It has been that sort of a week in the Nigerian music scene where everything including the kitchen sink has been thrown from all angles and in various colours.
A major part of the past week witnessed back and forth shades between two of the country’s biggest pop acts Wizkid and Davido: shots were fired through tweets, whilst reprisal attacks were deployed on Snapchat.
This generated the usual tons of retweets, mudslinging, fans going at each other and the entire landscape was set ablaze by two young acts who have decided to wash their very dirty linens in the full glare of the public eye.
A lot of people observed in silence figuring since the young men were both at the height of their careers, the hype won’t hurt.
As if that wasn’t enough, rising star, Tekno, felt left out of all the public attention drawn towards the more accomplished duo and decided he needed a piece of the action.
He ill-advisedly jumped into a ‘roforofo’ fight in which no one gets to come out clean. Tekno took to social media with tweets leaning in support of Davido whilst shading Wizkid, ‘Na just time, soon we go know who international pass’, he tweeted in response to a Wizkid tweet.
This led to a response from Starboy who referred to him as a duck and the backlash led to the ‘Pana’ singer calling for peace and seeking the easy way out through emergency charity works.
Lesson to all the upcoming artist out there! Stay in the news always.. me seff I still be up coming..
— TEKNOOFFICIAL (@alhajitekno) July 5, 2017
Am putting 5 million down to support any one that has plans for a small business, or need to pay their school fees.. #pls link up with proof
— TEKNOOFFICIAL (@alhajitekno) July 7, 2017
The Wizkid-Davido beef also birthed the energy for Cynthia Morgan and MC Galaxy to throw shots at each other.
‘I see MC Galaxy saying something about lions and 20%, yo bro I like you a lot but you need to shut up…..the real lions don’t need a description,’ Cynthia posted on her page which led to a response from the ‘Sekem’ singer and it just goes on and on.
And just when we thought we had seen enough of the ugly draws and underwear to last us a while, Kcee and Harrysong reminded us of their pettiness with the latter posting a court document showing that, despite severing ties with Kcee and Five Star Music, he had been dragged to court.
Kcee went on to boast in a recent interview about how Harrysong had no visa on his passport when he joined the label, yet was given access to fly business with them when they travelled, and how the label helped him build self-esteem and confidence.
The past few days has been a mess on the music scene and the real victims are the fans.
Whilst all these drama makes for fun and laughs, it really is worrying that at this critical time in our history with the nation in a recession, at an edge having an ailing Commander-In-Chief who has not been seen in almost two months, drums of secession being sounded louder since 1970 and inflation biting harder than before, with a lot of the fans of these set of artistes struggling to enjoy three square meals daily, this is what we are getting thrown in our faces.
Lagos, a city where all these acts gained prominence from and was their platform for the international coverage they now enjoy has been plagued with several ills of late, with the ‘Badoo’ scourge, increasing insecurity with kids kidnapped for over 40 days and insensitive governance, yet not one of them have deemed it fit to address this situation through their music, nor thought it wise enough to align with the people and use their influence and mass following to speak up when the people need them the most.
Tekno released a politically conscious song in ‘Rara’ which became a hit even without the artiste taking it serious, it was his least promoted single and had an underwhelming video but the song still banged simply because the message radiated amongst the people and they embraced it.
Wizkid, who has enjoyed several comparisons with Afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, tweeted about an upcoming show holding in September with the proceeds set to be donated to the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire accident in London.
As much as that sounds charitable, I struggle to understand how it makes sense as no UK artiste will hold an event first in support of another country when his nation is on fire. One can’t dictate to an artiste the type of show he should have but it only sounds fair to understand the reasoning behind certain actions.
One wonders how artistes will react if their online drama and childish rants get very few response from their legion of followers online, Tekno clearly admitted that his tweets led to a surge in the number of his followers, so why wouldn’t he be willing to do this again when his album is due for release? A lot of times we complain about our musicians performing without a live band or a performance CD, ever thought to wonder what will happen if the fans begin to shun their concerts and demand they do?
It is time Nigerian artistes begin to take their art and their fans more seriously, it is time the music audience begin to hold their fans to a higher standard, the bants and the drama may serve its purpose today but when tomorrow comes, will your music be remembered as one which left a legacy?