Hip-Hop is Only for Children is a creative non-fiction book by Onyeka Nwelue. It takes a critical personal perspective on Nigerian hip-hop culture, as adopted by Nigerians with an American influence.
The book, which has taken years to write, focuses on the The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Bronze Age, The Stone Age, with a heavy concentration on The New Age Generation, which includes Davido, WizKid, TerryG, Oritsefemi, MC Galaxy, Iyanya. Nwelue’s finds span years of personal and cultural research, travelling from Lagos to Accra, Monrovia, Kampala, Nairobi, Lilongwe and from Paris to Budapest, Brussels, Copenhagen and to Mexico City then to Delhi and many other cities scattered round the world, interacting with Nigerian hip-hop culture enthusiasts and promoters.
Award-winning author, Onyeka Nwelue is one of Africa’s youngest prolific and successful writers. Described by Channel O as ‘an unalloyed genius,’ Nwelue’s first novel, The Abyssinian Boy (DADA Books, 2009), written when he was 18 years old, is about a Nigerian woman married to a Brahmin Indian journalist.
It was a National Bestseller, won the 2009 TM Aluko Prize for Fiction, the Ibrahim Tahir Prize for First Book and nominated for the Future Awards and has been republished in India by Serene Woods.
His second book, Burnt (Hattus, 2014), a narrative in verse has been translated into Spanish, Italian, Yoruba and Igbo. It has been hailed by British-Hungarian poet, George Szirtes as ‘breathless.’ He won the Prince Claus Ticket Grant in 2013 to attend Writivism Festival in Uganda.
His debut audio poetry album, Of Flowers and Sex Symphonies was released this year by La Cave Musik and Jungle Records. He has lectured at the Center for Research in Art of Film & TV in Delhi, Film-in-a-Box at the Africa Film Academy in Malawi and currently, a Visiting Lecturer of African Studies at The University of Hong Kong. He has written and directed short films and music videos.
