Davido’s latest lyrical release on the harsh reality of Nigerian economy is more meaningful and more relevant to millions of citizens than all his previous commercially successful tracks and national & international shows. It may not make billions of Naira for him, but it draws the attention of millions of the suffering & smiling agonizing masses and the struggling working class to him for speaking for them louder and clearer conscientiously.
An artiste, no matter how rich, connected or comfortable he/she is, doesn’t live in the graveyard where he sees nothing, hears nothing and says nothing. When all an artiste thinks is to make money and name for self, overlooking the sufferings of his fellow citizens, then he’s not really an artiste but a potential social criminal with some talents to sell and make money even when the country is in ruins. Such unscrupulous artistes see art for art sake and for their pocket sake alone and nothing more.
A good artiste mirrors his society as a critical interpreter, an influencer of thoughts and feelings of his people, reflecting and communicating such for government’s attention for necessary actions.
Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was never a poor man, from birth to death. He was a personification of a child born with silver spoon, and he ended changing the silver spoon to diamond spoon through creative hardwork. Fela was relatively unknown beyond clubs during his “Koola Lobito” years of making money and money alone. Fela became most famous nationally and globally when he committed class suicide and started identifying with the people, through his powerful music, using it as a weapon for social engineering. Nobody is talking now about Fela’s wealth but his revolutionary messages in his music, talks, yabis interviews.
May the soul of Fela, the people’s true prophet who saw our today and tomorrow yesterday, continue to rest in peace.
When Eedris Abdul Kareem released his “Nigeria Jagajaga” album to reflect the harsh economic conditions of Nigeria, many looters, bolekaja intellectuals, false “kayo kayo” economists, suffering & smiling economic victims, government hangers-on, Any Government In Power sycophants & automated defenders of government, all now known and called Abobaku, lost their sleep and wanted to tear & roast Eedris alive in an attempt to deny reality, forgetting that truth which is always bitter can’t be murdered. The rest is now history.
There’s nothing new Davido said on Nigeria under the T-Pains regime of economic hardship that has not been said by you, myself, by the people on the streets, in the marketplaces, schools, bus stops , homes, palaces, joints, kurukere kurukere worship centres. So, Davido is very right. He may not feel the pains of the economic hardship unleashed by Tinubu and his IMF – World Bank economic vampires much like overwhelming majority of Nigerians, but he can relate and interpret well, perhaps based on his experience on the increasing numbers of high profile beggars, families and friends. And of course, from his own businesses too.
Davido’s outburst on the misgovernance of this Tinubu regime of pains and more pains, shows that he may be rich and very comfortable, but he does not live in the graveyard or in the mortuary. Artistes with social conscience don’t live in the mortuaries where they are eternally insulated from life and people. I appreciate him for having the courage to speak out.
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