Team of the Year:
(Young people must begin to learn the virtues of synergy, of working together and of supporting themselves when they have noble ideals and so this award is to reward those young people (apart from singing groups per se), who simply act as a collective to support each other and to achieve certain positive goals. They must, of course, be successful, or at least show amazing growth/expansion in that field they have chosen.)

Full name: The Thoroughbreds
When did you start: 2000

Membership: 6

What else do you do: Bright “B-Elect” Andrew Igho freelances for writing for magazines, poetry, interior decorating and graphic design. He is currently recording his album ‘Beats, Rhymes & Theology’.
Amaka Nwosu - Singer/Song writer
Obiora “Obiwon” Nwokolobiagu-Singer/MC/Producer currently works with a bank. In 2005 he released the E.P ‘Get Em Up’ and has followed up with solo L.P ‘Overture’,
Tochukwu “Elajoe” Nwosu - MC/Producer/ Events Consultant, Freelance Radio Presenter and was recently the Music Coordinator for Big Brother Nigeria. He is also the C.E.O of Thoro music alongside Illbliss.
Ikenna “MGB” Ezenyirioha is a Graphics/Multimedia consultant
Tobechukwu “Illbliss” Ejiofor recently left banking and is currently in the U.K
recording his album ‘REBELLIOUS’.

Description: The “Thoroughbreds”, are a collective of individual artists, who love real Hiphop music. As enthusiasts, the crew/family have been into the art form since the early 90’s individually as artistes but came together officially in 2000 and have been making music both as a crew and in support of each other's solo efforts since then. By late 2000 they released a Single titled ‘Da Skilllz’ with The B-side called Neva Leavin’ (Cypha Driven) which instantly became underground HipHop classics in Nigeria, bringing for the 1st time, conscious HipHop in the country. In 2003 members of the collective came back together and the result was ‘Streethop’ premiered as a single and by late 2003 ‘Streethop - The E.P’ was released going against the norm and stereotype of HipHop in Nigeria; it left a monumental landmark in HipHop, turning the attention of industry eggheads and media towards a seemingly new form of music they were not used to in mainstream Nigerian music. ‘Streethop’ more importantly rekindled the hope for ‘true’ HipHop in the country leaving Old/New fans, critics and media nodding in approval due to the depth of lyricism and quality production at a time when mediocrity was celebrated.

Impact: Rave reviews in various entertainment Journals: magazines /newspapers (HipHop World, Phat Entertainment, Bubbles, National Encomium, Vanguard, This day e.t.c) interviews with local Radio stations and TV (Rhythm 93.7fm, 96.9 Cool F.m, Eko 89.75 f.m, Raypower 100.5 f.m, Star 101.5 f.m, Unilag 103.1 f.m, all in Lagos, Cosmo F.m Enugu, Rhytm 93.7 Port Harcourt, 94.7 Abuja e.t.c as well as foreign media like the B.B.C Radio, Washinghton D.C Radio, www. africanhiphop.com. ,Y Fm Magazine South Africa e.t.c.
In 2005 ‘Streethop’ was on every major T.V Programme/T.V Station (Global Sounds, Music Africa, SoundCity, Solid Vibes, Silverbird Television, African Independent Television, MITV, Galaxy T.V LTV e.t.c and other T.V stations across Nigeria. It also got heavy rotation abroad (Ben T.V London, OBE Television U.K, Intro T.V London , Channel O South Africa, Trace T.V France e.t.c.

Shows: Africanhiphopsummit/Lyricist Lounge 3 (hosted by U.G.O Stevano USA)
MTN/ Nation Africa’s E kaa bo Concert
JJC & 419 Squad and Friends Homecoming Concert
Storm 45 Independence Day edition
Channel O & Urban Massive’s Storm Da Mic Launch (Hosted By Olisa & Kabelo)
‘The Realness’ 2nd Hiphop anniversary by G.A.ME
Big Brother Nigeria/ Channel O eviction party for Gideon
Motorola Urban massive /Channel O

International highlights: They made history by being the 1st Nigerian HipHop crew to be on MTV Base Africa and later went on to be the 1st indigenous Nigerians to appear on MTV USA Network.

