There is a moment, somewhere between the cold air and the sound of a language you have never heard before. That’s when you realise that the creative soul of Jos is doing something to you. Your pace slows. You begin to listen differently. You look at the granite hills in the distance and something in you goes quiet — in the good way. That only happens when beauty catches you off guard.
This is what Plateau State does to artists. And it explains, perhaps more than anything else. This city at 1,200 metres above sea level has quietly become one of Nigeria’s most fertile creative grounds.
The question is not whether Plateau State has a creative culture. It has been producing art, music, and storytelling for longer than most modern nations have existed. The Nok civilisation was here, on this very plateau, nearly three thousand years ago. The question, for the traveller arriving today, is simpler. Where do I begin?
Plateau State Culture With Roots That Run Deep
Plateau State Afizere Aharawa Dancers
Before the galleries, the studio albums, and the social media reels, there was the land itself. Plateau State is home to more than fifty distinct ethnic groups. These includes, the Berom, the Afizere, the Ngas, the Anaguta, the Mwaghavul, and dozens more. Each carrying its own musical traditions, visual languages, and ceremonial practices that have evolved across centuries. This is not a single creative culture. It is a symphony of them, playing in extraordinary proximity to one another. They are constantly cross-pollinating, constantly producing something new.
Walk through Jos on a Saturday morning and you might hear the staccato rhythms of a Berom wedding celebration. It may be coming two streets over from where a young producer is layering Afrobeats samples. This is not a contradiction. In Plateau State, the ancient and the contemporary are not at war. They are in conversation — and the conversation is electric.
What has changed in recent years is that a new generation of Plateau creatives has found the confidence. They’ve also found the tools, and the platforms to take that conversation global. Four of them are worth knowing by name.
The Comedian Who Makes the Whole North Laugh
If you have spent any time on social media in Northern Nigeria, you have almost certainly encountered Hilarious Sunny. And you have almost certainly laughed. The Jos-born content creator and comedian began his journey in 2024. While still a student, he asked: what if he just showed the world what it was actually like to grow up on the Plateau?
The result has been nothing short of a cultural phenomenon. Sunny plays a character so vivid and so specific — the mischievous, warm, endlessly curious Plateau child who befriends everyone and fears nothing — that audiences across Nigeria and the diaspora see not just a Jos kid, but a mirror held up to their own childhoods. His content works because it is built from the inside out. The nostalgia it triggers is genuine because the culture it draws from is genuine.
What began as a student project has grown into something far larger. Today, Hilarious Sunny is one of the most in-demand entertainers in Northern Nigeria, having performed at events across nearly every northern state. His 2026 Lifetime Series — held in Jos — drew a crowd that came specifically to be part of a moment they sensed was significant. Reflecting on the night, Sunny captured it with characteristic warmth: “Every picture holds a memory I will never forget.”
For cultural travellers interested in the living creative culture of Northern Nigeria, Hilarious Sunny is essential viewing. He is, in the truest sense, a documentation of Plateau life — funny, specific, and quietly profound.
The Album That May Be the Most Important Plateau Release in Years
Dicekid Sos
There are albums, and then there are statements. The forthcoming debut album by Dicekid SOS, titled Ngas Demon, falls firmly into the second category.
On the surface, Ngas Demon is a contemporary Afrobeats project. It is built for streaming platforms and packed with the kind of rhythms that travel. But beneath the production is something more ambitious. Ngas Demon is a project in English and the Ngas language. Ngas is tongue spoken by the Ngas people of Plateau State. The project was woven with such musicality and warmth. Even a first-time listener finds themselves leaning in rather than tuning out.
This is not a small thing. Nigeria has over 500 languages. The vast majority of which have never been commercially recorded. Or, never been commercially distributed. So, in the frank assessment of linguists, They are at risk. Every generation that passes without documentation of vocabulary, proverb, and oral history loses. Most times without ever knowing what it had.
Dicekid SOS understands this. Ngas Demon is a cultural renaissance. It’s a project that does not ask the Ngas language to apologise for itself. Also, it doesn’t dress itself up in English to be heard. It asks the listener to come to the culture. It is a call, clear and unambiguous, for every listener regardless of background. It’s a call to embrace the beauty of their own identity. Not to trade it for something they perceive as more valuable.
For the cultural traveller, the release of Ngas Demon is an entry point into a creative community. A community that is fiercely, proudly Plateau. And increasingly, the rest of the world is starting to pay attention. This project helps you peep into the creative soul of Jos.
The Man Who Brings the Afizere Dancers to the World’s Stage
There is a moment in Arin Izere’s live performances. It’s somewhere between the opening melody and the entrance of the Afizere Asharawa dancers. It’s a moment the audience collectively forgets where they are. The colour, the movement, the sound of the Afizere language riding over a live rhythm section. This is an experience that exists nowhere else on earth.
Arin Izere is a musical artist from Plateau State. He has made it his life’s work to bring Afizere and Plateau State culture to the world. He sings exclusively in the Afizere language. However, in a creative decision that has become his defining visual signature. Arin features the Afizere Asharawa dancers in his music videos and live shows. The Asharawa is not decorativ, but integral. The dancers and the music are not two separate things sharing a stage. They are one expression.
