In late October 2022, a convoy carrying the famous Omega Fire Ministries pastor, Apostle Johnson Suleman, was attacked. The pastor had just returned from a trip to Tanzania and was driving on the Benin Auchi Road, Edo State, when gunmen opened fire on his car. A spokesperson for the pastor said that three police officers who were part of the pastor’s convoy had been killed.
On social media, where Suleman had cultivated a controversial personality for his brand of miracles — including telling the story of a spiritual son who disappeared from Germany to France — critics demanded that the Apostle should have saved the police officers with his powers. After news broke that the pastor had stepped out of the incident unscathed because he was in a bulletproof car, the backlash against him intensified.
Tucked away about 441 kilometres from the scene of the incident, in a stuffy music studio in the Zanga, the musician, Portable, who had only just catapulted into fame a few months ago after the rapper, Olamide, and hypeman Poco Lee featured in his song, “ZaZoo Zehh,” was hard at work. Weeks later, he released “Apostle,” a diss track about Apostle Suleman where he sings, “Pastor no wan go heaven / Commot your eye for church money. Na pastor get am… security wey dey guide pastor dem no get bulletproof car.”
The song immediately cemented his status from a one-hit wonder into a musician that the Nigerian elite, who had laughed at him, would now laugh with.
By January, he delivered what can best be described as a wicked live performance of “Apostle” on Echo Room, a show where many musicians perform with a live band. The song eventually found a home in his debut album Ika of Africa.
Now a tried and true strategy, after his arrest in 2023, which was widely publicised, he released a song, “Am Not A Prisoner” about the incident. When he went to war on Instagram with the Snapchat personality Bobrisky, after days of back and forth, he teased the diss track “Brotherhood,” where he ridiculed Bobrisky, who is a transwoman. Fans so anticipated the song that it became a trend on TikTok days before he released it. After the Headies, the longest-running Nigerian music award, disqualified him that same year, he released the song “Bigger Than The Headies.”
Last week, in less than 36 hours after veteran Fuji musician Wasiu “KWAM1” Ayinde was banned from flying, following an altercation with a pilot at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, Portable dropped the teaser for a song called “Plane Stopper,” about the incident. He turned the heated national controversy into a creative narration of how KWAM1 tried to single-handedly stop a plane.
That’s the Portable way: stay current and quick, stay loud and make sure your name is attached to the day’s biggest conversation.
Of course, Portable isn’t the first Nigerian musician to reference real-time events in their songs. Fela Kuti built a career out of responding to political unrest. Classics like “Zombie” and “International Tiff Tiff (ITT),” are shiny examples of this from the Afrobeat godfather.
Acts that came later in the early aughts, like African China and Eedris Abdulkareem, also mirrored the headlines of their day. But while the African Chinas and the Felas built a legacy that immortalised their catalogue in history, the very virality that has constantly put Portable in the public’s eye is what seeks to tarnish any chance he has at being a legend.
You see, Portable’s spin is different. With his songs, he doesn’t just aim to offer sharp, carefully crafted social commentaries. A champion of the Instagram Live call-out tournament, his strategy underscores how he has gamified virality itself in a new era of algorithms. One may even call it SEO for music.
He has turned speed and topicality into a tactical music release strategy, turning new moments around release timing and song titles.
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Public perceptions about him are split right down the middle. On one hand, the elite, the ones who began to laugh with him after the release of “Apostle,” have never considered him the voice of their generation.
“I used to think Portable’s lack of mainstream acceptance of his records was due to his lack of conventionally appealing production. But after listening to him and Tunez on banger, I admit I was wrong,” the music critic Joey Akan said. “Portable’s ability was not designed for pop culture. It’s for Egbeda culture.”
On the other hand, fans of his call out respect him and his work rate, steadily releasing songs that speak to the moment. “I’m no fan of Portable, but you have to respect the dude’s work rate. I think he should be styled as the ‘emergency musician,’” the lawyer who goes by Ogundipe posted on X last week.
Whether this can translate into a long-term legacy is the big question. The culture consultant and author of the book, E File Fun Burna, Jide Taiwo tries to answer this.
“Portable isn’t necessarily concerned with legacy,” he said. “He moves like someone who can only cares for the moment, from his antics to his continuous insistence on getting paid. He appears to think of his music career as expendable. In that sense, he won’t build a legacy.”
But Taiwo cautions that this doesn’t mean Portable will have no legacy whatsoever when music historians document this moment in Nigerian music. “His legacy might be for his counter-culture status, not for the music.”
When I asked him what he thinks about the kind of commentary Portable is making about Apostle Suleman and KWAM1, and the type that Fela made in his time, Taiwo interjected, “Certainly no, the fuck not! Portable doesn’t appear to have an ideological agenda to his commentary.” He concluded that, “at best, Portable is a commentator. But for him to be seen as a social crusader, he will need more than social media-based antics.”
In the meantime, however, Portable’s approach has won him an international collaboration with music stars like Skepta, who recognised his talent and featured him on his song “Tony Montana.” Portable even announced that he has received his royalties from the song.
This is what Portable has figured out: how to turn chaos into currency. He’s surfing the wave, shaping it, and occasionally starting it. In an age where artists are told to “find their niche,” Portable’s niche is the now.
When he famously declared, “I have more hit songs than Burna Boy,” it wasn’t just clout-chasing. It was him telling us how he measures success, not in awards or critical acclaim, but in the frequency and stickiness of his bangers.
He’s the soundtrack to today’s headlines and tomorrow’s memes, and if you blink, you might miss the drop. But don’t worry, there’ll be another one by the time you refresh your feed.
