N!Y!

There is something about Nigerian fashion from the early 2000s that I find particularly beautiful. I don't even know if individualistic is the right word to describe it. Take Jim Iyke, for example. His fashion was heavily influenced by American culture, particularly hip-hop and R&B, but somehow, he never looked like he was simply trying to be American. He had taken those influences and made them his own. You will also see the same thing when you watch those old Nollywood campus movies. Look at how the ladies dressed, their hairstyles, jeans, tops, accessories, handbags and footwear. You could tell they were influenced by Western fashion, but there was something distinctly Nigerian about the way they put everything together. We found a way to interpret Western fashion through our own environment and cultural identity. We borrowed ideas, experimented with them and developed an aesthetic that was ours. I think this is one of the reasons the ALTE folks still go back to the early 2000s for inspiration. There's something about that period that feels so authentic. You can recognise the American influence, but the final expression has its own Nigerian identity. And it wasn't just fashion. You could hear it in the music too. Listen to P-Square, 2Face and several other artists from that generation. You could hear the influence of American R&B, hip-hop and pop music, but the sounds, melodies, lyrics, presentation and overall identity were distinctly ours. I genuinely miss that period of Nigerian pop culture. We were absorbing influences from outside and finding interesting ways to make them our own. There was a certain creativity in how we interpreted things, and I think that's what made that era so special.