1-D Woke: Inconsistency in Ideology and Alte Privilege

On Sunday night, rising Nigerian alternative-pop star, Odunsi put out an apology on his twitter timeline, via a screenshot from the Notes app. It was for one of his performances at Imperial College, London, where he included the words, “step in the name of love”—a piece of lyric from R. Kelly, on the song, “Falling”, off his latest album “Rare.”

“these words and melodies were originally composed and written by notorious sexual offender r. Kelly and unfortunately for me, due to how heavily sampled these lines are, i hadn’t internalized where it originated from [sic],” he stated in the screenshot. He then went on to deliver what, I believe, was supposed to be a heartfelt apology and a charge for his fans: “i sincerely apologise to everyone who was thrown off by it and to anyone who shares the same values that i do about sexual abuse and sexual abusers. in no way was this intentional and premeditated [sic].” “i also encourage anyone including my peers to make sure we aren’t enabling people like r. kelly and other sexual abusers as much as we can [sic].”

Some minutes after he posted the apology, he was confronted by another twitter user, with the contentious argument of the wisdom of separating an artist from his art, to which Odunsi quickly replied that

we can’t continue to celebrate a sexual offender with the magnitude of offences that r. kelly has by sampling/pushing his previous or present work. it is counter productive and makes it harder to find justice for victims of abuse. it’s already hard enough [sic].

Depending on whichever side of the ideological aisle you stand, Odunsi’s apology and subsequent doubling down can either be seen as insufferable, brain-bleaching virtue-signaling, or a masterful understanding of the intricacies of contemporary societal issues. There is ample evidence of this on Twitter, with the responses ranging from total agreement, to blatant disapproval of the apology. Either way, one thing you cannot argue against, is Odunsi’s heightened awareness of the topics that we—the internet/social media crowd, ergo, his core fan base—grapple with. Which is a lot more than I can say for most of his mainstream contemporaries.

This heightened awareness, however, makes the lyrics to one of his more recent features seem absurd. Listening to DRB LasGidi’s head-bopping single, “Necessary”, for the first time a couple of weeks ago, I felt weirded out by the hook, supposedly composed and performed by Odunsi. For context, here are the lyrics:

Owo wa necessary, eh, o necessary
Eh, owo lo le fi eniyan si cemetery
Whether na legal, or illegal, woah
Whether na legal, or illegal, woah

Translation:

Money is necessary, eh, it’s necessary
Money can put a person in a cemetery
Whether it’s legal, or illegal, woah
Whether it’s legal or illegal, woah

Did you cringe? I know I did. It felt very absurd hearing another music artist try to glamorize, or implicitly endorse the concept of making money illegally, especially since we were all at war with Lil Kesh and Olamide for their “Logo Benz” song in December. Heck, some folks had a problem with Victor AD’s “Wetin We Gain” and Chinko Ekun, Lil Kesh and Zlatan Ibile’s “Able God” for their seeming hustle-and-make-money-by-any-means lyrics. And we still, rightfully, heckle Olu Maintain for “Yahooze”, a song that is over a decade old.

Internet fraud, or Yahoo Yahoo, is undeniably a scourge to Nigeria and Nigerians, and the activities of internet fraudsters are a constant source of embarrassment for Nigerians in the international community. Legitimate business people constantly complain about the ripple effect of these fraudsters and how their actions affect them, directly and indirectly. Nigerians lose businesses because prospective clients or partners are afraid that they might be fraudsters; investors sometimes refuse to invest if they cannot be on ground to monitor things, because of the reputation of Nigerians that internet fraudsters have projected of us. And this is just one side to making money illegally in Nigeria. Wide scale corruption in government, the public and private sectors, ritual killings (blood money), armed robbery and other scams also factor into the “illegal money industry” in Nigeria. Add all these together and you will understand why the topic is such a sore spot for Nigerians everywhere. But here we have one of our youngest and best minds, encouraging it—and we are vibing to it.

“Whether na legaaaaaaaaaal or illegal”
Eh?

I find it highly implausible, and quite frankly, disappointing that Odunsi, who seems to understand a topic as convoluted as how sampling one line off R. Kelly’s catalogue “makes it harder to find justice for victims of abuse,” cannot seem to have a firm grasp on how making money illegally is morally reprehensible. It is either hypocrisy or stark ignorance—no in-between—and I don’t think Mr. Odunsi is ignorant. I understand the fact that sometimes, you get carried away by the artistic components of your craft that you sometimes forget to re-fix your content, but if you are going to take a moral high ground on issues like these, your ideology had better be consistent. Falz has come to learn this in recent times.

Even more shocking—to me, at the very least—is the fact that “Necessary” was released in December, and since then, I have not heard one criticism of the song, along the lines of promoting the idea that one has to make money by any means—legally or illegally. And I wonder if it’s a sort of privilege that alternative artistes enjoy. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it’s the optics that the genre projects—an Alternative artiste tends to be seen as edgy and pretty much harmless; a mainstream artiste like Lil Kesh is taken more seriously on his content. This is conjecture of course, but I believe that if an alternative artiste—say Tomi Thomas, for example—puts out a track like Olamide’s “Science Student”, he is less likely to be taken as seriously, and perhaps face bans and public criticism. This could also be because of the scales upon which they operate. Olamide and street music/afro-pop are huge brands; Odunsi, Tomi Thomas and Alternative music are relative “up comers” with smaller brands.

That does not take anything away from the facts on ground though. Odunsi directly promoted making money illegally on “Necessary”, we turned deaf ears to that, and instead decided to harangue “Wetin we gain” and “Able God,” which were more subtle in their messaging. Maybe Mr. Odunsi—and artistes, generally—are not the only ones that need to be consistent in their ideology, we all should.

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By Samuel Ishola for Urban Central (Tweets @UncleSmish)

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