When Omah Lay enters the stage of the AFAS Live in Amsterdam, a wave of glowing phone screens flows through the room amid hysterical cheering. That sea of flashes of light continues to shine all evening. Not surprising: Lay is the latest sensation within Nigerian Afropop that is currently conquering the world. The sold-out AFAS is filled tonight with an audience in eccentric outfits who leave no mirror unused to take a selfie.
The question was in advance how the young Stanley Omah Didia would hold the attention of an electrically charged room of six thousand people. He only released two short EPs and one studio album, Boy Alone (2022), of which even the ‘deluxe’ version lasts less than an hour. Of course full of hits and a collaboration with Justin Bieber, but still, last year he performed in the much smaller Melkweg.
Moreover, musically speaking, he is not just the next Rema or Burna Boy, who make exciting, more light-hearted Afro-pop. Omah Lay became famous because of his subdued music and his plaintive, sometimes breaking voice. His songs are candid about mental (un)health and adversity. An odd man out in Nigeria.
Lay sings about the small, personal and human. Yet his music is also extremely danceable. It is rhythmic, harmonic, spiritual. The fact that this works great with a live band is also evident in Amsterdam from Lay’s interaction with the (mostly female) audience. Due to the harmony and polyphony in all his songs, the singing audience becomes a huge background choir. For example, in his biggest hit ‘Soso’: built on an Afrobeat rhythm, supported by a softly whistling, echoing melody line. The emotion is rocked into the room by six thousand subdued voices.
The decoration contributes to the atmosphere: on the stage there is a kind of heavenly gate on a rise of rocks. The band and backing choir are on either side, and every few songs a large group of dancers come to support Lay. The show jumps back and forth between pounding beats, group dances, fireworks and Lay sitting alone on the stairs towards ‘heaven’. When he sings ‘Safe Haven’, one of his most emotional songs, his desperately raspy voice cuts through the marrow and bone.
Every now and then Lay stares into the room and there is silence for several minutes. Due to the size of the hall, he briefly loses the undivided attention of the audience. That suits him: he comes across as shy, or at least modest. When he sings he stands bent over with his knees and feet turned towards each other. When he dances he moves gracefully across the stage.
He does this largely shirtless – halfway through the show he pulls a young woman out of the audience. He dances with her, then walks hand in hand to the large, richly decorated gates of heaven. In the red light under the arch, her hands slide over his body, his hands around her waist. Then she takes off his shirt, a huge white curtain falls from the ceiling and we see two silhouettes become one.
The audience cannot handle the sensuality and screams. Lay also can’t suppress the giggles. So much for his shyness.