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Op-ed: What Levels of Art, Fashion & Music Genre Experimentation are Truly Defined as Alté?

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This Opinion Piece Takes the Accident Artist into Account, with Thoughts and Comments in First Person POV.

Culture and community thrive on the identities, values, and objectives of the people within them. Rarely is it necessary for a particular culture or community to have one person or a single face represent them; however, when defining a group, it is necessary for a select few members to embody what it means to be a part of that culture or community.

Op-ed: What Levels of Art, Fashion & Music Genre Experimentation are Truly Defined as Alté?

Alté — the popular phenomenon that may or may not have begun as an alternative musical genre for artists whose sound didn’t fit into one of the popular genres but was, however, a fusion of a variety of genres, including R&B, rap, indie, and dancehall — has evolved into a lifestyle. A lifestyle that encourages individuals to express themselves in non-traditional ways, with the primary concept of staying true to oneself despite traditions or cultural constraints.

Op-ed: What Levels of Art, Fashion & Music Genre Experimentation are Truly Defined as Alté?

As a different way of doing things, Alté has been embraced by a lot of creatives in the Nigerian music, fashion, art, and culture industries whose creativity has been othered—and that is a lot of ‘individuals’ if you ask me—leading to an explosion in the alté creative landscape in Lagos and beyond. This explosion is starting to fill a lot of airwaves, as many diverse creatives in this community are eager to identify, indulge, and make their own small contributions to the globalisation of this subculture, resulting in an increase in different versions of the cultural phenomenon. As the subculture broadens, with more people injecting their individuality into it, it’s becoming more difficult to pin down what levels of genre and fashion experimentation are truly Alté.

While the term “alté” can be credited to DRB member Teezee (Teni Zacheuus JR), a Nigerian alternative hip-hop artist who is one of the pioneers of the Alté movement since the spawning of this subculture, a host of other creatives have embodied this lifestyle on personal levels and pioneered it in their several artforms.

Op-ed: What Levels of Art, Fashion & Music Genre Experimentation are Truly Defined as Alté?

In music, we have Santi, a Lagos-based artiste whose sound is derived from an eclectic range of influences; Lady Donli, who was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and incorporates African-American neo-soul, afro beats, alternative jazz, and many more genres into her music; Odunsi The Engine, whose sound is an afro-fusion, incorporating elements from R&B, reggae, EDM, and soul; and Wavy The Creator.

In fashion, we have Ashley Okoli and Dunsin Wright, who play with an eclectic mix of grunge, gothic silhouettes and y2k fashion; Lady Donli, the Alté queen who channels old Nollywood-inspired sentimentalism as well as ’90s villain Nigerian movies into her music videos and artistry; Mowalola, the radically sex-positive designer; Wavy the Creator, the Nigerian artiste whose aesthetic consists mostly of afro-futurism and retro references with quirky eccentrics; and TSE, the London-based artist with immersive and mind-bending photography.

Given the size and diversity of the audience, it would be a stretch to ask Alte creatives for their opinions on the topic in order to ascertain what Alte actually is. So I decided to use hindsight and seek guidance from the ‘New Eyes For A New Lagos’, the lens of alté creativity who has captured alté in its diverse energies and forms—fashion, music, art, emotion—to help us understand what standards really make Alté.

Accident Artist’s POV:

Alté means freedom. Alté means “loving yourself.”  Alté means being true to who you are. “Alté” means expressing who you are irrespective of what mainstream society believes in, because of what they’re already used to and of their being afraid of the unfamiliar. 

The Accident Artist

So Alté is about loving yourself, understanding who you are and going on that journey to find out what makes you comfortable/knowing the reason why you exist in this world. It makes you look inward at yourself and makes you express who you really are as a person or as a whole. It makes you go on this journey of finding what suits you and what you love, in order to live in your own truth without anybody coming to you to bring their own culture or way, unless it’s in line with what you’re doing, or believing, that is it.

But it means staying true to yourself and developing yourself; it means healing, it means breakthrough, it means to love, it means being a creative in your own way, within your own limits, in your own community. It means you as you. It means you’re equal with everyone; I am me, you’re you. I am you, you’re me. Alté means who you are for what you are now, and who you’ll be. 

Simply put, Alté is the outer beauty in being destructively different. This explosion you speak of is people awakening to the power of their authenticity; becoming bold enough to express their own aesthetics, even when it isn’t the norm, and in doing so nudging other people to also open their minds to this new genre and culture. The Alté movement is one that preaches that there is no one way to express art, and that beauty can be found in the many that one would have once tagged as bizarre.”

The Accident Artist

So to answer the question, there’s no one definition, level or genre of Alté. It is an embodiment of every creative anomaly. So just be yourself, express yourself the way you want; Alté is about freedom of expression, and so be you. Just be you, and you’ll be accepted by those who resonate with you. You don’t have to please anybody or everybody just to be a part of the community.

Just be yourself and you’ll find those that are attracted to you, and you’ll be seen and welcome in their communities.

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