Also Read:Plateau State Artists Are Making Waves in Music and Visual Art
He has called this partnership “a match made in heaven” — and watching it live, you begin to understand why. The Afizere dance tradition is athletic, precise, and visually extraordinary. It’s a physical language developed across generations. And, Arin refuses to allow to exist only in memory or in village ceremonies. He is dragging it, with great love and great ambition, into the global conversation about African music.
In his own words, describing the feeling of stepping onto a stage: “The rhythm from within… Oh, how I love to perform! To give out love from a depth beyond words!”
Are you a traveller interested in the intersection of traditional African performance and contemporary music? An Arin Izere live show is a rich Plateau State cultural experience. It’s one that begins in Plateau State and reaches far beyond it.
The Gallery Where the Plateau Comes Indoors
Not all of Plateau State’s culture announces itself with sound. Some of it hangs quietly on a wall and steals your attention.
Also Read: Cultural Experiences In plateau state
Nentawe Gokwat is a visual artist and the founder of Ecstasy Art Gallery in Jos. It is one of the finest art spaces in Northern Nigeria. And, it’s a destination that serious art travellers should put directly on their itinerary. Gokwat is, by his own description, “an art enthusiast who draws inspiration from life and diverse societal units” . That’s a characteristically modest description for a body of work that is not modest in its ambitions.
His paintings are, at their core, love letters to the Plateau. The granite hills. The cool morning light. The particular way mist sits between the rock formations on a January morning. Gokwat renders these landscapes with a sensory fidelity that makes you feel the cold through the canvas. He also sculpts three-dimensional works. They carry the same cultural attentiveness as his paintings. They are rooted in Plateau material traditions but they speak a contemporary visual language.
What distinguishes Gokwat beyond his studio practice is his commitment to building creative infrastructure. He has organised numerous Sip and Paint events in Jos. They are accessible, and joyful evenings that bring people into direct contact with the creative process. In 2026, he took his curatorial ambition to the national stage. It was termed, Society of Nigerian Artists Annual National Art Exhibition 2026 in Abuja. And the theme: Reimagining Art For Development — a title that could serve as Gokwat’s own manifesto.
Ecstasy Art Gallery is more than a commercial space. It is an archive. Every piece on its walls is a document of Plateau State Culture, landscape, memory. And, the particular way one man sees the place he calls home.
Visitor Information: Ecstasy Art Gallery is located in Jos. Visitors are advised to contact the gallery in advance to confirm opening hours and any upcoming events or exhibitions.
What This City Does to Creative People
I’m not presenting Hilarious Sunny, Dicekid SOS, Arin Izere, and Nentawe Gokwat the most talented.
Plateau State produces this kind of creative work consistently. Look across generations, across disciplines, across languages. There is something in the environment itself. The altitude gives the city its cool, clear air and its extraordinary quality of light. The ethnic diversity generates a constant creative friction, the kind that comes from fifty cultures living in close proximity. And each of the cultures influencing and being influenced by the others. The University of Jos has seeded the city with graduates. However, most of them stayed because they fell in love with the place. And there is something about the physical drama of the landscape. The granite formations, the sudden hills, the valleys that appear without warning. All these seems to stir artistic response.
This is not a city that was designed to be a creative hub. It became one because the conditions for creativity were already present. I’m talking about beauty, diversity, community, and serenity.
Planning Your Cultural Visit to Plateau State
And, for the international traveller, Plateau State offers a cultural itinerary unlike anything else in West Africa. Here is how to begin:
Experience Live Music: Follow Arin Izere and Dicekid SOS on social media for more information. Their live shows are, by most accounts, among the most memorable musical experiences in the country.
Visit Ecstasy Art Gallery: Allow at least two hours. Come prepared to invest in original Nigerian art. Gokwat’s works represent both cultural and financial value. It is still dramatically under-priced considering their quality and significance.
Follow Hilarious Sunny: His content is one of the fastest way to understand Plateau State culture before you arrive. Watch his videos, then come to Jos and meet the culture that made them.
Visit the National Museum Jos: Home to one of the world’s finest collections of Nok terracotta archaeological artefacts. It is, in objective terms, one of the most important museums in Africa. And, it is vastly undervisited by international travellers.
Time Your Visit Well: The harmattan season (November to February) transforms Jos into its most atmospheric version. The cool, dry, misty mornings gives way to clear, golden afternoons. This is also when many cultural events and outdoor performances take place.
Stay Curious: Jos rewards wandering. The creative culture here is not all in galleries and on stages. It is in the markets, the chop houses, the university campus, the roadside conversations. Give yourself time to find it in unexpected places.
The Creative Renaissance Is Already Underway
Plateau State has never lacked creative talent. What makes this moment in its cultural history significant is that artists are increasingly refusing to keep that talent contained.
Hilarious Sunny is making Northern Nigeria laugh and remember. Dicekid SOS is making the world listen to Ngas. Arin Izere is putting the Afizere Asharawa dancers on stages their ancestors could not have imagined. Nentawe Gokwat is putting the Plateau’s beauty on gallery walls from Jos to Abuja and beyond. These Artists are all unique and all play an important role in projecting Plateau State culture to the world.
Also Read: https://lifestyle.thecable.ng/10-nigerian-artistes-that-had-their-start-in-jos/
The creative soul of Plateau State has always been there. It is simply, at last, being shown to the world.
Come and see it for yourself — before the rest of the world catches on.