
Photo illustration by Dami Mojid / THE REPUBLIC. Ref: JERIQTHEHUSSLA / IG.
THE MINISTRY OF ARTS / MUSIC DEPT.
Jeriq’s Onitsha Gospel

Photo illustration by Dami Mojid / THE REPUBLIC. Ref: JERIQTHEHUSSLA / IG.
THE MINISTRY OF ARTS / MUSIC DEPT.
Jeriq’s Onitsha Gospel
At the heart of 25-year-old Jeremiah ‘Jeriq’ Chukwuebuka Ani’s music is his childhood in the city of Onitsha, Anambra State. Jeriq’s early music is laced with sketches of a community perpetually struggling to not be suffocated by its own penury. In a conversation with TheCable, he narrates how his childhood self had to resort to the most creative menial jobs, barely a step above roadside begging, to survive; jobs such as pulling vehicles out of the mud for a paltry fee and informal carwashes. ‘And I do not regret these things. They made me tough and prepared [sic] for the person I was to become.’
This is what makes the Jeriq brand appealing to the average Nigerian and Igbo youth; the channelling of street survival into something transcendent. Hustle culture, as imparted to the young Jeriq on the streets of Onitsha—that drive to work as hard as you can, pushing yourself for the sake of your goals—was more than a desperate scramble for basic survival. It became a conduit for ambition, gifting him with purpose. This is the place Jeriq sings from. As he says in ‘Back to Basics’: ‘The poverty in my village motivated me to rap.’
THE MAKINGS OF A KING
When we first meet Jeriq, 21 years old in his 2020 single, ‘No More Nleka’, featuring fellow Onitsha rapper, Zoro, it is Onitsha trap at its finest. Before the Jeriq wave, Igbo trap still felt alien, even though it wasn’t exactly new. The year before in 2019, Nuno Zigi, another Onitsha rapper, had explored Igbo drill with ‘8th Mood’, a fusion of minimalistic EDM and a lyrical flow, delivered chiefly in Igbo, inspired by contemporary American trap, a subgenre of rap and hip-hop. However, what stands out in Jeriq’s ‘No More Nleka’, and what would soon push the genre of Igbo trap into the Nigerian mainstream, is the freshness of perspective. Where trap rap verses are typically platforms for braggadocio, Jeriq is trying to inspire his audience with his triumph over poverty and ‘see-finish’. Jeriq raps about resilience and keeping to due process in the search for wealth—‘Ibute ike adilo easy odi easy obulo ife umu aka / Ebe msi bia adilo emelu conductor transfer’.
Nuno’s experimentation with Igbo trap had largely kept to the general hip-hop tradition. Wordplay and wit were prioritized and the themes revolved around asserting superiority and dominance to materialistic showing off. In ‘No More Nleka’, we simply watch two artists find the heart of their audience, weaving the spirits of their kinsmen into a historically self-obsessed genre of music. Allusion, rather than wordplay, is Jeriq’s literary device of choice for this song. The message being delivered of utmost importance; timely to his Gen Z audience who were largely disillusioned by the tasks they had been saddled with—the demands of responsibility to build wealth from nothing.
Jeriq’s hustle commentary carries into more songs, crystallizing into an EP in that same year—Hood Boy Dreams (2020). On this project, named as a general reference to the aspirations of young men in his demographic, Jeriq reflects on his success as a musician, dropping reams of business advice using axioms, cautioning in ‘Oh Lord’, the second single in the EP: ‘Never hate on your brother the hustle bu against owu’. Shortly after the release of Hood Boy Dreams, the first of fan-run ‘Jeriq quotes’ handles began to pop up on Instagram. Fan pages are one thing, but a devoted quotes page means that your fans think you have so much substance, your words have to be transcribed and routinely revisited.
