“Chocolate and caramel ouu wee. Song of Solomon 1:5,” reads the first carousel of a May 2025 Instagram post from Street Church. The next slide quotes the original scripture from the Christian Bible: “Young women of Jerusalem, my skin is dark, but I am beautiful. My skin is dark like the tent of Kedar.”
A week earlier, the account posted, “What to do when you see your crush in church tomorrow.” One of the suggestions was: “Toast the nearest usher.” Below it was a photo of former Kogi State senator Dino Melaye, taken after he allegedly slumped in 2019.
At press conferences for Nollywood films, fashion shows and lifestyle events, a camera crew from Street Church — which has outposts in Ghana, Sierra Leone, the UK, and Canada — stands alongside BellaNaija and Kraks TV to interview celebrities.
“When we first came out, we were dragged for a week straight,” the founder of Street Church, Oluwatobi Oreoluwa (known in the industry as Icon) told Zikoko. “People were like, ‘You are desecrating the word of God by putting it on social media.’ But unfortunately, I don’t send. I only cater to the voices I hear in my head and the opinions of people I deem leaders over me.”
Who is Icon?
Icon grew up as the son of pastors, but at some point in adulthood, he drifted away from church — and eventually, from religion altogether. He studied Architecture at university and opened a barbing salon called Hairliners, which was popular with tech bros in Yaba at the time. After graduating, he started Alaga Collections, an Afrocentric furniture brand that was featured in Vogue magazine as “a new brand of minimalism.”
In 2016, he began doing production work on music videos and wrote a few scripts for Banky W’s EME record label. When the pandemic hit in 2020, it was a tough period for him. He returned to his faith and began sharing Bible scriptures on his Instagram stories. By 2021, he had started going back to church. Friends told him they liked how he broke down the Bible using pop culture references. So, he designed the yellow-and-black template that Street Church posts have become known for, opened the account, and began posting. The posts quickly went viral. “It’s a pop culture phenomenon that comes from the kingdom perspective,” he said.
“I was not born in Israel. But we have been conditioned to accept whatever we see in the scripture. I didn’t understand some things. So I wanted to put them in a Nigerian context. If you tell me to have faith as a mustard seed, I don’t really know what that means. I don’t know what I am quantifying my faith with.”
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A new wave of Christianity
In recent years, Street Church has become a leading voice for a new wave of Christians who want to make the worship of God “fun.” Their followers are huge fans of artists like AnEndlessOcean, who Icon manages, and Gaise Baba, whose hit song “No Turning Back” is currently trending on TikTok.
It’s the kind of church where the men can wear scarves, and the women don’t need to. Where reporting your partner to your pastor is fair game. And where members are regularly criticised by older Christians. In a video that went viral this week, a preacher dismissed Gaise Baba’s “No Turning Back,” calling it a “vice song” and claiming the artist wasn’t a “true believer.”
Icon has seen this kind of backlash before. A musician friend recently told him about being invited to perform at a church, only for someone to snatch the mic from him because he had dreads. Icon had a similar experience in 2021, when a pastor in Kebbi State made him the focus of an entire sermon because he had dyed his hair.
“The experience you get at church is different from the experience of God,” Icon said. “That was why I left the church. I didn’t feel the representation of God I had was correct. But like the prodigal son, my father welcomed me back with open arms.”
In recent years, a growing number of people who grew up Christian have been leaving the church. Some now identify as SBNR — “spiritual but not religious.” Others have turned to star signs and astrology. Some say they’ve abandoned faith altogether
“A lot of young people have so many questions, and the church’s doctrine is to not question things. But God is not scared of our hardest questions,” Icon said. “Now the knowledge base has increased massively. There were things pastors could say to our parents and get away with it. But not with our generation. A lot of people know things. Pastor Sam [Adeyemi] once said the eagle is the highest-flying bird, and after the sermon, he got texts from young people telling him it wasn’t true. The days when you take things hook, line and sinker are over.”
Starting a “kingdom-focused” record label
In 2023, Gaise Baba, whom Icon first met from his days at EME, introduced him to a rising musician named AnEndlessOcean. He wanted management, so Icon — pulling from some of his EME experience — became his manager. They did their first show that same year at the Federal Palace Hotel. Last year, AnEndlessOcean had a concert that was part of the Detty December slew of activities. Icon worked with him on it as well. He is now looking to expand his roster of talent.
In June, he will launch Iconic Stuff Entertainment, a “kingdom-focused” full-service record label and entertainment company that will host events and collaborate with musicians. “The idea for me is to scale African artists to the global stage. A lot of people say Afrobeats is at the climax, but I don’t believe it. I think it’s time for new players to come into the space,” he said.
But by starting a record label, Icon is making a 360 change from his role in the industry as an advocate for the talent to an executive, whose job is to make money from the talent. Record label owners and musicians in open brawls is one of the oldest stories of the industry, from Mercy Chinwo and Eezee Tee to 2Baba and Kennis Music.
He has thought about it and has a formula to circumvent any fight. “I won’t say we have everything figured out, but we want to lead with kindness and empathy. We are using methods that are alien to the space to remunerate our artists. We want them to have creative freedom, and we want to be co-partners with them,” he said. “You probably won’t hear any ruckus from us, but if you do, then we will sort it out.”
The future of Christianity
There have been many debates about the future of Christianity and religion in Nigeria. Are young Nigerians going to come back to the church like Icon did? What does he think?
“The future of Christianity is decentralised. It’s not just the church. The church is very integral to Christian life, but it’s not the only outlet people get to interact with God. There will be pastors whose offices will only be on TikTok. Everybody needs to open their hearts and receive them.”
