“cr azy white men” 233hit song “Ayoba,” featuring the South African Kwaito legend, Mandoza,
he won his most prestigious award thus far, the Channel O Music Video
award in the category Best Kwaito (2012). Referring to his music also in
terms of a political project, EES believes he has a “responsibility to ‘do
something good’ to help his country become ‘a rainbow nation, living
together in one country, no matter what the skin colour.’”^4
W hite Nigerian, whose real name is Mohammed Jammal, is a Nige-
rian with Levantine roots. Born in Jos, Nigeria, in 1988, he grew up in a
Hausa-speaking environment—a language he has mastered like a native
speaker. He is equally fluent in pidgin English, Nigeria’s everyday lingua
franca. In 2010, while still studying in London to obtain a master’s de-
gree in global management, he was discovered on YouTube by Nigerian
stand-up comedian AY, who invited him to perform on his live London
show. On his return to Nigeria in 2011, W hite Nigerian gradually made a
name for himself as a comedian and also joined the Nigerian house and
hip-hop music scene. His song “Taka Rawa” (Let’s dance) gained some
recognition as supposedly “one of Nigeria’s best club songs of 2011” (Alhas-
san 2012). Since then, he has collaborated with other Nigerian artists and
produced several more songs. From 2012 to 2013, he joined the National
Youth Service Corps (nysc)—a one-year civil service program that is
compulsory for every Nigerian citizen after graduation from college. Serv-
ing as a teacher in a local government area near Abuja, he explained: “I’m
white. I’m Nigerian. I’m corper NS/12C/09X X and I’m proud to be serving
my country.”^5
(UN)DOING DIFFERENCEFootage from W hite Nigerian’s first public guest appearance on stage—
du r i ng “AY L ive i n L ondon” 2 010, i n f ront of a n aud ience of 5,000 —show s
an African crowd cheering and applauding in face of the conflation of
categories brought about by his performance. A YouTube viewer calling
himself Edy M, whose background is most likely Nigerian, comments on
W hite Nigerian’s second clip, London or Naija, in which W hite Nigerian
talks in Nigerian pidgin English about his strange experiences in Lon-
don. The viewer expresses his feelings as follows: “I have watched this