Singer’s passion and struggle to make the right music is an “Organised Chaos”

“Remember that year, when they been blacklist us”Brymo muses, midway through his set, after he just performed ‘Good morning’, a song that is part of his Chocolate City discography. This of course is true. While Brymo likes to project the image of a happy man who is enjoying the best of his artistic and musical brilliance by winging it his own way, underneath the veneer of creativity are scars from his many battles fought against Chocolate City and a system that is rigged against his kind.

Brymo keeps his 60-minute show under deceptively tight control, throwing in songs from all of his five albums, hitting various dance moves while at it, while taking a casual stroll through the inner workings of his mind. Unknown to many, even to the people who screamed the loudest at the concert which held at Lagos’ Freedom Park, this man has an amazing amount of hits – from ‘Good morning’, to ‘1 Pound’, ‘Eko’, ‘Down’ and more. He just doesn’t get enough mainstream acknowledgement or wear his underground celebrity.

“Eko, No let me go, Eko, Your love e sweet me so, Eko, Love you, never let you go, Eko, Tell Titilope I know Lagos…” He sings, touching a subject that resonated with the dancing crowd. He and all of the people who are in his concert, have had to fight through thick and thin to make a life of themselves in Lagos.

This is Brymo’s second concert since he released “”, his fifth studio album, and fourth since his rift with Chocolate City, which pushed him out of the ‘pop mainstream’ genre, and into the ‘alternative music’ artiste golden circle. This shift has not always been made comfortable for him: In interviews, he has become increasingly vocal about his battles with Chocolate City, and all the scars that he bears from court cases, and legal wrangling. At some point, he embraced despair, using it a fuel to record “Merchants, Dealers, & Slaves”. According to critics, that album is still his best work to date. These days, he is all about his music, and maximising every deal that brings him closer to the people, while generating value for his art.

But on stage, which he has always insisted that it is where he feels happiest, everything falls away. There are no bogeymen threatening to end his career or side-line him. No men with suitcases and ties filing papers and extracting information, time and money from him. This is all Brymo. While running through his set which contained his favorite tracks. He has achieved what few have done before him via an insistence to provide a certain quality of music that goes against the popular.

Brymo is a special talent, the type that comes through once in every generation. He has the ability to choose what part of the industry he caters to, and he has made his choice. That choice was what led to the “Organised Chaos” event, where fans connected on a personal level, and new admirers were gained. Brymo’s story is still unfolding and each new project brings a new attraction to his talent.

It will be interesting to see how long Brymo keeps this up, and many of his fans are rooting that this goes on for life: affecting the system in his own artistic way, while fending off normalcy and the external pressure to do pop music.

Going by how long he has stuck to his guns and provided a mentally elite level of entertainment, there’s just so much more he is willing to do and achieve. He has already outgrown most of the bad predictions that people have had on his career, and moved on to a consistent level. At “Organised Chaos” concert, he shows us that he isn’t one to battle for survival. He is thriving on his own terms. Long may that continue.