It was my first trip to Africa and it was an unbelievable experience.  Over the next three days, I'll be filling you in on all of the excitement (and craziness).  Here's my account of day one.

It all started at Newark International Airport in New Jersey at around 6AM on Thursday morning.  I checked my luggage and tried to mentally prepare myself to travel for the next 20 hours or so, then I hopped on the first flight of my journey.  Seven hours later I landed in London Heathrow Airport and met up with some of the other journalists that were attending the festival.

After another seven hour flight we landed in Lagos, (the former capital of Nigeria) where we hopped on an hour long flight to Abjua (the current capital).  In Abuja we all piled onto a van and traveled about 40 minutes to the Transcorp Hilton Abuja Hotel which is apparently one of the busiest Hiltons in the world.  I was so relieved to finally get there and check in.

I spent the morning (oh yeah, it was Friday morning by this point) walking around the hotel trying to find a power adapter for the outlets and changing my American dollars into Nigerian Naira.  $100 got me roughly 11,500 Naira.  Even with 500 Naira bills, that's a fairly large stack of money.

Before long is was back on the bus to attend the Abjua Green Society Inauguration Programme.  As part of their initiative to make Abuja a green city, they invited various celebrities to plant trees in Abuja Central Park & Botanical Garden.

Though Jay-Z and Rihanna were supposed to plant trees, the only celeb that showed up was Naomi Campbell.  This is Naomi with Nduka Obaigbena the wealthy media mogul who founded the Nigerian national newspaper, ThisDay, and the created the fashion and music festival.

After the tree planting we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the show.  I ran into Memph Bleek in the lobby.  Jay was also there chillin' in the lounge but he wasn't feeling very photogenic.

The concert and fashion show was supposed to start at 7PM so a little before 7, the press corps boarded the bus, naively believing that the show would start on time.  That's when we found out the venue had no power.  This was the first of many delays that we would experience throughout the trip.

A little after 10pm we finally made it over to the venue where the power had been turned on and the packed audience was patiently waiting for the show to begin.  The most expensive seats in the house went for 60,000 Naira which is roughly $500.  I simply can not imagine paying $500 for tickets to a concert at say, Madison Square Garden, and then waiting four hours for the show to start but everyone was surprisingly calm.  Look how chill they are.

Sometime after 11pm, Rihanna came out and performed a bunch of her hits like, "S.O.S.," "Shut Up and Drive," "Don't Stop The Music," and "Take A Bow." 

"Pon De Replay":

Watch how live the Nigerian crowd gets during "Shut Up and Drive":

She exited the stage then came back with The Rainman AKA Jay-Z for an electrifying performance of "Umbrella."  Then Jay launched into his own Memph Bleek assisted set.

Check out how the crowd responds when Jay performs, "Jigga" below:

And peep this new verse he spit over Estelle's "American Boy."  He cut the music and spit it again so we could all take in the words.  I think it's safe to say that Jay is obsessed with British culture.

Usher closed out the show with an incredibly energetic performance.  I, on the other hand, had no energy whatsoever.  That sums up day one.  Make sure you come back tomorrow for more ThisDay Music and Fashion Festival 2008 coverage.