When Nigerian musician Davido wrote a song called “Like I Never Left” back in February, critics said it sounded a lot like an American hip-hop track. The next day, another song he released was subtitled, “The Importance of My Name” and won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Song. Soon, memes started to surface. “We can get blackout with the lights,” one said. “No motherfucker wants to see a mans name,” another said.
On Twitter on Monday, the 24-year-old Davido posted a rambling video after the first barrage of tweets received more than 6.5 million views. He thanked all of the “people that spoke on my behalf and made me not give up and fight for what I love” while adding that he was working to ensure his charitable donations were “fair and righteous.” The rapper said he would also use the news to expose the issues of female trafficking and human trafficking in the country.
The video, which addressed critical issues of the Nigerian economy and called for a more level playing field, opened with a message about sex trafficking. After less than a minute, he said he was tired of the jokes and the Instagram comments, adding that he needed to move forward to take a positive step forward.
“So, it’s down to me and my finance manager to decide how to tackle this problem,” he said. “So, she and I are now off to the experts who can do an audit of the country and come back with a better future plan for Nigeria. It’s about saving Nigeria and I’m going to do it myself.”
Davido’s video ended with the words “it’s on me and mine.”
There are a few questions about how the lyrics of “Like I Never Left” fit into Davido’s charity efforts.
At the end of the “Like I Never Left” music video, he plays an old man who raps: “And what happens to the mothers who let their kids listen to this music, what about the other ones who send them to school to learn, what about their parents?”
The description for “The Importance of My Name” says the lyrics were “written as a commentary on the sexual exploitation of Nigerian women that is destroying the economic and social development of our society.” But the tweets about sex trafficking and human trafficking pointed out that the video had alluded to sex trafficking and human trafficking.
His Instagram page plays with titles of other well-known hip-hop songs, like “Beyoncé” and “Lil Wayne,” to accuse them of not doing enough to help the Nigerian economy and say that they have yet to acknowledge the existence of “sex trafficking and human trafficking.”
“I want to encourage the ongoing debate about such charity messages that seek to bring awareness to the issues at hand,” one critic wrote on the Channels Television show On Effect, which aired last week. “The best lesson that Davido can learn from his shameless visit to the online world is the need to grow up.”
Read the full story at The Guardian.
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