Awards: Nominated in three categories at the prestigious Awards for Musical Excellence in Nigeria (AMEN Awards).
HipHop World Magazine Award for best Rap single by duo or group, on
the strength of their classic single ‘Streethop’.

Thoro Discography:
MEGA MOB Presents School of Thought Feat. Thoroughbreds
Oh My God! - from the X-1 compilation “Untold Stories”
Home Grown (Double CD) and Overture – Obiwon released through their label, Thoro Music
Forthcoming Projects - Fela is HipHop (06/07), Rebellious - Illbliss (06/07), Beats, Rhymes & Theology - B-elect (06/07)

Challenges: “Basically mediocrity, stereotypes, criticisms, politics (yes it exists in our industry). Lack of major backing in terms of supposed 'Godfathers' and most importantly major finance - we have 'Independently' been able to achieve immensely as pioneers in the genre of music and profession we do at the same time Putting Nigeria on the International map and have accolades to prove this. We achieved this because all of us have entrepreneurial ambitions so knowing fully well that the music industry lacked structure we sought 9-5 jobs to enable us finance our dreams and others like us, through 'Thoro' quality and strategic aligning to like minded people and establishment whether or not in the our field. Also we have a major challenge on our hands for years now named "piracy".”
Why we chose them: These young men have been in the forefront of entrenching a rap culture in Nigeria, sticking to their guns whilst others were ‘selling’ out and after years of consistency, it has begun to pay off

Full name: MASK (The league of extra-ordinary dancers).
When did you start: April 2003.
Membership: 35
What else do you do: Graduates Economics, Mass-comunication, Accounting, Anatomy, Maketing, Medicine and undergraduates in Estate Management, English, Cosmetology, Engineering, Public Relations and Accounting

Aim: “To revolutionize, brand and package the performing art of dance (dance industry) in Nigeria and Africa - this is to enable dancers earn a living from this art to be able to live comfortably.”
Details of work done: They have performed at the Hiphop World Awards, Youth Media Forum in Mali, The Future Awards … 2006, Indian Independence (Nigerian chapter), Gbenga @ 5,911 Benin City, Pump It Up Kaduna, Badagry Festival, Model Tour Nigeria e.t.c.
Own events - THE KNIGHT (a retirement dance concert to honour a worthy and special Nigerian HIS EMINENCE SUNDAY MBANG) DANCE MACHINES (Queens College, Holy Child, Fountain Heights, Nigerian Navy Secondary School, Ojo), CITY OF THE MASK (Planet 1, featuring OJB, Jazzman, Ruggedman, Soul Snatcher, Okey Bakassi etc.)
Other achievements: Have partnered with Planet One, RedSTRAT, Studio 53, Nigezie, Global Excellence, STV, Rhythm 93.7 etc
Have recruited and trained 15 new dancers.
From about 10 percent last year, 85% of their parents now support the fact that they want to earn a living with DANCE.
Challenges: Finance, perception of dance from important Nigerians, professionalism of we the youth, but especially finance – “Sometimes we have to use our perfomance fee to put up our shows and get costumes.
International highlights: Youth Media Forum, Bamako Mali.
Other info: They raise money and pay the school fees of some of them.

Why we chose them: No one gave them a chance when they first started, but they have gathered so much storm now that you can’t ignore them. In fact it has been said that they made the general public begin to take dance more seriously

Full name: WhoGoBuy

Dates of birth:
Samson Alogaga: 1976
Chinedu Oguegbu: 1979
Oladele Arilesere: 1981

Description: “We have combined our individual skills to develop a service that we believe will make life easier for a very large number of Nigerians. The service is primarily web based and thus accessible not only nation wide but indeed world wide and is focused on promoting business interaction in Nigeria and for Nigerians. What makes our team special is that we have the complete set of skills required to get the job done and even though it is a formidable task in any perspective, with the limited resources to our disposal we have made it much further than many who have attempted a similar feat.”

