🥤How Nigerians approach news and public conversations

👋Good afternoon! Today, we spoke with photographer and visual storyteller Folajimi Emmanuel Ayofolarin, whose work documents centuries-old Yoruba architecture across southwestern Nigeria.

Meanwhile, The Peel looks at how quickly we consume information without stopping to ask what the numbers, headlines, and claims actually tell us, using the recent conversation around Davido’s chart position as a starting point. If you’ve ever wondered how music charts arrive at their numbers, you’ll want to read this one.

Let’s get into it!

In this edition: Inside our conversation with a photographer and visual storyteller, this week’s cultural moments, New Music Friday, and more.

If you’re enjoying this, don’t forget to subscribe and join The Juice community. We’re building this together ♡.

🗞️ THIS WEEK IN CULTURE

🎵MUSIC

The NFL has announced that Burna Boy will return to the Stade de France as the halftime performer for the first regular-season game in France on October 25. The Pittsburgh Steelers will face the New Orleans Saints, with Burna Boy performing during the game.

His return comes after his 2025 milestone as the first African artist to headline the stadium, putting African talent at the center of another major international sporting event. The world is about to enjoy another Burna Boy performance. And yes, we’re already looking forward to it!

⭐ AWARD

Nigerian artists took home a wide range of honours at the 2026 AFRIMMA Awards in Dallas. Tems won Best Female West Africa, Ruger took Best Male West Africa, Davido’s 5ive won Album of the Year, while BNXN and Sarz took Song of the Year for Back Outside. Phyno, Fola, DJ Tunez, Patoranking, Mercy Chinwo, Director Pink and others also won.

The wins spread across rap, gospel, DJing, production and music video direction. There was room for everybody at this table. We’re excited to see AFRIMMA back in the business of celebrating African music and culture after a two-year break.

📽️ FILM

Akinola Davies Jr.’s My Father’s Shadow arrives on Netflix Africa on September 21, extending the film’s journey from Cannes to Nigerian cinemas and international audiences. Check out the trailer.

Set during Nigeria’s 1993 election crisis, the film follows two brothers who unexpectedly spend a day with their estranged father. With five AMVCA wins, including Best Movie and Best Director, it has already made a pretty good case for itself. We’re curious to see how Nigerians receive it given our tastes, but we’re here for it!

🎬 ENTERTAINMENT

Apple TV is expanding its reach to 59 additional countries, taking the streaming service to 170 markets globally. Kenya is among the new territories, alongside Nigeria, Tanzania and Rwanda, giving audiences in these markets access to Apple’s original films, series and other content for the first time.

Watching Apple shows just got more accessible. We can’t wait to check out Silo, Slow Horses, Severance and, of course, Ted Lasso. And with iCloud prices doing what they’re doing, we’ll happily take this particular win because Apple TV now comes at no additional cost for iCloud+ users.

⚡TRENDING

The Federal Government plans to gradually phase out electricity subsidies from 2027 as part of efforts to address the power sector’s growing debts and create a more sustainable funding structure. Power Minister Joseph Tegbe has said the plan does not currently include an immediate increase in electricity tariffs, while the government works on measures to protect vulnerable consumers.

The change carries weight because electricity subsidies affect what consumers pay for one of Nigeria’s most essential services. We are worried about the effect this would have on Nigerian households. 

SPONSORED AD

Already trading Forex, or thinking about starting? FXTM gives you access to some of the world's most traded currency pairs, with competitive trading conditions. New users get a 100% Welcome Bonus with the code FXTM500.

MAIN SQUEEZE

Folajimi documented 600 years of Yoruba architecture

What can travelling teach you that a classroom cannot? For photographer and visual storyteller Folajimi Emmanuel Ayofolarin, quite a lot.

His camera has taken him across Nigeria and other parts of Africa, documenting people, places, cultures and communities along the way. This includes Àgbo Ilé, a project centered on traditional Yoruba architecture and communal living, which was unveiled and exhibited in July.

