“It’s official,” Lil Baby says in the clip Flytime put out yesterday. “December 21st, I am going to be performing live at the Flytime Coca-Cola Rhythm Unplugged.” The Atlanta rapper gets the Eko Convention Centre the night after Brandy opens Flytime’s six-night run, and Lagos knows how this goes by now.
He is the third American rapper in four editions to sit on top of the bill.
That would have sounded strange when the show started. Cecil Hammond’s Flytime Promotions put on the first Rhythm Unplugged in 2004 at Fantasyland in Ikoyi, with a lineup of Nigerian musicians and comedians, and it sold out. “When we started out, nobody understood what we were doing, because on the radio stations, it was basically foreign music that was being played,” Keke Hammond, Flytime’s COO, told Music Week last December.
For most of its life the show brought in a foreign name only now and then. Trey Songz headlined in 2015, and Craig David sang on the 2022 bill alongside Wande Coal and BNXN. Then the top slot settled into a habit. Roddy Ricch headlined in 2023. Tiwa Savage turned up on his night, and Rahman Jago told one of the rapper’s crew, on camera, that he looked “like Metro too much”, a line Metro Boomin ended up tweeting himself. Gunna had the 20th anniversary in 2024, his first show anywhere in Africa, and brought Tyla out for “Jump.” Last year Flytime billed Rema on top, with Central Cee as special guest.
Flytime has said what it looks for. Explaining the Central Cee booking, Keke Hammond said, “We felt like this was the time to bring an artist like him who loves African music and who’s done collaborations with a lot of Nigerian artists.” Gunna had landed with “Happiness,” his song with Asake and Sarz, already out.
Lil Baby passes that test on paper. He has played a Lagos Christmas before: in December 2018, the year of Harder Than Ever and “Yes Indeed” with Drake, he co-headlined Beat 99.9 FM’s Christmas concert at the Federal Palace Hotel, on a bill with Kizz Daniel, Mr Eazi, Teni and Johnny Drille. Two years later he was on “So Crazy,” from Davido’s A Better Time. Davido has had his own Flytime Fest night in each of the last two Decembers, and his December this year already has a Calabar date on the 29th.
By the 21st he may have new songs to bring. Lil Baby has reportedly set Nov 6 for his first album since WHAM in January 2025, with the Pharrell-produced “Dead Fresh” already out.
Flytime hasn’t named anyone else for the night. Gunna had Tyla. Roddy Ricch’s night had Tiwa. Lil Baby has a Davido song.