Individual tasks: Samson is a core programmer; he writes all the codes and also developed the database. Chinedu runs the business and operations section, which involves bringing in revenue and managing expenses. Dele is the responsible for designing and developing the website layout and architecture and does all the communication copy and print material development.

Why are you together: “We are together because in our line of business we collectively have the required skills to get the job done right. With time we also became good friends and now not being together is no longer an option cause the bond has formed.”

Details of work: Developed a web-based service (www.whogobuy.com), which is designed for connecting buyers with sellers. Basically, the way it works is thus: if someone has something they want to sell, whatever that may be, they can put up their ad on WhoGoBuy where all the other visitors can see the ad and anyone interested can freely contact the person advertising by phone, email or SMS to negotiate on the price and do business. Within the past year they’ve had over half a million visitors to the site and about four thousand ads placed on the site which is at least ten times more than their closest local competitor!

How have you stayed together: “Among many things we have learnt a lot, a whole lot and that has made us bend, mould and adapt our service to fit in well in to the Nigerian system. When we started, we had so many ideas but as we started implementing them we found out that there were better ways and that some of the ideas were not as compatible with our society so we had to make a lot of changes. We also learnt how to work with each other, in the beginning while we were still getting used to working together we had to learn to compromise, communicate and respect each other and that brought a lot of disagreements and fights between us but with time things got much smoother. We also had to develop some models to help us move ahead like the one we call “Not OR but AND” which basically means instead of fighting over “this or that” we do “this and that”. There’s another one we call “Just do it” which helped speed up the execution of many plans cause we realised that we wasted too much time waiting for approval from all the members to do simple tasks that even if not done to perfection would still have had a larger impact than not being done at all or being done late so we just based the principle on mutual trust that we all have a common goal which is the success of our business and the decisions we took individually had our collective best interest at heart.”

What challenges have you faced and how have you overcome them:
Well, apart from learning to work with each other we’ve faced many many other challenges. The most basic one that all up-coming businesses face; funding, not much needs to be said here cause we’re all familiar with this one. Another which is critical to our business is publicity, getting more people to know about and use our service has been pretty though especially due to the first mentioned obstacle. Most of our finance based obstacles we overcame through partnerships and barter deals as best we could. Also, we have had issues with workload, to run a service of such magnitude involves a huge amount of work and many times it’s overwhelming. We spend hours upon hours in front of our computer screens working to make things work better, keep them working and making sure we create a service that people are happy to use again and again, the price we had to pay was to let go of our social lives to achieve this and that puts an enormous emotional strain on the human mind thus we all fall in and out of depressions constantly but what keeps us going is the sight of the goal ahead.

International highlights: This isn’t a big deal since their service is instantly accessible from all over the globe, but they have been featured on several international websites and have many Nigerian users visiting the site from all over the globe. They’ve had business deals linked up from Japan, England, the US and probably several other countries but the ones mentioned are the ones they have records of.

Why we chose them: Whogobuy is a BRILLIANT concept and we are immeasurably proud of the fact that minds powering this brilliance are young

Full name: BABS EDUCATIONAL CONSULTS
Average age of members: 23
When did you start: December 2001
Details of work: BEC started as a group in Oshodi High School, trying to teach and educate their juniors but it became a vision given to encourage youths BEC started fully in 2001 and since then,they are a team to talk about. They publish the magazine; Atmosphere of Success majorly for teens
Awards: Most Inspirational Magazine 2005), Best Youth Group in the Local Government, Best NGO by NBNGO, Youth General Award in Oshodi/Isolo Local Government
Challenges: Most of the NGOs are busy making money and we have to struggle to not to be distracted and focus on helping people
Other info: They pay school fees for the indigent in Oshodi
Why we chose them: Their consistent work in Oshodi is truly impressive and they have maintained a crucial inspiring connection with the youths in that area

Full name: The Zebra Team

Average age: 29

Description: They were the last team standing at the Nokia/Silverbird Danceathon and made Nigeria proud when they beat the Guinness World Record for dancing by more than one hour.

Why we chose them: They only worked together for 3 days, but they were able to engage and inspire SO MANY young people within that space and time than many have done in years.