In this interview, Folajimi talks about learning through travel, documenting unfamiliar places respectfully, exploring centuries-old Yoruba architecture, and finding stories in what people often overlook. 

You studied architecture, but your work has taken you into photography and visual storytelling. How did you get into all these different creative spaces?

It’s a funny one because I’ve always been indecisive about what I wanted to do with my life. One reason I chose to study architecture was that I didn’t want to do Physics, Chemistry, or Biology at university. I didn’t realize then that the decision would eventually make me fall in love with the thinking and intent behind design.

As for photography and storytelling, I’ve always had a subconscious appreciation for visual imagery, but that interest really peaked when I took a photography course in my second year of university. That was when I began to see the art form more clearly.

You travel across different parts of Nigeria and other African countries, documenting places, people, and cultures. What keeps drawing you to these places, and has travelling changed the way you see Africa?

I grew up loving road trips and experiencing life outside my own bubble, so picking up a camera gave me more agency to explore that side of myself.

I see travelling as a form of education as much as leisure, if not more. Experiencing how many lives exist that look nothing like mine keeps me grounded. It reminds me that my experience is only a small part of a much larger picture.

You were part of the EUNIC-funded Àgbo Ilé project, which explores traditional Yoruba architecture and communal living. What drew you to the project, and what were you exploring?

I worked with architect Orinayo Odubawo on Àgbo Ilé which means household. It is supported by the Roots and Roofs project funded by the European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC).

It centered on the Yoruba courtyard system, an aspect of traditional architecture I find fascinating for how it expresses its characteristics in multiple ways. We built an archive to preserve knowledge of how daily activities across different parts of the house are connected.

The project involved travelling and speaking with locals in historic Yoruba towns, including Ile-Ife, Ijebu, Oyo, and Abeokuta. My role was to document these spaces, paying attention to their architectural details and the communities connected to them.

What did documenting these spaces make you notice about traditional Yoruba architecture?

Within that system, we focused on the potsherd pavements in Ile-Ife, which date as far back as the 12th to 16th centuries. They highlighted the ingenuity and sustainability embedded in our traditional architecture over 600 years and made me appreciate how much knowledge already existed within these systems.

We’re losing a lot of that knowledge, even though it can still inform how we think about architecture today. These systems show that we’ve always had architectural knowledge rooted in our environment and communities, and that knowledge can continue to contribute to present-day design.

Travelling to document places and people comes with its own challenges, from access and logistics to the realities of working in unfamiliar environments. What has been the most difficult part of doing this work, and how have you learnt to navigate it?

I wouldn’t say it’s much of a difficulty anymore, at least not like it used to be. The biggest challenge was overcoming the fear of making images in unfamiliar environments while remaining respectful.

I’ve learnt to pace myself and focus on making images rather than simply taking them. That distinction matters because I want photographing people and places to feel collaborative and respectful, not extractive.

Having a local person help with access also makes a big difference, especially with language barriers and cultural differences.

🔪 THE PEEL

How Nigerians approach news and public conversations

The discourse

This week, TurnTable Charts Nigeria’s official music charting and data platform released its Mid-Year 2026 music chart rankings.

On the streaming list, Davido landed at No. 12 with 161.74 million streams, behind acts like Asake, Wizkid, and Seyi Vibez, several of whom released new music consistently through the first half of the year. Almost immediately, the ranking became a conversation about Davido's relevance and the strength of his fanbase.

In a video, content creator Benjy used the ranking to question his standing. Davido pointed out that he hadn't released any music early in the year. He had a point because the absence of new releases is an important context.

Still, his response drove backlash as people thought he was mad about his performance on the charts. This exchange has shown how often we react to what information appears to mean before asking what it actually tells us.

Peeling it back

To understand what an H1 ranking is actually built on, we spoke with Kayode Babatola, Head of Data at TurnTable, who walked us through the nitty-gritty behind the data people were arguing about.

