My Binoculars: Tiwa, Fela, Afro beat and the culture of nakedness

My Binoculars: Tiwa, Fela, Afro beat and the culture of nakedness

By: Sam Kayode

The recent Saga in which Tiwa Savage one of the contemporary Afro beat musicians in Nigeria claims she is being blackmailed by a sex partner brings mixed feelings to the minds of some of us who witnessed the reign of Fela kuti, the Afro beat progenitor. Two things are associated with the Afro beat phenomenon of Fela. These are the culture of nakedness and the cannabis back up that goes with it to enable them speak to power about their wrong doings.

Fela was a highly cerebral artist making him challenge the government for most of the wrongs carried out by them. In my first year in journalism school, one of my mentors in entertainment and literary journalism, the late Kolosa kagbo of the rested Prime People magazine used to take me to the shrine to witness Fela’s gigs and at the end of the day, he taught me how to first entertain myself before going after the stories in this genre which he was a master at crafting. He virtually made me a fan of Fela and all Afro beat music that challenges wrong doings by political vagabonds in power as Fela would say.

Then in 1988, I asked him why Fela would not wear clothes in the shrine, but he turned it back to me to ask the mastro himself. I never had the opportunity to ask Fela directly till he died but I found out from research that he deliberately utilised the culture of nakedness to depict the original African phenomenon of innocence which existed before the Advent of the greedy colonialists.

It’s obvious we did not wear clothes until the British started trading in human beings to build their vast empires which included the United States. And not only that changed our names to those of the slave owners and made Africans to be proud carrying foreign names around as if we are still in chains which is why Fela maintained this to remind us that it’s time for liberation. Fela would wear only pants in most of his gigs in the shrine and that has become the insignia of a typical Afro beat artist in Africa today. 

My Binoculars: Afro beat disciples

Fela went to England quite alright to study music and tolerated the western way of life. But in his quest to liberate the minds of Africans, Fela, like Wole Shoyinka, created several disciples for himself. One of such disciples in contemporary Nigeria is Tiwa Savage. In as much as this lady, Wiz Kid and a generation of young people have decided to go the Fela way, you would not expect them to do that without carrying his Idiocracies along. Fela sang half naked, Tiwa will surely want to dance half naked even as the Fela girls did in the shrine.

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Tiwa may have her weaknesses but if you want to judge her any day, always remember that she is an Afrobeat musician not a Christian musician. There is nothing anyone can do to stop Tiwa from flaunting her nakedness except she decides to become a Christian. Some of us may condemn it because she is a woman but how many people were bold enough to condemn Fela for his open rebellion to so-called right thinking norms?

My Binoculars: Sex tapes and all that

Part of my books I am writing on what I called “the culture of nakedness” clearly described this malaise among young people. I am questioning fake men who describe themselves as “husbands”  who allow their wives to go half naked outside their homes selling what should be seen only by then yet some of them call themselves Christians. Some of them do not even have any reason to believe that the nakedness of their wives is meant for them alone and that is why they allow madam to flaunt it so that his friends will deliberately offend their creator by looking. In my generation there is nothing like flaunt it if you have it. But the generation of Tiwa believe that you can’t claim to have it if you don’t flaunt it.

I believe that whoever suggested to Tiwa for them to record themselves in the nude knew that Tiwa would be hurt one day yet it’s normal and right thinking to do so. The only mistake the person made was to ever assume that Tiwa the “bad girl”  as she calls herself will ever succumb to his prank of blackmail. He just wasted his time on that premise. As much as I feel for Tiwa at this point in time, I would want to put it to her to apply moderacy in whatever she is doing with her male friends because some of them could be sponsored to bring her down deliberately by her ex. I believe that this is a sensitive period of her career that friends should rally round her, back to her creative stability so we can get the best from her and detoxify any suicidal thoughts around her persona. 

Kayode writes from Maiduguri (Mobile: 08093285363)

My Binoculars: Tiwa, Fela, Afro beat and the culture of nakedness