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Promise Adiele
This week, I have decided to take a break from the demoralizing tensions in Nigeria’s contemporary realities and indulge myself a little with music – that sensuous, therapeutic art – in all of its caressing, disarming potential. It is not because I have received several emails from those who, convinced that Nigeria is entrapped in tyranny, are averse to critical analysis of government’s policies. Tired of threats, these same people have resorted to advice. Issa Audu from Abuja wrote, “You are a bright scholar, face your career and leave the government alone, the times are dangerous”. Another person, Mustapha Dalamu from Lagos wrote “I admire your courage but know that we are in democracy in principle, in reality, there is no democracy. Freedom of speech is not allowed in this country. Be wise my friend.” Mercy Okumagba from Warri wrote “Your insightful essays are the highlight of my Wednesdays, God bless you”.
To the many who wrote to advise and exchange ideas, thank you. To those who wrote to threaten hell and brimstone, thank you too. Let me make it clear, I do not write to protect any interest. I have serially been exposed to radical ideas in my career, to ask questions and to challenge the status quo. You cannot regularly engage the works of Carl Marx, Friedrich Hegel, Michel Foucault, Terry Eagleton, Jacques Derrida, Franz Fanon, Wole Soyinka, including Femi Osofisan, and remain the same. I do not belong to any political party. I stand for social justice and the enthronement of an egalitarian society. Today I want to retain my sanity by avoiding the Nigerian government because according to Samuel Butler, “self-preservation is the first law of nature”.
I love music, first as a genre of art, second as a source of entertainment, and third as a tool for social awakening. Some songs combine all of these elements yet, one can hardly identify any of these elements in some other songs. Some songs of the ’80s and ’90s combine a few or all of the first three elements while many songs in the latter category, from the year 2000 till present day, do not qualify as art, they do not entertain and certainly do not provide any insight into social reality. It is appalling these days that current songs which saturate our airwaves are neither entertaining nor committed to social awakening. At best many of them are offensive and lurid, with lewd, vulgar lyrics that border on moral degeneracy. The trends in music in Nigeria have changed so much that each time one tune in to a radio station, the sensibilities are assailed with meaningless, empty, offensive phrases that do not inspire or encourage. The female folks are at the centre of such songs where they are debased with words that mock their womanhood. Love, sex, romance, and a morbid desire for frippery are the main contents of music in Nigeria these days. Many of the songs celebrate fraud and wealth by all means, encouraging youths to ‘get rich quick or die while trying’. Their videos are populated by half-naked ladies wielding their buttocks provocatively in real or imagined ecstasy and young men either popping Champaign or living large and throwing wads of money around. It is all illusion that contrasts with present reality.
The Nigerian music scene in the 21st century has suffered a dislocation which reflects collective backwardness in terms of social perception. In the days gone by, musicians were celebrated as icons of a social crusade. They used their music to call the attention of the government and address issues in the society which required urgent attention. They identified with the masses, the downtrodden, therefore were not alienated from those who reflect the reality in the society. As entertainers, musicians of old sang songs that entertain, their songs either tell a story to satirize or celebrate an aspect of the local culture. Whether it was highlife, reggae, afrobeat, or hip-pop, Nigerian musicians lived up to expectations. I remember Oriental Brothers, Osita Osadebe, Celestine Ukwu, Sunny Okosun, Victor Olaiya, Sunny Ade, and Ebenezer Obey. How can I forget Abami Eda, the enigmatic Fela Anikulapo Kuti, one of the most iconic musicians to emerge from Africa?
Today, I am motivated by the songs of the late Ras Kimono. As I was driving home from work yesterday, the radio station (God bless them) played Kimono’s ‘What’s Gwan’. I was amazed by how the song, although released in the ’90s can capture Nigeria’s condition with such precision. Did the late Kimono foresee the situation in our country today? Did the muse reveal something to him as it does to many artists at one time or another? At the end of the song, I wished for a replay but unfortunately, it didn’t come. I immediately made up my mind to listen to it on YouTube later in the night. Listening to the song again, I concluded that it should deservedly constitute an addendum in our national anthem. Every person of good conscience should listen to this song to appreciate Nigeria’s present circumstance. As a young schoolboy when the song was released, it didn’t make much sense to me beyond entertaining my puerile mind. But today, Kimono’s ‘What’s Gwan’ succinctly captures Nigeria’s present story. ‘What’s Gwan’ is a slang understood to mean ‘What is the problem’? Although it is a rhetorical question, yet it mischievously seeks answers to the many problems that confront our country today. Delivered in a Rastafarian language, the lines, one after another, highlight most of the problems that confront Nigeria today. From the first line to the last line, issues like hunger and starvation, insecurity, unemployment, detention without trial, sexual immorality between student and teacher, disunity, nepotism, and tribalism all stare us in the face. The last stanza is a clarion call for Nigerians ‘to come together and build a nation, a virile nation with one destiny’. That last line in Kimono’s song leaves a big question on my mind: Is it possible for us to come together and build one nation when power potentates in our country are pulling in different directions?
Having been provoked after listening to ‘What’s Gwan’, I decided to provoke myself further by listening to some of Fela’s songs. My state of mind after listening to selected songs of the African icon is better imagined. How could Fela have captured present-day Nigeria with such accuracy? For lack of space, I will not interrogate the issues raised by one of the greatest sons of Africa, the Abami Eda himself. Honestly, ‘Beast of No Nation’ ‘Sorrow, Tears and Blood’, ‘Shuffering and Shmiling’ and ‘Army Arrangement’ stuck to my mind.
Disturbingly, no present musician in Nigeria is ideologically motivated. No song these days addresses the current malaise we face in this country. Sadly, music in the hands of contemporary practitioners has lost the galvanizing verve, the radical orientation, and the stimulating entertainment that accompanies it. Will it then be right to wave goodbye to good music while we continue to cling onto oldies for refreshment, entertainment, and awareness?
Dr. Adiele teaches in the Department of English, Mountain Top University via [email protected]
