Afrohype performers reportedly earn up to 8m naira

Some Afrohype performers are reportedly paid 5 million to 8 million naira (£2,844–4,550) for 30-minute or one-hour sets, The Guardian reported in an Oct. 18 feature.

The top cited fee equals £4,550, compared with £2,844 at the low end of the reported range, showing how the Afrobeats-adjacent style is becoming paid work rather than a party extra.

Afrohype, also called lamba by some performers and fans, sits between singing, rapping and live emceeing. Performers use improvised chants, comic phrases and percussive sounds over new beats or familiar instrumentals, with audiences often responding by spraying money, a Nigerian celebratory custom.

The Guardian focused on 32-year-old Toby Shang, born Tobi Michael Adeyeye, who built the style from school performances, private tutoring and campus events at the University of Lagos. “Even my mother calls me Shang now,” he told the newspaper near the university’s waterfront.

By his final year, Shang’s catchphrases had helped produce Shedibalabala, the article said. He has since released two EPs and run four editions of his School of Hype, a one-day masterclass with online mentoring.

Dami Ajayi, a London-based doctor and cultural critic, told The Guardian that a hypeman he saw at a party in Tirana used pauses in songs to command the room. “Hypemen have the gift of the gab and fine mic control,” Ajayi said, while adding that the jokes he heard were often “frontally risque and misogynistic.”

The form has older roots than its current Lagos club profile. The Guardian traced it to praise-singing, call-and-response traditions, West African griots and the atalaku style that developed in Kinshasa in the 1980s before influencing Congolese rumba, Ivorian coupé-décalé and later West African party scenes.

Women remain fewer in a male-dominated field, the article said, but several have shaped the scene. It named Yaoundé-based Lady Ponce, Lagos radio presenter Melody “M.I.A” Adigo and Deborah “Hype Queen Baddy” Francis, a Shang school alumnus who died in September. It also cited Lili Djely, who won a 2006 atalaku contest on Côte d’Ivoire’s RTI network.

The economics reflect wider Afrobeats demand. The Guardian reported that promoters turned more often to hypemen after artists became costlier to book after Covid-19, while some performers are now said to command the 5 million-to-8 million-naira range for short sets. The article did not publish booking records for those rates.

For Shang, the appeal is partly social as well as commercial. “People are facing a lot of challenges … they need somebody to tell them money is coming in the new week,” he said.

Source: Feature article, The Guardian, Oct. 18, 2026.