By Emmanuel Daniji

For two nights in Lagos, music fans got to watch two different chapters of Nigeria’s Afrobeats story come alive on the same stage.

Grammy-winning singer Tems and Afrobeats star Runtown headlined Spotify’s first-ever Surround Sound live shows, held at Livespot on September 25 and 26.

The two artists brought very different sounds and career journeys to the new live performance series, but both performances offered fans a chance to reconnect with catalogues that have played important roles in Nigerian music.

Tems opened the series on September 25, taking fans through different stages of her career.

She performed songs from her 2020 debut EP, For Broken Ears, including “Ice T” and “Damages”, while also reaching further back to records such as “Mr Rebel” and “Try Me”.

Her more recent songs, including “Love Me JeJe” and “What You Need”, were also part of the set.

One of the more personal moments came when Tems revisited “Free Mind”, one of the songs that helped establish her as a distinctive voice in the Nigerian alternative and Afrobeats space.

Ahead of the show, she recalled creating the song from her bedroom on her laptop, experimenting with chords until the melody came together.

During the performance, Tems occasionally handed the music over to the audience, allowing fans to sing sections of her songs back to her.

The intimate interaction helped turn the show from a conventional concert into something closer to a shared experience between the singer and her fans.

A night later, Runtown took over the stage for the second edition of the Surround Sound series.

For him, the performance was particularly significant because it marked his first time performing with his live band in 10 years.

The singer opened his set with “Lagos to Kampala” and “Gallardo” before moving through several of the songs that have defined his career, including “For Life”, “International Badman Killa”, “Unleash” and “Kini Issue”.

But it was his 2016 hit “Mad Over You” that produced one of the biggest moments of the night.

Runtown performed the song during his set and later returned to it for a second performance to close the show, with the crowd singing along.

The moment was a reminder of how deeply the song remains connected to Nigerian music fans years after its release.

For Runtown, the show also provided an opportunity to revisit a period of his career when his music was central to the international spread of the modern Afrobeats sound.

His relatively infrequent live appearances in Lagos in recent years made the performance even more significant for fans who had not seen him perform on a Lagos stage for some time.

Tems and Runtown may belong to different phases of the Nigerian music story, but Spotify’s decision to place them at the centre of its inaugural Surround Sound series created an interesting connection between the two eras.

Tems represents a younger generation of Nigerian artists whose music has travelled from Lagos to global audiences, while Runtown’s catalogue reflects an earlier wave of Afrobeats artists who helped push Nigerian pop music beyond the country.

The two-night Lagos shows therefore became more than just concerts.

They offered fans an opportunity to experience two artists at different points in their careers while also showing how Nigerian music continues to build on what came before it.

With Spotify launching Surround Sound in Lagos through two artists with such different musical journeys, the series has begun with a distinctly Nigerian identity — one that connects the past, present and continuing evolution of Afrobeats.