Who is Laycon, #BBNaija’s Trending star?

You’re forgiven if you thought someone with a criminal record is in the ongoing Big Brother Naija house going by the endless trolling of internet users on the day the show premiered. Such unguarded trolling, under the guise of harmless banter, often holds a claw to the throat of a person’s character. It may sound amusing but many persons had gone with that demeaning narrative about BBN housemate, Laycon, on the day housemates were admitted into the house. The housemates themselves in haste formed opinions about Laycon too as they initially kept their distances and made acquaintance with people wearing pretty faces and speaking with forced accents.

Laycon’s dreads and his nondescript face made him look the part of a bad boy portrayed in Nollywood movies and in stories partly told. But such attempts in portraying Laycon as a supposed criminal and the chasm between him and other housemates lasted less than 24 hours; to the surprise of many he’s a talented singer and rapper, polite, unassuming and effortlessly wise, which debunked the bad guy attributions and highlighted a marker on the swiftness of clinging to factual inaccuracies and societal assumptions.

Often he trended on Twitter, many times he’s the top trending hashtag. On day 3 of Big Brother Naija Lockdown season Laycon got verified on Instagram, becoming the first housemate this season to get the blue tick — a reported spike in follows from less than 4K followers to about 100k followers on the platform. Triller also gave him an independent launch.

Who is Laycon? Laycon is the housemate with vocal supports from media and music celebrities such as Reminisce, Fireboy, Joeboy, Oxlade, Blaqbonez. This surge of elite fan base arguably places him head and shoulders above the other housemate in terms of fan love. There are less people now openly judging his outlook and merits, the initial mockings and memes has turned to praises instead, while more peopl asking the question: Who is Laycon?

Olamilekan Agbeleshie, 26, aka Laycon is the 2016 best graduating student from the department of Philosophy, University of Lagos. He’s currently signed to Fierce Nation Entertainment. In 2019 his song Fierce featuring Reminisce and Chinko Ekun made it to the MTV Base top 10 charts for six months. “Who is Laycon” is his fourth EP in four years; one that’s a cross between the beating drums of Afropop and the heavy bars of rap. At the time of writing, the 8,-track EP has garnered over 630k+ streams on popular music streaming platform Audiomack. It was released in February 2020 peaked at the number 3 spot on Apple music album charts.

On track 2, a song titled after the name of the EP—Who is Laycon — he refers to himself as god in human body, also in another verse he terms himself as an upgrade of the short black boy — M.I The truth is Laycon is in a process that is constantly evolving, and at every phase there’s a new definition to his person. If one should ask Laycon who he is months from now, his answer might be I’m Laycon, BBN 2020 winner. We are about to find out, grab your popcorn.

Written by Mo Priye