The death of a Nigerian artist has never lingered in public consciousness like this. Not when Dagrin’s car crash shook an era-defining movement in 2010, not when Goldie’s sudden passing stunned a generation raised on Big Brother Africa in 2013, and not even when Sound Sultan’s demise left a gaping hole in the industry’s conscience four years ago.
Mohbad’s death cut differently.
But it’s not just because of his music talent, but because he died as a young promising Street Pop artiste who was on the cusp of something greater than the local industry and teetering on the edge of mainstream crossover. Then, in an instant, everything stopped.
In the weeks following Mohbad’s death, the internet swelled with grief and outrage. The young artistes’s passing unearthed different past grievances. Resurfaced clips of him expressing fear for his life, alleging mistreatment at the hands of Marlian Music affiliates, and a viral video of him looking battered after an altercation with law enforcement all combined to paint a grim picture of his final years.
Public fury turned toward Naira Marley, his former label boss, Sam Larry, a close associate and Zinoleesky, Mohbad’s one-time labelmate and Marlian’s record label’s signee, and accused of being complicit in the alleged harassment. The backlash was immediate and unforgiving. Calls for a boycott of Marlian Music turned into a near-industry-wide blacklisting
By all indications, it worked—at least on the surface. Marlian Music, once a dominant force in Street pop, became persona non grata. Zinoleesky, the label’s golden boy, saw his career stall as support for him evaporated. A planned U.S. tour was scrapped, and his name became a cautionary tale of collateral damage. When he released “Sakara” in November 2023, it barely made a dent.
In 2024, he has rolled out four singles—”Sunny Ade”, “Element”, “Abanikanda” and “Fuji Garbage”— but none of which have sparked the kind of widespread fervour that defined his earlier run. To be fair, “Abanikanda” trended briefly before fizzling out, but it never reclaimed the heights of his previous hits.
Naira Marley, the once-uncontested street pop conductor whose chaotic and memorable persona once made him a fixture in pop culture discourse also found himself locked out of mainstream conversations. And then towards the tail-end of 2024, in December, something shifted.
Despite the moral embargo placed on him, Naira Marley’s new song, “Pxy Grip”, started creeping into the algorithm’s good graces. The track, driven by a TikTok challenge, was picking up traction in ways that suggested cancellation might not be as definite as once thought. The numbers were moving, the song was seeping into playlists, and in pockets of the internet where outrage had subsided, people were vibing again.
On the 6th of February, a clip of Ayra Starr, the Mavin pop star dancing to “Pxy Grip” surfaced online, and the backlash was swift. For months, the dominant narrative had been that the public had collectively erased Naira Marley, and if anything, his song was not supposed to be endorsed—certainly not by an artiste of Ayra Starr’s standing. The disappointment came not just from the belief that she should have known better, but also from the fact that Pxy Grip contained lyrics that slut-shamed women—making her “endorsement” of the song even more jarring.
However, her moment of backlash online raised a collective realization: if Naira Marley was truly cancelled, why was his song gaining traction in the first place?
This is where the illusion of social media comes into play. Algorithms create a warped perception of reality, feeding us curated outrage and shaping our understanding of public sentiment in ways that are often misleading. The same feeds that convinced us most Nigerians had shut the door on Naira Marley are now revealing that was never the case. And that his exile was never unanimous, but rather, was just loud. And now, as his music finds its way back into circulation, the people who believed in the cancellation are realizing that social media does not dictate reality as much as it claims to.
In real life, things are different. I was at a party last week where people who would tweet about boycotting Marlian Music were effortlessly moving to Naira Marley’s “Pxy Grip”.
What this means, more than anything is that the supposed moral embargo online does not extend to nightlife, where the rules are dictated by rhythm. Ayra Starr might have been the easy scapegoat for the moment, but let’s be honest—she was never the real issue.
Some top influencers had already been dancing to the songs, and even Wizkid was seen vibing to the Zinoleesky and Naira Marley track “Abanikanda” last year without stirring outrage. The real issue, however, is our reluctance to admit that cancellation, especially in music, is rarely absolute.
Sadly, the internet moves fast, outrage cycles burn out, and when the dust settles, people go back to the music they enjoy. And that’s where the unease lies. The fact that his music Naira Marley’s music is creeping back into public spaces doesn’t erase the gravity of the questions that remain unanswered about Mohbad’s death.
Cancellation might be an illusion, but justice is not. As conversations shift and people move on, one truth remains: Mohbad’s death deserves accountability. And as the industry slowly forgets, we shouldn’t.
