VICTONY; AN INQUIRY INTO HUMAN DUALITY

"alcohol e dey hit me near spine"

Different Size by Burna Boy has just come on, but it’s Victony I’m here for. I’ve always liked his voice, and his delivery, especially from the first time I heard Pray.

But what exactly does Victony deliver?

I think all of us, as human beings, have crutches, addictions, and vices. And small or big, we most likely want to be free of them, but we usually find ourselves trapped in them. We'll wallow in the addiction, then afterwards we sober up, and try to do better, and then fall right back in.

So what does Victony deliver?

Or rather, what is he trapped in, by?

On Different Size, it's initially alcohol, but it is an addiction to attractive female bodies that pervades much of his work. Sadly, women like this, aware of their sex appeal, are very toxic, and will capitalise upon their victims' emotional instability.

But let's slow down a bit, and look at him. Involved in a fatal accident that took the life of a close friend of his, he was on a wheelchair for the beginning parts of his career. He did get better, but only physically. The memories of whatever happened on that fateful day still clearly haunt him. It's very clear in his actions, and that of celebrities like him. He hardly uses his social media, except to make announcements, and a once in a blue moon " I love you" message to his fans. We hardly know anything about his personal life, there's so little interviews…

He's running from something, we're all running from something. But if you're running from something, you're definitely running towards another "something". For some, it's God, for some it's drugs, for others it's art, for Victony, and many others like him, it's sex.

Let's take his debut project, Outlaw, for an example. The album's eponymous opener is a high. He's being exalted by the "outlaws" (his fanbase), he's a "champion boy" who fears nothing, not even fire. And nothing can quench his inner flame, especially not "enemy saliva". The grace of God is backing him, his family is around him, he's really good, really good, but it's only 1 song long.

By track 2, Apollo, his salvation is in a woman's body. All the self awareness and self-improvement he was yapping about earlier is now gone, and now he just wants to dance with someone. Money drives him too, but what's done with the money? He slips even deeper into lust by Track 3, All Power. He's hardly making any sense, and you can clearly hear the lust moving his mouth, repeating "bum bum" over and over again in the chorus.

But slow down, there's something more. the chorus reads,
"All power belongs to your bumbum", and earlier, he claims
"My salvation, Reverend Father say e dey your body"

And so it becomes clear what Victony is trying to do. He’s clearly someone with Catholic or Anglican roots, I always mix the two up. But those two are religions, a way of getting closer to God, a source of succour and respite for troubled souls. But it is here that his problem seems to crystallise itself.

He seems to know that peace of mind only comes from within, a within that is somehow connected to a somewhat higher without. But Victony is young, and wants to retain his youth, maximise it, abuse it even.

And so he continues to splash about in lustful quick sand for almost 5 songs in a 7 song EP, occasionally coming up to wallow in sadness. Fusing the physical into the spiritual never really works well, hourglass women will not cure depression, but what exactly will? Because there's so many Christians who struggle with unhappiness but are afraid to speak up for fear of being accused of demon possession.

But we're talking about Victony, not Christians.

Earlier, he's been in some sort of shaky libido induced trance, but there's P.N.C. And on the album's last song, Kolomental, he's down, really down. He appears to be someone who carries his pain around with him, running from it into the arms and sheets of attractive women, and then getting flung back into its grip when they leave him high and dry.

And yet, we see his real problem here- ESCAPISM. He does anything at all to stop thinking, because even just regular thinking turns into worry for people like him. I can't exactly name his type yet, maybe more searching will help me.

But I do this too. I throw myself into people, relationships, music, art, anything to get myself away from my mind. And honestly, it's not good enough, because you're giving too much of yourself, and not getting anything in return.

I want to get better, but I like my clutches too. I'm scared of walking on my own, so I want something to carry me up until the next checkpoint, the next high, I'm constantly chasing highs, and they're usually very far in between. The lows are very regular, and so the cycle continues.

We get sad, we remember a past that we're refusing to leave behind, and then we distract ourselves for just that moment, and we get the high, and then the high drops, and then, boom, we're back in the abyss.

Victony's latest song, Jaga Jaga, with Babyboy AV has a sick video you should see. I haven't seen it though, but the snippet he posted was an awesome advert for me. In it, he shoots an older version of himself in the head, dead. The new him runs things now, the new you should. Kill your old self today, and step into your new light.

But how?