What's the greatest diss song of all time?

Hip-hop heads will argue endlessly. Some will crown Kendrick Lamar's Not Like Us over 2Pac's Hit 'Em Up. Others will say Pusha T's The Story of Adidon—which forced pop star and occasional rapper Drake to acknowledge a hidden son—had the most devastating personal and cultural impact.

But I'll argue that the greatest diss song ever was released in the 1970s by Alhaji Fatai Olowonyo, who accused fast-rising Apala star, Ayinla Omowura, of being a goat thief.

Both artistes had been at loggerheads for a while when Omowura started what we now call sneak-dissing. When he released an album bragging about his new Benz—an upgrade on the Toyota he'd driven for years—Olowonyo had finally had enough. So he released Elewure Wole, a 19-minute diss track that prominently features bleating goats.

In the track, Olowonyo implies Omowura used his Toyota to steal goats, and paints him as poor and clueless about the etiquette of wealth. My favourite part of this lyrical masterpiece comes when Olowonyo's drummer plays the beat to a popular Yoruba song that encourages farming as an alternative to stealing. The sound's sharpest blow is the part that plays, "Ẹni kò ṣiṣẹ́, yó mà jalè (He who does not work will steal)." Olowonyo doesn't sing here; he just lets the beat speak, before airing more dirt about Omowura—a shop he allegedly robbed in Ibadan, his wife cheating on him in Agege, his mother owning only two scarves, and his general lifestyle of hooliganism.

Though Omowura went on to become more successful, more popular, and more favoured in pop culture, the "goat thief" tag stuck. That's the power of a well-aimed diss track.

Now, let's zoom out.

Apala To The World

The 1970s Nigerian music scene was a concoction of international genres like Rock, and local flavours like Apala, the genre popularised by Haruna Ishola, and the basis of the beef between Omowura and Olowonyo. It emerged from Islamic Yoruba communities, blending traditional African sounds with Islamic renditions to create a unique fusion that was neither entirely Islamic nor wholly traditional.

Modern Afrobeats cannot be discussed without tracing its roots to Fela's Afrobeat, a genre he built by blending multiple popular styles, including Juju, which evolved alongside Fuji. Both Juju and Fuji, in turn, were shaped by Apala and the Rock music that defined the 1970s. The connections run deep, forming a musical lineage that still influences today's sound. Listen to Asake and Seyi Vibes today, and you'll find traces of Apala and Fuji in their music. Seyi Vibes even samples Elewure Wole in his 2023 song, G.O.A.T.

Culture is the way of life of various communities. In the creative economy, artistes like Omowura, Olowonyo, Ishola, and their peers, with influences spanning music, politics, film, and stage plays, are a part of our culture. We forget their exploits not by choice, but because we no longer see them. And what people can't see, they forget. Slowly at first, then all at once.

The fourth edition of The Archivist is a commitment to preserving culture in the creative sector.

Here's What We're Doing

Issue 4 is about legacy: who built what, who documented it, who tried to suppress it, and what that tells us about the present. At its centre is a reckoning with our collective amnesia, a sweeping tribute to the artists, filmmakers, writers, singers, poets, sculptors, and creatives whose work laid the foundation for what we now call the creative industry.

But we're not just celebrating. We're also asking questions. How did Nollywood become a platform for both sexual expression and moral punishment, especially for women? How did pirates quietly strip Nigerian filmmakers of both profit and dignity? Why has censorship trailed artistic work for generations?

We revisit the civil war to examine the powerful role of Radio Biafra as a wartime media tool that galvanised a people. We flip through old print adverts to understand how our visual language and consumer culture evolved. And we ask why, in an age of abundance, Nigerian newspapers no longer offer the kind of analytical thinking they once did.

This edition of The Archivist invites us, as always, to treat history as a mirror. These stories aren't just about nostalgia; they're also about building a smarter, more intentional future in the creative economy. When we understand what we've done and how we've done it, we stop mistaking every exciting idea for something new or imported. We don't have to reinvent culture or borrow it if we know ours well enough. Because culture is forever.

This one is for the culture.