Where We Are is a series about young people coming of age and the spaces where they create community.
At the bustling Yaba Market in Lagos, Nigeria, there is something for everyone.
Chatter rises from the traders, whose stalls sprawl over miles of cracked gray concrete and packed earth. They might be selling baskets of fresh fruit, wheelbarrows stuffed with phone cases, piles of sequined fabrics or racks of second-hand clothes.
If you’re lucky, you might find a vintage jacket you’ve been searching for, or a pair of long-lasting Levi’s jeans. But you’re never going to be as lucky as Dencity: the coolest of the cool kids of Lagos. These skaters, often clad in a uniform of baggy pants and crop tops, head to the market to go thrifting each week. They’re armed with fashion knowledge only the young, fun and determined can possess and seek out the best streetwear they can find.
Founded by 26-year-old Blessing Ewona in 2020 in response to the dearth of spaces for young queer people and female skaters in Nigeria, Dencity skate, dream and thrift together. From their trips to the market to regular skate meet-ups at the dilapidated National Stadium or Tarkwa Bay beach, they have traced their own map of the city.
“I always wanted a community where I could just be myself,” said Blessing. “Not where I have to skate all the time. An escape.”
“I tried to look for one,” she said, referring to a group in which she felt at home, “and then I said, let me just build my own. Not just for me, but for other people like me that also want a community like this but don’t know how to go about it.”
Most of the clothes that are thrifted at Yaba Market are sourced from abroad. They arrive in bales that the traders pick from and add to their own stalls, which are designed to entice people to come and buy — wares stacked in color-coded orders or charming patterns, walkways winding through the piles. Finding a bargain is like scouring a beach for buried treasure. And the Dencity skaters know how to look.
“They have their own eyes for what they want to wear, because everybody thrifts in this market, but they still find ways to make it cool,” said Stephen Tayo, the photographer for this story. “They are very in their own bubble of style. If you can influence from a space that is available to everybody, then you’re special.”
There’s a thrill to that hunt, Blessing explained. “You have to explore the market to get what you really want,” she said. “And sometimes, what we buy doesn’t always make sense. We have to figure out how to style it. We’re like, ‘It’s going to make sense one day.’”
Stephanie Onyemachi, second from left, a 21-year-old member of Dencity, discovered the market through Blessing. (“Everyone’s always asking me where I get my stuff. I take everyone there,” said Blessing, far left.)
For a good haul, Stephanie usually budgets 10,000 naira, or about $22 — a small fraction of her salary. “With that I can get three bottoms and about five tops,” she said.
“Unlike shopping in boutiques and malls, in the market there’s no gender restrictions or conforms. If I go to, like, let’s say, H&M or Mr. Price, there’s the male section, the kids section, the females section,” said Stephanie.
“But in the market, you don’t have any of that. Anybody can just come and shop and find what fits them.”
Like most of the members of Dencity, Stephanie, who grew up outside of Lagos, discovered the group on social media.
In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, she was stuck indoors with her family and felt trapped. But as Nigeria started to open back up, she moved to the capital and found out about the crew. It felt like a new world had been opened up to her. She bonded with them immediately and threw herself into the work of making it successful.
What began with Blessing posting photos and videos of her own skating escapades has grown in just two years to more than 90 young people from all over Nigeria, ranging in age from their late teens to mid-20s, who are part of the collective’s WhatsApp group and take part in in-person events, including thrifting expeditions to the market.
“When I first started Dencity, if I wasn’t there, people didn’t go out to skate,” said Blessing. “Now, they’re so comfortable they skate any day. Sometimes I’m just sitting at home going through Instagram stories then I’m like, ‘Ah! There they are.’”
“It gives me so much joy. Because I really wanted for girls to be able to go out and just be themselves.”
On her first day out with Dencity, “I finally felt like it was OK to be a female skater,” said Stephanie. “I had been constantly told, ‘Oh, this is a thing for guys.’ I finally felt like I was around my people. I finally felt normal.”
Dencity is helping to herald in a new era of cultural celebration that pushes up against the traditional, colonial and conservative values of Nigeria.
The majority of the people who skate with the group identify as queer — a rarity in a society that is often openly hostile to the L.G.B.T.Q. community. A Pew Research Center study in 2020 found that only 7 percent of people in Nigeria believe that homosexuality should be accepted, and the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act, passed in 2014, bans not just legal recognition of these relationships but also any outward displays of affection between partners of the same gender or meetings of official L.G.B.T.Q. organizations.
But despite the marginalization that they face, the members of Dencity, and groups like it, have been able to carve out a space of freedom and safety for themselves.
“When you’re in a marginalized group — and you’re in a country that does make sure you’re marginalized — when you hear there is a safe space for you, naturally, people are going to come through. It has naturally just attracted queer people,” said Stephanie.
“Safe spaces for queer Nigerians were almost non-existent 10 years ago, and even now there are only a few.”
The name “Dencity” is a play on Blessing’s middle name, Eden, and the crew’s goal is for their events to feel like a type of paradise for all who attend.
Through the clothes they source, the stickers they use to decorate their skateboards, even the rainbow snacks they brought on a queer-inclusive beach outing, Dencity’s members have carved out a space where they can be their full, authentic selves and feel “most welcome, most comfortable, doing our thing,” Stephanie said.
As interest in skating across Nigeria has been growing — there are now a number of pro skaters in the country, including Henry Okwubuasi, signed by Wafflesncream, Nigeria’s first skateboarding company — there is hope that a new generation of skaters will have access to more resources and be better equipped to represent the country on the world stage, including at the Olympic Games, which added skateboarding in 2021.
Dencity is committed to being a part of that future. “The skating community has become a space for all. They are their own government. That’s what I got from them,” said Stephen, the photographer. “Because when you make provision for yourself, and for people that look like you, then that’s a country on its own.”
“That’s a government, by the people, for the people.”
Stephen Tayo is a multidisciplinary artist based in Lagos, Nigeria. Influenced by his undergraduate studies in philosophy and an interest in contemporary anthropology, fashion and social justice, he offers social commentary on wealth, class, race, gender and identity through his work.
Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff is a journalist, book editor and author. She is based in London.
Where We Are is a series about young people coming of age and the spaces where they create community, produced by Alice Fang, Jennifer Harlan and Eve Lyons.
