For over a decade, Show Dem Camp have moved between activism, highlife romance, and hip-hop commentary. With Afrika Magik, the duo returns with a cinematic, Nollywood-inspired body of work that reframes African creativity as resilience, memory, and magic.
For the past 15 years, Nigerian rap duo Show Dem Camp have carved a niche for themselves as genre-bending mavericks. Since their debut mixtape, Clone Wars Vol 1, the rappers adherents — Wale Davies (Tec) and Olumide Ayeni (Ghost) — have stood out as conceptual artists, infusing their discography with relatable storytelling, sonic fusions, and genre-fluid collaborations.
Across their catalogue, the duo swerved from their activism-charged socio-political commentaries in the five-part Clone Wars Series (2010-2021), to their bohemian highlife-tributing love-and-life tales in the four-part Palmwine Music series (2017-2022), blending Hip Hop, Afrobeats, RnB, and tropical pop.
Following their joint record No Love in Lagos, with the highlife revivalists The Cavemen, last year, Show Dem Camp returned with yet another conceptual album, Afrika Magik, spinning the 17-tracker record as an ode to the movie industry that shaped their evolution: Nollywood, and to the Nigerian hustling spirit.
The duo venture deeper into their emo-RnB fusions with duets like Pressure (with Taves), You Get Me (with Tems), Spellbound (with Lusanda), Pele (with Winny), and Rise Again (with LULU), and Masterkey (with Mereba). They also return to their Naija Gbedu/Street Hop flows in Italawa, Normally (with Boj and Joey B), and Small Chops and Champers (with Ajebutter 22), while exploring House fusions in the Moonchild Sanelly-assisted Magik. Altogether, they reflect a vivid pan-African music experience in the album, mirroring diverse cultures within the harmonies that echo in each track.
Apart from their acclaim as award-winning Hip Hop juggernauts, they were also strategic in breaking out worldwide sensation Tems, who featured on their Palmwine Music 2 album, in 2019, after they discovered her a year earlier. Since then, Tec, has been backseated in her ascent as her manager, with Tems still heavily involved in SDC’s releases till date.
In today’s Guardian Music edition, we get up-close with Tec, who represents the duo in this tell-all, breaking down the lore behind Afrika Magik; their muses; collaborations; and other intricate details behind their moment in the sun as Africa’s fiercest rap duo.
What is the muse behind Afrika Magik?
It’s a couple metaphors for a few things, actually. Firstly, it’s a homage to Nollywood: to these amazing independent actors and filmmakers and directors that created a whole lane. But even in creating that lane, they created Africa Magic. They created this magic where Africans are consistently creating in spite of little or no infrastructure. There’s no support, but somehow we create magic, and by magic I mean the alchemy of our work, vision, talent, ideas, persistence, determination, resilience, all fused together to make something that didn’t exist before.
Whether as a music industry that has now gone to greater heights around the world, or as footballers that come from places with no facilities or football academies and make it to the world stage, or as athletes that do the same thing, there’s a magic that we take for granted, because we are just used to hustling. We call it hustling. We call it grinding. I feel it is a form of magic, because the odds are stacked against us.
With Palmwine Music, we wanted to do some sort of reverse engineering, where everybody has been telling us about Moet or Champagne, but we wanted to champion our own thing, palmwine, because it’s actually as cool as anything else. It’s just that we don’t see the value sometimes in our own thing. So it’s equally trying to show the value in these Nollywood stars and these household names that we grew up on and that actually shaped a lot of our lives and entertained us and taught us.
Sonically, it also feels like a shift.
I agree that it’s an evolution. When we first started, after moving back to Nigeria, we put out a project called The Dreamer, which was very eccentric in sound. There was Hip Hop, Jazz, Afrobeats. It was the pre-streaming era, so a lot of people didn’t get to hear it. It was our first thing. People didn’t even know who we were. And I think that with Palmwine, we found a sound; with Clone Wars, we leaned into Hip Hop to share our social commentary. We’re storytellers. Now, with Afrika Magik, we’re able to connect these worlds. We can be more musical. We can still have fun-filled songs. We can experiment with different sounds. And we did all that.
When did you guys start creating Afrika Magik?
It is an idea and a title that we’ve had for a long time. I would say the plan was that when we put out Palmwine Music Vol 1, we were meant to put this out as the next album. In Palmwine Music Vol 2, there is a song titled, Tales by Moonlight, and if you listen to it you would observe that it feels very much like Afrika Magik. That was the first song we recorded for this album. However, the anticipation for Palmwine Music 2 was so much that we decided to give the people what they wanted. It’s so funny how faith works, because this year we got more connected to Nollywood, not just as an observer, but as participants.
