On Nigerian Music and Misogyny, Letter two.

A history of misogyny in Afrobeats

This is part one of a five-part correspondence series between

Feminist Inc

and

Azeezah

.In this series, we explore misogyny in Nigerian music—its lyrics, themes, and the industry-wide culture that enables it.

Feminist Inc

Inc will be publishing parts 1, 3, and 5 on here, while

Azeezah

will publish parts 2 and 4 on her Substack.

Links to each letter will be added as they are published: letter 1.

On Nigerian Music and Misogyny - Letter one

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Fela Kuti is widely recognized for his impact on Nigerian Music, and is considered the father of Afrobeats. Yet, he was not exempt from perpetuating misogynistic ideals. Fela’s view of women was far from progressive and his bias shone in his music. The most prominent example I can think of is his 1972 song, “Lady.” On this record, Kuti differentiates between a lady and an African woman. The lady is described as a somewhat stuck-up woman who doesn't know her place. This can be seen in the lines:

“I want tell you about lady

She go say him equal to man

She go say him get power like man

She go say anything man do himself fit do.”

It is not lost on me that the characteristics of the lady Fela describes are the talking points of feminists.

On the other hand, the African woman is portrayed as a role model for all women, the epitome of womanhood that we should all aspire to. Fela reinforces it in the lines:

“African woman go dance

She go dance the fire dance

She know him man na master

She go cook for am

She go do anything he say.”

Here, Kuti reflects the deep-seated societal belief that women are inferior to men. The lyrics of this song reinforce patriarchal ideals by shaming women who dare to stand against it. The African woman represents the “good woman” who knows a place and serves a husband, while the lady is an outlier who has refused to understand and conform to traditional gender roles.

Kuti's song, “Mattress” further augments his misogynistic view of women as things and inanimate objects. A line from the song goes:

“E be mat, e be plank, e be spring, e be cushion.

Anything wey we dey sleep on top, call am for me, mattress, mattress.

So, when I say woman na mattress I no lie.”

These lyrics are a reduction of women to sexual playthings. They imply that a woman is good for one thing only—sex. Kuti takes his degradation a step further, likening women to springs, cushions, planks, and mats.

There are many, many examples of Fela's misogyny. After all, the man didn't care enough to hide it. Fela viewed women as sexual interests, nothing more. He believed that even when a woman said no, what she really meant was yes, propagating the harmful ideal that we now know to be rape culture (see his song, “Shakara (Oloje)”).

Fela was a political activist, but he was also a misogynist. These things are not mutually exclusive and one does not take away from the other.

Misogyny in Afrobeats Today

A lot of Afrobeats artists today often cite Fela Kuti as one of their major influences in music. Thus, it is not far-fetched that as they follow his path music wise, they also inherit his legacy of blatant disrespect for women.

For Nigerian musicians, it seems impossible to have careers without degrading women in their music. What's worse? The women eat that shit right up. I'm not sure if it's the appeal of the bad boy archetype or a lack of self-preservation that causes this. In this segment I will examine how several Nigerian artists display misogyny in their work.

Ruger

Ruger and his silly eyepatch (a pathetic attempt at appearing unique, in my opinion) have been disturbing our senses since 2020. In the past 5 years, he has managed to drop the nice guy façade initially adopted and now openly displays his misogyny.

Ruger's song, “Red Flags” is a masterclass in shirking accountability and victim-blaming. From the very beginning of the song, he blames a female partner for not “listening” after he told her he couldn't fulfill her wishes. He goes on to call this woman and several others “bitches,” then says he loves her. Ruger doubles down on his stupidity with the chorus:

“You saw the red flags baby but you ignored the red flags

Now you are here baby you con dey vex

See I can't change, baby you better rest or you end this now.”

This is obviously every fuckboy’s anthem. I mean, why have meaningful relationships when you can just toy with people's emotions to make yourself feel something?

The majority of Ruger's songs feature needless hypersexualization of women. The women he refers to in his music do not seem to have any endearing personality trait beyond their bodies and their sexual prowess. This is reductive as fuck. You want to tell me that a woman can't be sexy and intellectual? Like it's a foreign concept? Ruger sings endlessly about “waterlogged pum pum” but never about a woman's hobbies or personality.

Kizz Daniel

Kizz Daniel is one of those artists who are universally liked. However, he also propagates misogyny in his music. Consider the lines from his song “Pak N Go”:

“Ol’omoge picky picky

When will you marry eh?

Until your bobby touch your belle oh?

Wey man no wan collect.”

The song opens with Daniel shaming women for having standards. He goes on to make ageist and false remarks about a woman's body. The implication here is that the female form loses currency the minute men no longer find it attractive. Another reductive assumption. Women are full human beings, whose existence has nothing to do with male validation. The song also body shames women who do not have perky breasts (which have nothing to do with age by the way.)

I feel like these men don't realize the havoc they wreak with their poor diction when writing songs. It's disgusting and appalling.

Kizz Daniel has as also propagated rape culture with the lyrics of his song, “Yeba.” The line, “Uncle, stop touching” did nothing to advance the song lyrically. It was just a little sprinkle of misogyny, making light of the very real problem of sexual harassment. He released an apology, claiming that the purpose of the song was to teach women to speak out against harassment of any form. The question is, why didn't he use this moment to teach men and other harassers to stop violating other people instead of placing the responsibility for the bulk of the work on the victim's shoulders?

