Eldee

You can't look into the history of Hip Hop in Nigeria and not bump into that name- Eldee is a pioneer rapper in Nigeria, and still is a prominent name in the music Industry currently in the country. Although he was away in the U.S for a while in the mid 00s, he returned towards the end of the 00s, and has been a name to reckon with since then. His real name is Lanre Dabiri, and that's where he carved the stage name eldee from...LD- eldee. He started a rap group (Trybes Men)  in 1998, consisting of Freestyle, Kaboom and himself. He then took it a step further to form a crew in the early 00s, called Da Trybe. The crew consisted of rappers, most of which have branched out from Eldee's Trybes Record Company, but are still making waves in the industry. Sasha (now with Storm Records), Dr Sid (now with Mo-Hits Records), 2Shortz, Timi, and OlaDele.




I can remember hearing eldee, freestyle and kaboom (trybes men) on radio back in the late 90s and just knowing they had come to change the game. They did, and influenced a lot of other rappers that came after. You can say that hip hop in Nigeria was a joke before the arrival of Trybes Men. They had two radio bangers- "shake body" and "trybal marks". Eldee single handedly kicked off his label (Trybes Records), with some fond from his mom. And his rap partners (kabom and freestyle) became his first artists under the label. There was a little falling out with  freestyle and eldee between 2006 and 2007, which has been resolved since then. At the time, Freestyle was claiming he was the real brains behind the label, and that he wasn't getting his due props for it. They had split up at the point and Eldee was at the time getting his Masters in the states.



Eldee has, since his return to the country, began putting together a new Trybes Records crew. The new army consist Proto, Chiddy Bang, OlaDele, Ice Berg Slim and ofcos Eldee himself. His solo career began in 2004 with the release of his official debut album- Long Time Coming. He followed that up with 2006's Return Of The King which featured hit singles like "Champion" and the controversial "I Go Yarn". In 2006, he released his third album, Big Boy which had radio bangers like "Bosi gbangba" and the album title single- "Big Boy". He also did a remix of Big Boy, with Bad Boy Records Young Joc. He released a mixtape in 2010 tiltled "Is It Your Money". Because of the quality of the material on the mixtape, people started calling it his 4th album. Currently, he uses a "sing-song" style in most of his songs, which was present in his "Bosi gbangba" hit, but he can still rap his ass of when he wants to.



He studied Architecture at the University of Lagos before traveling to the states for his Masters. He got married to his longtime girlfriend, Dolapo Latinwo-Belo in November of 2008. They have a daughter together.