Preserving Home in Song: Dinachi Onuzo’s Ode to Nigerian Childhood

For Dinachi Onuzo, a Nigerian-born, London-based artist and songwriter, the answer to her deepest nostalgia came in music.

Living abroad, she found herself longing for the cultural embrace that shaped her childhood, the afternoons playing with neighbourhood children, the laughter echoing through Lagos. She felt a tender ache, knowing her children, growing up in London, might miss that experience.

She chose to wrap those treasured memories in melody, offering them as a gift to Nigerian children everywhere, scattered across the world and distanced from the daily pulse of Nigerian culture.

Nigerians thrive across continents, yet mass emigration and the homogenising effect of globalisation can cause something deeply personal to fade: our languages.

Preserving our heritage has become urgent work, and this mission is central to Dinachi’s latest project, ‘Wura The Prologue’ (Wura is the Yoruba word for gold). “Our culture, heritage, and language are gold; they’re treasures and we must preserve them, remember them, and share them,” says Dinachi.

‘Wura The Prologue’ is a melodic archive; an ode to Nigerian childhood, motherhood, and language. As a daughter of both Yoruba and Igbo parents, Dinachi sings in the tongues of her lineage, her voice soft yet resolute. The project serves as an invocation: to her peers, a whisper that says, "Come, let us remember the tenderness of our childhood," and to her children, "Come, let me walk you through the hallways of Nigerian memory."

Dinachi manages to achieve several things at once: she celebrates motherhood and nostalgia, honours Nigerian childhood and its vibrancy, and uplifts the beauty of our culture and languages.

The opening track, ‘Akwuko Na Ato Uto,’ pairs her gentle voice with the emotive flow of acoustic guitar, creating a journey through Igbo childhood. It revives a familiar nursery song about the sweetness of learning, which then flows into the Yoruba folk tune, ‘Bata Re A Dun Koko Ka.’ This instantly transports listeners to the playgrounds and schoolyards of 1990s Nigeria.

The second track, ‘Iya Ni Wura,’ celebrates motherhood. Here, Dinachi’s voice, cradled in piano harmonies, evokes emotions that inspire deep maternal feeling. Then comes ‘Omo Moni Kelede,’ a Benin lullaby delivered with an upbeat, highlife-tinged rhythm, complete with shimmering drums and electric guitars reminiscent of the warm early-'90s.

In ‘Omode Meta Sere,’ Dinachi paints a vivid scene: three children playing Ayo on a dusty street after school. The song mashes up the scene with the nursery rhyme ‘Rain Rain Go Away,’ using background laughter to carry a palpable nostalgia.

The album closes with ‘Onye Mere,’ a soothing call-and-response lullaby that asks, "Who is making this child cry?" a question that feels both maternal and communal. The comforting sound of children singing vibrantly in this song triggers a longing for the community and simplicity of Nigerian childhood

Throughout ‘Wura The Prologue,’ Dinachi’s focus was less on adhering to strict genre rules and more on crafting soundscapes that felt authentic. “Style is interesting to me because we evolve as we go along,” she reflects.

Working closely with her Italian producer, Vincenzo Capodivento, she sought to create sounds that were both unique to her and true to the story each song needed to tell. “For me, what was most important was authenticity,” she says. “Each song had its own truth, and I tried to give it what it needed.”

As a guitarist and a piano lover, Dinachi naturally leans toward acoustic textures but prioritises emotion over formality.

Her goal was not to create music that required long hours of interpretation on score sheets, but songs that invite participation, the kind of tunes children can sing on playgrounds, tapping rhythm on classroom desks with pens, or humming under the moonlight during tales by moonlight. The focus was on music that felt percussive and free.

Blending Yoruba, Igbo, and touches of Benin, ‘Wura The Prologue’ reconnects listeners to the mosaic of Nigerian identity. “For so long, it’s felt as though our languages are lesser than others, and they’re not,” Dinachi notes. “Our languages are just as valid and beautiful as any other. We should be proud of our heritage; it’s a treasure worth sharing.”

With ‘Wura The Prologue,’ Dinachi does exactly that, wrapping Nigerian culture in melody and serving it with warmth, nostalgia, and reverence. It is a sonic keepsake ready to be shared with the world.