ModeNine is a Nigerian rapper often regarded as one of the best rappers in Africa. He is known to epitomize what he calls Afro Hip Hop (which signifies African hip hop) with his amazing metaphorical lyrics, deep relevant punchlines and creativity. ModeNine was greatly influenced by artists like KRS-One, Roy Ayers, Kurtis Blow and Big Daddy Kane.



ModeNine grew up in London, England. He came back to Nigeria in 1979, where he studied Building Technology. He graduated in 1999 and had his National Youth Service Corps program in Calabar. His parents were not pleased with him when he dabbled into music in 2000 since as typical parents, they wanted him to get a job. For him, it was like a dream come true since he had always loved music, especially rap music. He pictured himself doing what Rakim and Eric B did on TV. He hung out with friends in school rapping and he wanted to make a rap album in 1991 for the fun of it. ModeNine worked with Rhythm 84.7fm in Abuja (a sister station to Rhythm 93.7 Lagos). He worked as a small time radio presenter featuring up-coming rap acts like Terry Da Rapman and Six-Foot Plus. He quit a few years later and went to Lagos having secured a deal with Paybacktyme Records. He recorded an album called IX files. Although it never hit the market but singles like 'It's About To Get Ugly' and 'Schooling' emerged from the unreleased album. This brought him in tight competition with other hip hop acts in very hard-to-be-known music industry where rap itself has fully reached a grand lucrative stage compared to the US. However, ModeNine reared his head with a new mixtape called Malcolm IX released under paybacktyme records in 2004. It had tracks like 'Head','Orisuna basement freestlye' and '419 state of mind'. The latter was played on Rick Dees top 40. The mixtape reinvigorated his career. ModeNine met with the CEO of QuestionMark Entertainment known as Luciano Gabriel a number of times, but a show at French cultural centre tagged 'E ka bo'. Kevin was impressed by ModeNine's performance and he invited him to come feature on one of the street Monks tracks.

At QuestionMark entertainment he propelled the underground music to mainstream when he dropped the deserving 5 mics album called 'Pentium IX' whic sold out completely. This album contains tracks like 'Rock on', 'Lagos state of mind'. Pentium IX has set a new standard for other African rappers coming out with album.

ModeNine has performed alongside some of the finest emcees like Guru of Gangstarr, Wyclef and in 2005 he opened for Akon in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. His last single CRY featuring label mate Nnenna got massive airplay and on the 15th of October 2006, ModeNine won 3 Channel O awards. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.