There is something otherworldly about an artist who walks a path no one else sees until it’s lit up beneath his feet. Llona is that kind of artist. Not just a singer, not just a performer, but a conjurer of vision, moving ahead of the crowd with the quiet certainty of someone who already knows how the story ends.
In an era when Nigerian musicians are increasingly chasing the prestige of international arenas — flying across hemispheres to sell out venues in London, Toronto, Berlin and Atlanta — Llona has taken the road less glamorous but infinitely more revolutionary. He is currently on a nineteen-city tour. Not in Europe. Not in America. But in Nigeria. From the red soils of Benin to the echoes of Owerri, from the dusty magic of Zaria to the heartbeat of Kaduna.
And he calls himself homeless.
But how does one remain homeless when every city chants your name? When your music becomes a welcome mat in every state capital? When young fans in Zaria scream your lyrics like they’ve been waiting their whole lives for you to show up?
Truth is, Llona is not homeless. He is home. He is the most at home he has ever been.
The irony of his debut album title Homeless now feels like one of those inside jokes only the universe gets. Because while the title carried the melancholy of displacement, this tour reveals the punchline: his home is wherever the music takes him. And right now, the music is leading him through Nigeria, town by town, city by city, like a prophet tracing his origin story in reverse.
On March 22, Llona did something audacious. He launched his tour with not one but two cities on the same day — Zaria and Benin City — a bold logistical flex that also served as a metaphor. Two vastly different corners of the country brought into one frame. He wasn’t just traversing geography. He was uniting identities. That same spirit echoed again in his recent stops, Owerri on April 19 and Kaduna on April 26. Each destination a deliberate statement. Each crowd a new kind of family reunion.
This is no vanity tour. There are no Instagram boomerangs of champagne in business class. No hotel balconies overlooking snow-covered cities. This is grit and gospel. This is muddy boots and sweaty microphones. Llona is meeting Nigerians where they are — and in doing so, waking up a sleeping culture.
Because once upon a time, Nigerian acts didn’t need international applause to validate their sound. There was a time when homegrown tours were the litmus test of an artist’s depth and reach. Lagbaja did it. 2Baba did it. Asa did it. The road was hard but the roots ran deep. Somewhere along the line, that spirit was abandoned for streaming numbers and global dreams. But what happens when one man dares to bring it back?
Llona’s tour feels less like a campaign and more like a ceremony. A homecoming across twenty altars. In his own words, “homelessness” is an identity he wore to express a nomadic heart — a heart that didn’t quite belong in Lagos’ bubble or London’s gaze. But the beautiful twist is that in being everywhere, he has found belonging. In every chorus sung by a stranger, in every stage soaked with his sweat, in every local promoter that believed enough to book him — he has built a house without walls, one city at a time.
There’s a reason this is catching on. Already, murmurs are surfacing. Other artists are watching. Behind the scenes, agents are talking. There is a feeling that maybe — just maybe — there’s more to win in Owerri than an Instagram caption. Maybe real impact smells like burnt fuel at a small stadium in Jos. Maybe the future is here, not there.
And in truth, it was never really about rebellion for Llona. It was about responsibility. His clairvoyance is not loud or arrogant. It is the quiet clarity of someone who knows that music isn’t just made for playlists. It’s made for people. And people still live here.
This tour is not a flex. It’s a footprint. It’s the revival of a path long ignored but always necessary. One that might just be the blueprint for the next generation of Nigerian performers who will come to understand that selling out London is sweet but selling out Lokoja is sacred.
Llona may have called his album Homeless, but with every city he enters, with every crowd that sings back, it becomes harder to believe he ever was.
Because this is what home looks like.
And maybe the rest of the industry is about to remember that too.