As Jeriq’s discography grew, so did his fan base. He had the perfect message and a down-to-earth personality to match. It is worth noting how his persona has played a role in his rise. Rappers are usually perceived as aloof and extravagant, living the pipe dreams of the masses. Jeriq, on the other hand, has the air of someone familiar and recognizable—like a secondary school classmate who has overcome poverty and become a superstar. His sound is accompanied with the sort of voice you might hear calling after you in Upper Iweka, the commercial centre of Onitsha city; deep and gritty, while still tonally optimistic. The voice of someone used to overcoming adversity. The themes Jeriq rapped about, his accessibility and involvement in public issues such as the #EndSARS protests, his role in building other trap rappers (like Quincy, Apete and Rord Kelly) by platforming them, his choice to continue living in the place he grew up in, all these contributed to creating a persona of relatability.
shop the republic
-
₦70,000.00 – ₦75,000.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
-
₦70,000.00 – ₦75,000.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
-
₦140,000.00 – ₦150,000.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
shop the republic
-
₦70,000.00 – ₦75,000.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
Jeriq seemed, to his core audience, a sort of messiah. He had the luxury cars and women and everything else rappers wrote about, but he wasn’t here to wave them in your face. He was going to show the people that followed him and listened to his music how he made it and, consequently, how they could as well. This brand has been so perfected that even his music videos that feature the standard rap fanfare inspire hope rather than resentment. Setting out to entrench himself in the industry, he consistently released projects every year for the next four years, delivering killer verses on a host of features, from Ajebo Hustlers to Zlatan, most times completely in Igbo.
Billion Dollar Dreams, his debut album, rose to the top of the Apple Music Albums Nigeria chart shortly after its 2022 release. It was also nominated for a Headies Best Rap Album award the next year. Billion Dollar Dreams is a more musically tasteful body of work in comparison to what came before. Jeriq’s rap cadence has acquired a harmony with the musical production, the verses more structurally sound. This project signposted the rapper’s attainment of his original goal of financial security, and his movement onto grander schemes—billion-dollar schemes. While talking about the album with Afrocritik, he comments,
On one of those days when I had just cashed out, I bought myself a new car. I bought for my mother, too. And while driving home, I realized that I have achieved my hood boy dreams. And if those were the only dreams I have, then there was nothing to work for any longer. But the passion was still there. The drive is stronger than ever. So I knew I was back to the drawing board.
Jeriq can be credited as a major pioneer of the Igbo trap subgenre as his success put the sound in mainstream consciousness where, before then, it had been a niche rave among street boys and hip-hop fanatics in the South East. Rord Kelly, Aguero Banks, Hugo P and other trap rappers currently in the spotlight made their debut LP projects after 2020 and the success of Hood Boy Dreams. They have collaborated multiple times with Jeriq as well.
shop the republic
-
₦20,000.00 – ₦60,000.00Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
THE MAN KING JERIQ
In his most recent album King, released in 2024, Jeriq emerges with the crown on his head. Part of the album’s promotion included a video, narrated by Pete Edochie, where the artist is coronated by Phyno. Phyno, the older artist, has enjoyed the top spot in Igbo hip-hop for over a decade since his debut album, No Guts No Glory. Jeriq’s coronation and, indeed, the album signify a new era in Igbo hip-hop. In King, Jeriq opens up his sound to new influences, from Afrobeats and the original Western and American interpretations of hip-hop, while remaining distinctly trap, as his Igbo identity takes centre stage in the album’s cover design. Jeriq’s choices of collaborations also point to the rapper’s repackaging for a wider audience, with entries from different ends of the Nigerian mainstream; Victony, Odumodublvck, Ajebo Hustlers and the London grime rapper, Knucks.
King is also the album with the highest level of English content in Jeriq’s discography. In it, he transcends his role of preacher to the streets’ masses and steps into the shoes of a prophet—both by example and by declaration. He reveals, through his life and its successes, that there truly is a pinnacle to the journey. Because he has gotten to it. In the titular track of the album, Jeriq defines the evidence of this pinnacle: an irreversible detachment from the quality of life he had grown up in. ‘Living dirty in the ghetto bu zi past … I took my family out of the trenches / A bu m a king’. Again, a prophet by declaration. An unfolding of even higher skies to reach for and to surpass; it is not in the spirit of an Igbo man to rest on his laurels. To do so would mean the beginning of a slide backwards, into irrelevance, as nothing in life stays static. Jeriq shares his latest dreams in ‘Way’, featuring the Port Hacourt duo, Ajebo Hustlers: ‘Global domination is the mission’.