Olamide

Olamide, our very own Jay-Z, is not exempt from using misogynistic lyrics in his songs. In 2014, Olamide released the song, “Story for the Gods.” The lyrics of this song are very problematic as they perpetuate rape culture rhetoric. This is glaring in the lines:

“She say she cannot wait o

She say it's getting late oo

She say she wants to faint oh. Ha!

Story for the gods

Now, she saying mo ro go

Oti kan mi lapa oo

Oti kan my leyin oo

Story for the gods.”

These lyrics can be roughly translated to mean: “He has broken my arm, he has broken my back.” It is also quite obvious that the woman in this song has withdrawn her consent. She is in pain, yet Olamide’s persona doesn't let up. Rather, he seems to enjoy her misery. These lyrics are very alarming because they propagate the dangerous “I don't take no for an answer” attitude that men have when it comes to consent.

By using a far-reaching platform like music to broadcast rhetoric like these, the violence and assault that women experience become normalised.

A 2023 Punocracy article on the sexist lyrics rampant in Nigerian music reads:

“Rapping about rape has the effect of desensitizing people to the real pain suffered by victims. . . Excessive amounts of fictionalised portrayals of men's violence against women in mainstream media would likely lead to real-life violence.”

Oritsefemi

Oritsefemi’s “Igbeyawo” is a staple at Nigerian weddings. It's the song blasting as piping hot dishes of jollof rice are served with the guests nodding their heads along. However, the song also features sexist and misogynistic lyrics. The lines that are most problematic are:

“Oko iyawo, toju aya re

Shey ori iwo iyawo, gbo ti oko eh

Ounje lasiko, pon’mi lasiko,

Fo’so lasiko

Fun ni tibi yen lasiko

Tori oun ti a gbe sile ni omo eran n gbe.”

These lyrics translate to:

“Husband, take care of your wife

You, wife, listen to your husband

Cook on time, fetch water on time

Wash clothes on time

Give sex on time

Because it's what's neglected that the goat carries.”

Before I get into just how misogynistic this song is, I'd like to point out that it was released in big 2022! It seems that much hasn't changed since Fela.

Much like Fela's Lady, this song is a musical reinforcement of patriarchal ideals and traditional gender roles. The sole role of the husband here is to “take care of your wife.” If that line is examined through a sexist lens, what he means is that the man needs to provide money, while the wife takes on the bulk of the work, including housekeeping and possibly, child-rearing.

According to Oritsefemi, it is the duty of the wife to cook, fetch water, wash clothes, and to top it all off, provide sex. I would imagine that he doesn't really want a wife or a partner, just a housemaid to fuck when the urge arises. The lines “give sex on time, because it's what's neglected that the goat carries” imply that if a wife fails to provide sex for her partner, it is ultimately her fault if he cheats on her. This line does not paint sex as a pleasure for both parties. Rather, it is a necessity for one, and the duty for the other, reinforcing the long held myth that women cannot enjoy sex or find pleasure in it.

Oritsefemi and marital rape

I wonder, is this man familiar with the concept of marital rape? Because that’s exactly what this mentality enables. Marital rape is a real crime happening in many Nigerian homes, yet women are constantly told to "give sex on time." This fuels the dangerous belief that a man is entitled to his wife's body, normalizing coercion and assault within marriage. When women are taught that sex is something men cannot live without, it distorts their perception of intimacy, reducing it to a duty centered on male pleasure. Meanwhile, men who grow up believing sex is their birthright develop a sense of entitlement—one that, for some, turns into outright violence.

Odumodublvck

Odumodublvck is a disgusting and crass man. This is my opinion of his character, don't argue with me. In 2023, Odumodublvck and Shallipoppi released the song, “Cast”.

Odumodublvck’s verse is especially problematic because it seems it could not resist the urge to slam some degradation of women there. The lines I'm referring to are the infamous:

“If she no suck oh, if she no fuck,

Who go pay for her wig and handbag?”

When this song was released, there was a lot of outrage from women, but the men loved it. It felt like their disregard for women had finally found a voice in music, and now, they could sing it without anyone accusing them of misogyny.

These are the same men who turn around and complain about how transactional romantic relationships have become. Yet, they do not seem to realize that by praising this particular lyric, they are helping to propagate the very culture they claim to detest.

In the song, Odumodublvck is reductive, and paints women as people whose only use lies in their sex appeal. He claimed to be airing how a lot of men feel while adding that it wasn't as serious as women were making it. But it is that serious.

We already live in a world that views women as inferior to men, that any woman who is in a high place professionally must have slept her way there. Rapping about it reinforces that belief, the belief that a woman cannot have something nice unless a man got it for her. The belief that she must then have compensated the man by paying in kind.

Misogyny Beyond Music

When the music we listen to perpetuates harmful ideals, people internalise these beliefs and it features in their real-life behaviour and interactions. This is evident in the 2022 spat that occurred between Burnaboy and Ghanaian musician, Shatta Wale. Both artists accused each other of raping women as if sexual assault is something trivial to be thrown around in order to get at each other.

Comedians like Basketmouth and AY Makun have also made sexist jokes and parroted the same talking points about rape culture. Misogyny has infested our culture so much that it has now become something of a rite of passage.

Oh, but it's now a woman's world. Fuck no, it isn't. It can't be a woman's world if the same misogynistic and sexist ideals keep being propagated. Is it a woman's world if a man can sing about raping women and still have a career? Is it a woman's world if most songs still have lyrics that boast of and even encourage violence against women? Is it a woman's world if songs that reduce women to vapid, airheaded objects can still chart?