Nigeria’s Street Pop movement has a powerful and vibrant figure in Naira Marley. His dynamic persona and potent music place him in a good standing in contemporary African pop music, and he is one of Nigeria’s most influential artists. While growing up in Lagos, he became immersed in and inordinately taken with music, especially the local rap rhythms. Naira Marley has embraced the slang, hot subject matter, and the rhyming schemes of the indigenous Yoruba rap scene as he has pursued his contemporary trap music.
In 2017, Marley Naira blew up on the music scene with his hit single “Issa Goal,” featuring Olamide and Lil Kesh, a song that shot him straight to stardom. Since then he’s dropped two successful projects: 2015’s “Gotta Dance” and 2019’s “Lord Of Lamba.” He’s got tons of hits! I mean, in 2019, he walloped the charts with back-to-back jams “Soapy” and “Am I A Yahoo Boy”—like, yikes! If we were to compile a list of chart-topping hits, that list would likely include some of his hooks from the aforementioned songs, along with “Japa,” “Tesumole,” and “Mafo. “And No, I’m Not Dora The Explorer; I don’t see a map. Oh, and did I mention he’s the self-proclaimed President of Marlian Nation?
The life and times, possessions, transport, and lifestyle of Naira Marley are of great interest to people who think of themselves as Marlians. Born in Nigeria but having spent much of his youth in the United Kingdom, Azeez Fashola is a rhythmically versatile artist whose hip-hop music has a melodic kind of variation.
He rose to prominence with “Issa Goal,” which served as the official anthem for Nigeria’s Super Eagles during the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. The inspiration for his name came from reggae icon Bob Marley and is a sign of the appreciation the young musician has for the legendary artist. Naira Marley inched closer to infamy after the Anti-Graft Commission arrested him and accused him of committing Internet fraud.

Early Life

Naira Marley was born in Lagos State, a part of Nigeria, into a religious Muslim family. He was raised with his siblings in homes where Islam was practiced with a rigor that could almost be characterized as fundamentalist. In fact, the Marley’s home in Nigeria, even by the standards of many Muslims, was rigorous about the tenets of the faith, and all of that was packaged with an emphasis on the kind of discipline that very often is a hallmark of African Muslim homes.

Marley’s parents named him Azeez Adeshina. Azeez means “dear” in Arabic, and Arabic is the language of the Qur’an. The Marley’s home in Nigeria was intellectually rigorous; it placed a huge premium on education and on the kind of discipline that translates into success in school.
Naira Marley aspired early on to pursue something like music, but he found his real calling in that art form, due largely to teachers who cajoled him and friends who stoked his passion. This led to his path of recording since 2014 and a debut of an EP in 2015 that was predated by a successful first single.
Education
Naira Marley completed his basic education at an esteemed, private primary school in Agege. His secondary education took place at Peckham Academy, where he not only gained admittance but also distinguished himself. His peers and instructors acknowledged that the high marks Naira Marley achieved in Business merited his graduation with that subject’s kind of distinction. He then went on to enroll in a college program that concentrated on Business Law, at a Post-16 educational institution formerly known as Crossways College (now called Christ the King Sixth Form College).

Music Career

In 2017, Naira Marley had what many would consider a breakthrough in the music industry with the release of a jam that soon became a national anthem.

Issa Goal, which is the name of the jam, is not just a mere song, and that much should be clear to anyone who listens carefully to the lyrics or tries to dissect the meaning in them. There is so much that is not just evident but also cleverly concealed in the lyrics, packed in with so many double entendres that I almost feel like I am being disloyal by not penning a disclaimer at the beginning of this article to say that I am not unearthing any secrets or unearthed any in the past.
Naira Marley was not just on the music scene in 2019; he ruled it. This was seen from how hard he worked that year, unveiling a good number of hits, including “Opotoyi,” “Why,” and “Bad Influence.” His subsequent EP, “Lord of Lamba,” dropped in December 2019 and was pretty much full of slaps. The project obviously featured Marley, but he was also ably assisted by several guest artists, including the Nigerian rapper Zlatan.
The first major concert he undertook, Marlian Fest, took place in Lagos in 2020 and announced not just his new record label but also several signings of fresh talent.
Having a Marlians fan base, Naira Marley is out front and leading nearly all that Nigeria’s pop culture has to offer. What began as a joke among friends quickly moved to a serious, passionate pursuit of music. Naira Marley is now a beloved figure throughout Nigeria. He is known for his unique blend of styles—grime, rap, and dancehall—that together form a definitely Marliyan sound. Controversies do nothing to dim his growing popularity, even when legions of fans are amazed by the things he does.