I released a film this year, My Father’s Shadow. And we started recording more songs for Afrika Magik, two years ago. After recording some tracks in Ghana, two years ago, we were considering making the project sound more African, more traditional. But, we then decided that Afrika Magik is more of a concept. Our influences are from so many places. We’ve grown up on American films, Indian movies, and Telenovelas. So, we wanted to focus on fusing all our influences together.
As renowned serial collaborators, what are some core requirements in choosing your features?
Sometimes, we reach out to the artists. Most of the time, because of the type of work we’ve already done, there’s already a mutual respect there. In some cases, some artists have actually reached out to us indicating interest in being on an SDC project. Right now, in the music industry, it’s kind of like a rite of passage to be on an SDC album.
More recently, it has actually become more about the people that we actually vibe with on a human level. We don’t beg anyone for a track, or chase for a feature. When we see someone and we vibe, the natural progression of that connection is to enter the studio and do something. So even recently, we have become really good friends with Joey B, an artist from Ghana, or Moonchild from South Africa. And just based on that, it felt natural for us to create something together. Most of these sessions for this particular album, we were in the studio together. It was a lot of intention.
Spax has produced a ton of SDC records, including Afrika Magik. Tell us about how that connection even arose?
I was introduced to Spax by Ladipoe. They were working together on some songs. And at that time, he had produced a song for Falz titled Marry Me, featuring Yemi Alade and Ladipoe. At that time, he was also working at TVC. So, Ladipoe actually took me to TVC, which was situated in Magodo at the time, and we met, although we did not hit it off immediately. He sent me some beats, and the beats were cool.
But where our relationship really took off was in my own studio, and he came around to record with us. We got talking and he reminded us of how we recorded ‘Feel Alright’ and that sound really defined our artistry. We were hunting for the next sound as at then, but he told us he wanted to produce some songs for us in that sound. And we recorded a couple of songs and even decided to do it as an EP. That was how Palmwine Music was born. Since then, Spax has given our careers a very clear direction, because we were hopping from producer to producer, trying to find a match, and he just synced on all levels with us.
What has been that middle ground that keeps you and Ghost working seamlessly together after all these years?
The first thing is simple: we’re genuinely friends. Beyond music, we’re fully involved in each other’s lives. If I use a year as an example, music might take up only about 30 percent of our shared time. The rest is just life. We hang out, we talk, we check in. Ghost plays basketball all the time; sometimes we link up just to chill. Our friendship is the foundation. And with real friendship comes trust. You can tell each other the truth without worrying about ego or malicious intent. You may not agree with the other person’s take, but you trust where it’s coming from. With new people you question motive. With someone you’ve known forever, that doubt isn’t there.
Musically, we’re aligned at the core, even though our tastes have evolved differently. Ghost is a Hip Hop guy through and through; 90 percent of what he listens to is Hip Hop. I used to be that way, but now maybe only 15 percent of what I listen to is Hip Hop. I love bands, jazz, funk, soul, folk, anything that resonates. For me, the Hip Hop I grew up on is still the gold standard. Jay-Z, Nas, Kendrick, J. Cole, Busta, Eminem, that era is still my home base.
Ghost, on the other hand, is very into new underground rappers. So we’re aligned in foundation, but we pull inspiration from different places. And because Ghost is such a great rapper, my own benchmark can’t drop. Not in a competitive way, but in a way that pushes me. If he’s delivering at a certain standard on a track, I have to step up and match it. He challenges me, and I challenge him too.
For example, when we did the project with The Cavemen, No Love in Lagos, that was me pushing him into more live instrumentation, something he might not naturally gravitate toward. But he trusted the direction and rose to it.
That’s why this partnership has lasted. If I send in a verse and it’s not strong, Ghost will tell me straight. And there have been rare times I’ve told him the same thing. Because we both know it’s not about ego; it’s about what’s best for the song. And with Spax involved now, there’s even more balance. If two of us can’t agree, he becomes the deciding vote. Many times it’s a three-way call and we settle everything there. At the end of the day, it’s trust, alignment, honesty, and the willingness to push each other that keep us going.
Finally, what would you say is the vision for SDC moving forward?
I think for us, it’s just really having fun with music, exploring new sounds, experimenting, pushing ourselves even more. I don’t want to put Volume One on it so that people won’t start asking me, “When is Volume Two coming?” But we want to. This first one is very much around love and the themes of love and romance and all of that. But there’s more Afrika Magik, which explores different themes in Nollywood. Whether it’s betrayal, success, money, family or whatever, there are different themes that we’re going to play with in this. So for me, we’re just excited. The legacy, I feel like it’s for others to decide. But if I were to say what I hope the legacy would be, it would be that these guys consistently gave us quality music, and they opened doors for the next generation of artists.
