In April 2018, the first Mainland BlockParty pulled about 150 people into Burg, a burger spot on the Lagos Mainland. One of them was a 20-year-old singer whose first single had come out two months earlier, and he got there on foot. On Saturday, November 7, that singer headlines the party.
BNXN posted the memory to his Instagram Story this week. “Full Circle moment because the first edition ever, I walked there,” he wrote. “From Telola’s house to Burgs and back. Me and my dream.”
The dream was still small then. He was Buju, a laid-off IT worker recording with his university friend and producer Steph, and “Catch a Vibe,” released that February, was his first official single. The party was small too. Founder Tobi Mohammed wanted something cool on the Mainland, and by word of mouth the crowd went from 150 to 300 to 800, which is when Burg asked the party to leave. By December 2018 it was drawing 8,500 people to see rising acts, with “no serious headliner, just vibes,” as Mohammed tells it.
The singer moved faster than anyone at Burg could have guessed. A viral “Commander” clip got Zlatan’s attention, and “Spiritual” landed in August 2019. “L’enu” followed that October, and 2020 brought a Burna Boy remix and a Spaceship Records deal. When BlockParty put out its own compilation with Jameson in April 2021, the Confluence Project, the opening track was “Paloma’s Mind Games,” with Buju and Alpha P. The party had put him on its record years before it put him on its poster.
Now he’s BNXN, and the poster borrows his title. “Still In Charge,” the six-track EP he released on October 1 through EMPIRE with Asake on “Eja Meja” and FOLA on “Shamaya,” names the whole run. He timed that release to a number: close to half a billion Spotify streams between January 1 and September 30, he said in a 2026 interview. There’s a small loop in there too. Sarz was at Burg for the May 2018 edition, and his joint EP with BNXN this year, The Game Needs Us, gave BNXN “Back Outside.”
Saturday’s show runs from 8pm to 3am at Balmoral Convention Centre in Ikeja, back on the Mainland where the first one happened. Tickets on the official site range from ₦10,000 to ₦2,000,000 for the top tables, and the two cheapest waves have already sold out. The same banner then crosses to Accra for Gold BlockParty on November 13 and Abuja for Capital BlockParty on November 14.
Eight years after the walk from Telola’s house, his name is the one printed on the tickets.