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Azeez Fashola, widely recognized as Naira Marley, was, not too long ago, seen with other artists—Zlatan Ibile, Rahman Jago, and two lads not as well-known but thought to pack a good amount of trouble. They were all released from custody—except Marley, who has been having a rough time lately. To say the least, Marley was in the deep end, and it was really hard to see a way for him to come up for air, with the eleven counts of fraud he’s been trying not to breathe through slamming his head down.
On June 14, 2019, the Federal High Court in Lagos granted bail to Naira Marley. He had spent some time in jail and seemed likely to spend more time there. The court set the bail at a low enough price that it could reasonably be paid under the circumstances—₦2 million—and tacked on a couple of surety requirements that made it seem a bit more official than just moseying on up to the bailiff’s window with a stack of cash. You had to be a government worker above a certain rank (the report didn’t specify, but let’s say above Grade Level 10), or stick your neck out over a nice piece of real estate, to make it happen.

Awards and Nominations

The 2020 Soundcity MVP Awards rewarded Naira Marley for more than his just tremendous fame; he also deserved and earned accolades for his genuine abilities as a songwriter and musician. He took home the Viewers Choice Award for the tune “Soapy,” which moreover bagged two other notable nominations (Song of the Year and Best Pop Song) at the Soundcity shindig. Meanwhile, at the 2019 City People Music Awards, he found himself up for the honor of Best Male Artiste.

Naira Marley’s Personal Life

Naira Marley commemorates reggae legend Bob Marley, one of his musical icons, by nothing more than name. For every musician, not just those in Nigeria, to embody the cultural, ethnic, and linguistic diversity that those two identities represent in a positive light is a step toward building a better society. That is the kind of copyleft embraced by Trap figures across West Africa.
Nurturing and nurturing talent at Marlian Music is a rising star. Marlian Music is a notion now associated with disciplines of rising talents that are almost like stars: Zinoleesky, Mohbad, Emo Grae, CBlvck, Tori Keeche, and Fabian Blu. Naira Marley makes this with Music. In fact, Naira Marley is Music.

The beloved son of the progenies of Music.

Naira Marley has no wife, but he is certainly not without a woman in his life. He is a father to four children, and they all have different mothers, with whom he was allegedly in some sort of serious relationship. His first set of children, twin girls Aishat and Simiat, for whom he was yet to acknowledge any sort of existence, were born in April 2015. Their mother’s identity is a well-kept secret, and she’s reportedly living somewhere in the UK. Naira Marley appears to have been living the life of a typical playboy, until very recently.
Naira Marley lives a life of luxury on Lagos’s Victoria Island, yet he courts controversy. He was taken in by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on May 10, 2019. After spending six days in their custody, he was charged with committing fraud—an EFCC specialty. He was granted bail on June 14, 2019.
In 2020, he encountered new legal problems because he disobeyed the president’s order limiting travel between the states during the coronavirus epidemic. The order was intended to slow the virus’s spread, of course. But no one could have predicted that, while on his way to Abuja to give a concert, he’d be stopped in his tracks and charged a hefty fine for traveling when he obviously shouldn’t have been.
The total penalty was—sound the trumpet—a triennial submersion of your bank account equivalent to—that is, three times—what an average Nigerian makes in a year.

Naira Marley’s Net Worth

Marlian Nation leader Naira Marley’s has established a fortune for himself and the artists under his mantle. Reportedly, Naira Marley net worth is somewhere between $5 million and $10 million as of 2025, with the bulk of the income deriving from music sales and performance bookings. Marley might not be able to count himself among to 5 Nigeria’s richest artists, but his ascent in the country’s music scene has surely been one of the fastest in recent memory.

Naira Marley’s Lifestyle

While in custody, Naira Marley made an unexpected declaration when making a statement to the EFCC. He said that he is married to two women and has four children with them. He went on to say that all of the aforementioned are British citizens.