In November and December of 2024, Jeriq went on to headline two stadium concerts in Onitsha, his hometown, and Enugu, where he currently resides. Partygoers emerging from the 22,000-capacity Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium in Enugu described the energy as terribly euphoric. Jeriqhood 2024 is the only rap concert to fill up a stadium in the South East last year, and the first in Nigeria to sell out two stadiums in less than a month. On his official social media handles, the artist highlighted the successes of his concerts as a dream come true for him. Uche P. Okoye, media influencer and and the artist’s public relations manager, decodes how Jeriq got so big in so little time—in just four years—in a virtual interview for this story. He told me:
Jeriq embodies a character that allows growth. He acknowledges where he is in the scheme of things and what he needs to get to the next phase. He has also integrated the igba-boi philosophy into his music career, supporting upcoming talents in the region and giving back to the community that raised him [through charity]. He lives in Enugwu city when he could easily afford to relocate to Abuja or Lagos as many other artists on his level do.
Jeriq’s influence among the youths of Igboland is maximized in other business-wise directions as well. True to the entrepreneurial spirit often ascribed to the Igbos, the independent rapper owns a clothing brand, Iyoo Cartel, that doubles as a merch and luxury wear line—clothes befitting the ‘hood boys’ who make it to the pinnacle. Jeriq is a patron saint for hustlers. Last August, he was signed on as brand ambassador for the Kedu app, which is run by the pro-Igbo media platform, Voice of the East. Kedu is a social media platform meant to connect Igbo people across the country and in the diaspora under one large umbrella of cultural consciousness. Commenting on the signing with me in a physical interview, Lotanna Mojike, managing director at Voice of the East Media, asserted that Jeriq’s massive popularity among the youths of the south-eastern region had been one of the deciding factors for them. ‘He has an army of followers online and offline … you can find people repping Iyoo Cartel in nearly every street in the South East,’ Mojike said.
shop the republic
-
‘Homecoming’ Print by Shalom Ojo
₦70,000.00 – ₦75,000.00 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
‘Kongi’s Harvest’ Print by Diana Ejaita.
₦70,000.00 – ₦75,000.00 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
‘Welcome to Venice’ Print by Sarah N. Kanu.
₦140,000.00 – ₦150,000.00 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page -
‘Women Are Different’ Print by Diana Ejaita
₦70,000.00 – ₦75,000.00 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page
shop the republic
THE THINGS THAT PROP UP A KING
Onitsha has been described as the commercial capital of Igboland; its markets rival the ones in Aba for the tag of the biggest market in the south-eastern region. What is truly remarkable is that the city has grown itself completely unassisted, rising to its current pedestal from the ashes of the war in the 1970s. The city, which straddles the Niger River and separates core Igboland from the rest of the country, was a major battlefield during the Nigeria–Biafra war; little more than rubble remained of the city at the end of it. Yet, with little to no federal government aid, the city rebuilt itself—slowly, steadily, re-emerging as a beacon of business and industry. Such is the spirit of Onitsha. And such is its gospel. That to be born into the lowest of classes can be a launchpad, not a disadvantage. That to exist isolated from institutional assistance and government poverty alleviation schemes does not translate to perpetual economic disability. It only urges a people to look within themselves for brighter solutions.
To drive through the busier parts of Onitsha city today is to inhale the vigour and pace of the place. Onitsha is always moving at break-neck speed. It is much like Lagos in this way, the rush of both cities laced with stubborn hope. These are the ‘streets’ Jeriq grew up in. The sort of streets where the young man who sells you cold ‘mineral’ from a scratched green bowl under the midday sun also wears his clothes in style—gold chain and designer trousers. The phone repair lady calls herself an ‘engineer’ and will pause her soldering long enough to explain international political antics like the topic is a dissertation.
The Onitsha gospel, in its broader sense, is really the Igbo creed: Nwoke o bula, naani ya na-ahu maka iwuli aku nke ya—every man is responsible for building up his wealth and dignity, usually from the ground up. It would appear that Onitsha as a collective has been one of the most successful centres in applying this creed. This is a millennium where the core tenets of Igbo norms and ways of life have become obscured in favour of a global identity that offers little hope for the sort of emancipation the average Igbo person seeks; there is a yawning want and all the wrong tools in hand to address it. This is why Jeriq is so relatable to the Igbo society and the young people that make up his fanbase. His music crystalizes and documents the Igbo creed. It acts as a reminder that there actually is an established path to success. Trap and rap music are languages of resistance; the languages of victory over adversity. By choosing to make the music he does, Jeriq may be the most prolific preacher to the Igbos in this decade⎈
BUY THE MAGAZINE AND/OR THE COVER
-
The Republic V8, N4 Reimagining Nigerian Heritage
₦12,000.00 Buy Now -
‘Homecoming’ Print by Shalom Ojo
₦70,000.00 – ₦75,000.00 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page