BABA DEE:  I started indigenous rap in Nigeria

Dare Fasasi, popularly known as Baba Dee, is regarded as one of the pioneers of Afrobeats in Nigeria, with notable hits dating back to the mid-1990s. The Sweden-based Nigerian music veteran and brother of the late Sound Sultan speaks with ADENIYI ADEWOYIN about his concerns whenever he visits Nigeria, the state of the music industry, his brother’s passing, and other pressing issues. Excerpts…

What comes to mind whenever you want to come to Nigeria?

Well, for me, I’m excited. I always plan to come to Nigeria. You know, like for the past eight or so years that I relocated my people, I have been coming home consistently. It’s the highlight of my year to come back home, the excitement, the events I put up and my own things. But this last one is a different experience entirely, because, for some strange reason. So this time around, I’m greatly reconsidering my frequent visits to Nigeria, because it’s not the same. I must be honest with myself. I woke up today, and I was sending tweets. I made about five or six different ones, just from the way things are. You know, it’s very painful. It’s very painful from where we started to where we find ourselves. It’s almost like we lost something very important. So this is what it is right now: corruption has taken over everything. There’s nothing that is working normally. It’s very painful.

One would think that for someone like you, who is based abroad, you wouldn’t be affected by whatever is happening in Nigeria…

It took Anthony Joshua eight hours to get in an auto crash that killed two of his best friends. You know what that is? The point is that nobody is going to escape this thing; all that these people are doing, and the kind of life we’re living, is going to affect every other person, whether you like it or not. We found out that the Ministry of Works just this year, 2025, got one point N1.3 trillion for roads for, I mean, for their allocation. The roads are not fixed. I saw people over the holiday complaining they were stuck on Benin Ore, they were all complaining, and nothing is going to be done. And this same, next 2026, they are still going to give this ministry of work, another N2 billion, their accountability is lost. Everything is lost, and I don’t know how, if not for my neighbour’s mentality. Now, we can all be watching this, and we are all comfortable with it.

You came at a time where the December festivities are ongoing, there’s been controversies about the high prices of concert tickets this year, what’s your take on this issue?

We are the most adaptable people in the world. Even if you put that ticket at N1 billion, Nigerians will still buy. Somebody said our ticket prices are the most expensive in the world. You know, Nigerians, it still boils down to, I better pass my neighbour mentality. The moment you make things out of class, for some people, then some people think that, yes, this is where I should be, and, well, it reflects. The question is, were the shows not well attended? They were all well attended. They had crowds. People paid, obviously, to go there. So, it means that it’s affordable for them to go. When the music started, I told my people that if we don’t take time, thise Afrobeats will not benefit us. That’s exactly what is happening now. It’s not benefiting us.

When you say “us”, do you mean it’s not benefiting Nigeria as a nation?

Afrobeats is not benefiting Nigeria as a nation, apart from the image laundering. That makes people feel like, oh, yeah, I have to come to Nigeria. All your 10 biggest artists in Afrobeats all have their publishers seeded to foreign companies. So, how will they benefit Nigeria when publishing is the Goat in music?

Is this a result of a lack of investors in the sector?

We have publishing management companies, Coson, MCSN and their types, and they are supposed to be the one in terms of publishing administration and things like that, but these guys have gone to war with each other for over 20 years. These guys have fought each other to a standstill, so they can’t have a reciprocal agreement. So, now that MCSN is the only licensed CMO, that’s the Copyright Management Organization. Not all the members of Coson are getting paid. We have a lot of internal rebels within Nigeria, which is enough to just make things not work. Nigeria is like if everything works somewhere else, the moment that thing gets to Nigeria, it’s not working because there are people who are ready to pervert and corrupt that system. 100% there are people waiting to pervert and corrupt that system. So it’s a very dangerous situation.

Let me take you back to Detty December a bit, people are saying that the fun is gradually being taken away due to financial constraints like prices of tickets and access to fun places…

Society is not structured, but society forms in a way where people derive joy from being better than the next person. That is the kind of society that we have managed to find ourselves in. I live in Sweden. Sweden is a socialist country. I go to the same hospital as the Prime Minister, maybe because of what I’m exposed to. I’m more pained about Nigeria than most average people. I’m seeing a place where everybody is equal. They don’t give prime ministers in Sweden cars; they don’t give them drivers. You know what they give them? They give them like cowry cards, a monthly card that they can use to enter the bus and enter the train, free. That’s what they give. They give them a monthly allowance, not a car, not a driver. One of the administrators’ kids went to use the cowry card to enter the train. They caught him, and the man resigned publicly with tears that he had failed his country.

