SARKODIE NOMINATED FOR MOBO AWARDS 2017 ‘BEST AFRICAN ACT’

Tiwa Savage’s offers romantic diabetes on “Sugarcane” EP

6 songs, with a running time that just pushes just into the 20-minute mark, Tiwa packs this EP with expressions of love. It reads out like a local love letter shared between a hopelessly romantic Juliet to her Romeo. “Na because of you wey I get goosebumps…This one na Julie Julie and Romeo, Original ogbongolo bo bo oh (bo bo bo bo bo bo),” She explains on ‘All over’, a record which has become popular, powered by its passionate theme.

A kind of urban pop-iness runs deep through the EP, and the ‘Pon Pon’ softness of ‘Ma lo’ even features superstar Wizkid. The mid-tempo vibe is cut through by unmitigated title banger ‘Sugarcane,’ but this EP is definitely the project for the mushy times. Get ready to embrace love.

Rating: 3.5/5

Ratings

1-Dull
2-Boring
2.5-Average
3-Worth Checking Out
3.5-Hot
4-Smoking Hot
4.5-Amazing
5-Perfection

“We can’t talk about Biafra with our music because it is illegal,” Eastern Musicians

To find out why this is so, I have called endless list of musicians who are from the East, both popular and rising ones to share with the public the reason why they have never publicly confronted the topic. None has declared their support or openly criticised the group. If your entire consumption of social media, is from musicians then you would tend to believe that this isn’t one of the most controversial and trending topics in the country.

It’s almost like our musicians don’t exist in Nigeria, neither do they follow the news or social media outlets. Not one tweet, one Instagram clip, one share of anything related, or anything else has elicited a reaction from them, and this has created a gap, one that feeds neither part of the conversation about the desires of a people for self-actualization.

Almost every musician who I called to comment on the Biafran situation refused to talk to me. The most recurrent official response was “No comment.” And then a couple of artists were, “Omo, you want make I enter trouble’.

During the civil war in 1967, everybody was affected. All Eastern musicians who generally were dominating the music scene in the country with Highlife were affected. Although there are no records of them contributing to the war effort, they were affected.

After the civil war in the 1960s, Igbo musicians were forced out of Lagos and returned to their homeland. The result was that highlife ceased to be a major part of mainstream Nigerian music, and was thought of as being something purely associated with the Igbos of the east.

“I think none of us wants to be associated with something that might affect our possibility to achieve success,” a young rapper told me under the strict plea for anonymity. “Nobody would like to have their chance at personal success hindered by fighting for a cause that might not be successful.”

“Let’s face it, nobody is sure that we will get the Biafra that our fathers fought for, and our youths are struggling to achieve.”

Another artist, who also pled anonymity said although he is led in his heart to pursue the cause due to what it stands for, the fact that it is now illegal means he might lose a lot. “I don’t want to be picked up and locked up for the cause. My family will run mad,” he explained soberly on the phone.

These were the only two people who could speak to me about it. Some others simply begged that I don’t even mention their name in this story because whether they comment or not, it would have an effect on their personal lives.

The whereabouts of the Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of IPOB is uncertain at the moment. And so is the future of the group. There are conflicting opinions on his disappearance, with sources claiming that he either fled back to the UK or got arrested by the Nigerian army. No one truly knows.

I ask another Highlife artist if he would sing a song about him, or praise his efforts at rally Igbo youths to a cause. His answer was speculative and conditional.

“If he is alive and one day Biafra becomes real, I will be the first to record a song for him. But for now, there is no way I will do it. I don’t anybody to pick me up.”