free cold beers and popping music. It was impossible to sit with disc jockeys like DJ Obi, DJ Nana, DJ Jillionaire, DJ Krowd Kontroller and the others holding down the musical forte, guests going wild on the dance floor dancing to their unique mesh of oldies and new hit songs that got people off their seat, busting a move.
There was a game center littered with video games, a tattoo parlor, and an illusion room specifically created to facilitate the best selfies ever.
Budweiser outdid itself on this one, presenting fans of the brand with a free concert, a date with stars, alongside free food and drinks for three straight days. It was a fun, educative, entertaining and an innovative mesh of quality planning all wrapped up in one great week, a week that will remain unmatched for a long time.