As a legend of the industry, did you see Afrobeats getting to this global point during your days?

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Beyond this point because Nigerian music is a child of destiny that was meant to explode, because the talent was there, and everything was there. And when you talk about black culture, generally, hip hop and everything, the source is here. They would always get to the source. By the time they explore all that is available derived from the source, they will always come and find this. So some of these Jamaicans now in Jamaica, they play Nigerian music everywhere because they resonate with something in them that they don’t even know. That is there with their DNA that they don’t know, you know. So the Afrobeats thing is going to even be bigger than this. But like we say, when it gets big, does it profit the people? Does it profit the nation? Does it get to the point that, okay, people are coming to Nigeria? Now, the global interest in Nigeria has increased. A lot of people want to come to Nigeria. So, that is one good part. When they come, what will happen? No Road, no light. I watched a video today.

Do you think we are fast losing interest in conscious music, probably because it’s not commercially viable?

How is it not commercially viable? When Blackface sang ‘Naija sang Hard Life,’ we all danced to it. It was commercially viable. What I’m telling you is that there is a pattern that has changed right now, that indecency and all those kinds of things become the order of the day.

There’s an argument about how some artists are being regarded as legends. In your opinion, what defines a legend?

Most of these guys are ‘former popular guys’, they are not legends. Someone has just one hit, and you automatically call him a legend. A legend, at least you would have run for a decade. That we can confirm that from this point to that point, these guys were consistent, and they held it up for them, then you can say this guy is a legend and then if you have contributed to the industry too. Apart from running the industry, you put up some things, and you look like, you say, okay, this person was the first to do this. And we knew the transition from where we got to you can trace this to this person. So that’s why I think, instead of just calling everybody a legend. Somebody who had a one-hit has become a legend,

You were one of those who actually introduced top quality videos with white dancers. What actually prompted you to do that?

It’s not just the quality of the video and this thing has been going on. And I want to challenge anybody who has more. I am the first in Nigeria to introduce the local dialect – Yoruba to a foreign beat and make it rhyme and put it out as Afrobeat or Afro song.

So, I will put it down, I will say that this is the foundation of Remedies, before Trybesmen. All those guys I have known, and they know me, and they’ve known the story before anything comes in. So even when they hide, they can’t acknowledge or some of them will come and distort the story. The ones that met the scene after 10 years, and they come and tell us a story of how it started, even when they didn’t know how it started, they just jumped into the thing at half and start telling us a story that he was in London then, when Afrobeats was already popping in Nigeria, before they started hearing it in London. There’s one guy in London called AY, so that guy too did some things, but I’ve done it first before him.

Amazingly, you happen to be the elder brother of the late Nigerian music legend, Sound Sultan. How would you say you influenced his art?

He has said his own when he was alive, he’s a great guy, and we still miss him. Maybe the question could be what his own influence on my own career is, because since he’s gone, I have lost interest in the whole thing.

What’s making you lose interest?

I don’t know, but I have lost a lot of interest because of his own factor too. If he was alive he would probably be here, we will probably have other places and thing that we will do together. The first year that he died was when I knew that things were different. When I come into Nigeria, he would be waiting for me, so it’s straight from the airport. Things can’t be the same forever, but maybe I will find it again, maybe one day I will feel like to go and recording, although I’ve been recording, but it’s different.

How are you coping with Sound Sultan’s death?

It’s a daily thing; you don’t cope, you deal with it. People won’t understand, and I don’t expect them to, until it happens to them.

Do you think the industry is doing enough to keep his legacy alive?

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We are trying. I was reading a philosopher who said, “at a point, the last person who remembers you will die.” Maybe not for an artist because that’s why we say the works we do live forever. But the last person who knows you exist will die. That’s why I’m saying that within the time that we are here, we make the best out of it and leave our legacy. Now there are things like YouTube where people can go and watch you and that’s the path that we want to preserve that legacy as far as we can put that together so when it gets to a point and you say let me check Nigerian music then you know that there was a Sound Sultan that lived during this period and this is what his legacy stood for.

People always point out that his song ‘Area’ was directed at you. Can you clarify that?

Everybody said so, but between him and me, he told me that the song wasn’t for me, and he told me who the song was about. He explained, and I could see the reason. The song was a true-life event; if I go deep, some people will know.

Did you ever think that it was about you in the first place?

I was shooting a video for him though it never came out but he told me about the song while shooting the video.