Should Burna Boy have recorded a song about Lekki toll gate massacre? [Pulse Editor's Opinion]
This moment comes after weeks of negative PR. If this is his recovery plan, then it's a smashing one and kudos to him and his team.
In the early hours of October 23, 2020, Nigerian superstar, Burna Boy teased a new song tentatively titled, '20.10.2020.' The song is dedicated to the dark events that took place on October 20, 2020 at the Lekki toll gate when as much as 10 Nigerians were killed by suspected members of the Nigerian military.
While the government has since denied the deaths of anybody, several eyewitnesses recorded Instagram Live videos through which we saw the deaths of many young Nigerians. Like Timaya documented the Odi Massacre on 'Dem Mama off his debut album, True Story, Burna Boy is documenting the Lekki toll gate massacre.
While a few Nigerians are still rightly angry at Burna Boy's hypocrisy and 'relative inaction' throughout the course of the EndSARS protests, the Grammy nominee has proper grounds. According to him, his mom was recovering from surgery while the protests were ongoing in Nigeria. Aside from that, he still sponsored billboards across Lagos.
If Nigerians were not caught up in the riptide of their angst against Burna Boy, they would see the purpose of this song. Music is a cultural monument and songs are the key elements of that. They document happenings in culture at different points in time and align happenings for future generations.
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They even represent the acceptance patters of behaviour and the lines that shouldn't be crossed. An 80's music video will tell you what 80's fashion was like and other overlooked things like how women were treated. Besides that, without Ebenezer Obey's song, a lot of Nigerians would not know about 'Operation Feed The Nation.'
Without Shina Peters' albums like Ace, Shinamania and so forth, we wouldn't know about the men of the underworld that funded artists in the 80's and 90's. The same thing goes for when KWAM 1 and Yinka Ayefele hail people. A lot of young Nigerians didn't know about Ademola Adekogbe or Fredrick Akinruntan till Ayefele sang about them.
In the same vein, a lot of popular 'big boys' like H-Money, Abu Abel, Opa 6, IBD Dende and so forth were obscure till artists like Reminisce, Olamide, Naira Marley and Zlatan started putting their names in songs. In 20 years, these moments will be important as reference points on the trajectory of history.
Without Lagbaja's WE/ME album or Fela's wide array of songs, a lot of Nigerians won't know about certain points of history. Music can be like a pseudo-history library, depending on how you use it.
Does it mean that Burna Boy didn't make it to get in certain conversations?
While we don't have evidence to the affirmative, he probably did. We must all realize that PR is important for international artists like him - especially when it's good PR. Burna Boy also needs a lot of goodwill with Nigerians at this time. Chances are these things played a role in his judgement.
However, the larger goal is that he didn't position himself as some kind of saviour with the song. He also didn't make grandiose claims of self-denial in making or releasing the song. There's been no visible patterns of benefit for him through this song. It's also important that someone documents the happenings of October 20, 2020 as the government continues to deny the loss of lives.
That said, on the latest episode of Facts Only, the host discussed why Burna Boy would need a recovery plan to get back into the good graces of a lot of Nigerians.
This moment comes after weeks of negative PR. If this is his recovery plan, then it's a smashing one and kudos to him and his team. There's a difference between this and meaningless 'Soro Soke' songs that Zlatan, Small Doctor and the likes have been making.
Those songs have no basis or larger goal to attached to them. They are as classless as they are crass.
*Pulse Editor's Opinion is the opinion of an editor at Pulse. It does not represent the views of the organisation Pulse.
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