“For the Mid-Year 2026 issue,” he explained, “the ranking measures an artist, song, album, or producer's streaming points across a specific window from December 2025 through May 2026.” 

That figure is cumulative, based on weekly streaming output pulled from the five major DSPs operating in Nigeria: Audiomack, Apple Music, Boomplay, Spotify, and YouTube. What comes out the other end is on-demand streaming power, measured against every artist that released songs in that same window. No additions or subtractions. 

That window matters more than people assume. "New releases carry bigger streaming points compared to songs that have been released before the tracking period," Babatola said.

He pointed to FOLA as the clearest case in this year's Top 5 despite his few new drops in the window. FOLA’s album from last tracking year has high momentum, as do his recent releases. It shows why release timing matters when interpreting the ranking, as the numbers reflect performance within a defined window, not an artist’s overall popularity. 

Babatola described the failure point in how people read and interpret data. “The ranking is factually correct, but what isn't correct is what people do with it. We see fans making agenda-backed conclusions every time we do a quarterly release, because an artist missed the Top 10 without accounting for the simple fact that they didn't have many drops during or just before the window.” 

Another layer

It seems there’s always an intentional urge to cook an agenda, and once you look closely at how numbers are structured, you start to see how many angles can be manipulated. There’s always an appetite to twist information. 

And this problem extends beyond chart rankings. A smaller version of this played out this week when Spotify Nigeria’s highest-ranked artist, Asake, was called “local” by a Twitter user. That alone was enough to rage-bait anyone who didn't pause to ask what the ranking actually measured or over what period. 

The chart is just a useful example of a much bigger habit: the internet has made us comfortable with information in its shortest possible form. Before there's time to ask what happened, there's pressure to decide what it means and to make that meaning interesting.

“Davido ranks No. 12 in H1 streaming” is information. “Davido's fanbase isn't showing up” is an argument. The second one gives people something to fight about, which is exactly why it travels faster.

The Reuters Institute's 2025 Digital News Report found that social platforms play an increasingly central role in how Nigerians encounter news, with Twitter (X) accounting for the news consumption of 49% of its surveyed online audience.

Social media, influencers, and citizen journalists often break stories ahead of traditional media. That changes the distance between the original detail and the version that reaches people. 

So "do your research" isn't useful advice; rather, it's vague. What's useful is curiosity. If a streaming figure is being used to make a claim, find out what period it covers and what it was built from. The same applies to clout-chasing rumors, scandals, and viral claims. Before deciding what they mean, find out what actually happened. 

There's actual research behind this. A 2020 study involving social media users in Nigeria and Kenya found that simply prompting people to consider a claim's accuracy reduced how likely they were to share misinformation. Separate research spanning 20 experiments and over 26,000 participants found the same pattern: accuracy prompts improved sharing decisions, mostly by cutting down on false-headline shares. 

The distinction matters for journalists too, as they have the responsibility to report information as published, without editorializing it into a bigger claim than it makes. There is a responsibility to report information as published without editorializing it into a bigger claim than it makes.

Consumers, on the other hand, have more room to interpret, debate, and even spin a narrative, as long as the interpretation remains grounded in what the information actually says. 

The Core

A music chart ranking can be entirely accurate and still be dragged into a conclusion it never made. We're allowed to disagree with news, numbers, question methodologies, or reject a conclusion, but we should know which of those things we're actually doing.

In a culture that rewards being first to react, the more valuable skill might be knowing when to stop and ask: what, exactly, does this tell me?

🎵 PRESSED BY THE JUICE

This week’s playlist vibe is different and perfect to sing along to.

On your radar are feel-good rhythms from Fireboy DML, Kizz Daniel, Young Jonn, Seyi Vibez, and so much more.

Save your favorites, as New Music Box💿 is updated every Friday! 

Do you have a song you’d like us to include? Put us on; reply here.