If Odumodublvck’s verse is taken to be representative of his time, of the socio-political/cultural context that produced it, then it is not only the artiste that is indicted; we are culprits, too.
By Sanni Omodolapo
Big Kala: The Raging Misogynist
Odumodublvck, since his meteoric rise, has been called many names by different people, but of those names, one which is often repeated, and which stands out, is ‘misogynist’.
The Nigerian Hip-Hop star, born Tochukwu Gbubemi Ojogwu, featured on Shalipopi’s 2023 hit record, “Cast”, where he rapped, in his characteristically coarse manner, to much public disgust and outrage: “If she no fuck o, if she no suck / Who go pay for her wig and handbag?”
It was received as a blatant insult to women, a violent, sexist put-down, and calls were made for him to be cancelled.
That image—of a brash, raging misogynist—stuck, despite his attempts at rectification through interviews, so that when in May he featured in ID Cabasa’s reimagined version of Styl-Plus’ “Olufunmi”, a classic Nigerian R&B record released in February 2006, and rapped in his usual style, people lost their shit.
The brittleness of Classics
For many Yoruba people, in fact, for many Nigerians, “Olufunmi” is one of the closest songs to a classic love song in the history of Nigerian Music—there are other timeless records like 2Baba’s “True Love” (2006), Lagbaja’s “Never Far Away” (2005), Tosin Martins’ “Olo Mi” (2006), Sola Allyson’s “Eji Owuro” (2003), Onyeka Onwenu’s “You and I” (1991), etcetera.
Songs like “Olufunmi” are deemed sacred, not necessarily for their inventiveness or any inherent quality, but for what they represent: mementos of a simpler, believed-to-be-better time.
The word ‘classic’, from the Latinate ‘classicus’, means something of the highest rank, or that which is exemplary, which has withstood changing times, and any piece of art, be it a song, painting, or film, so designated, unfortunately, is held against everything that succeeds it.
We are always measuring, always judging the now against the lofty then, and the idea that the present is a blight compared to the admirable past is widespread in literature, in film and politics, just as in music.
So, reimagining a classic, casting new light on it, is never light work. One runs the risk of utter misrepresentation or, more precariously, not measuring up. And societies are serious about protecting whatever is considered heritage; it is an uninvestigated, necessary, and universal, bias.
Olufunmi/Olufunmi Reimagined: Shifi Vs Odumodublvck
The original “Olufunmi”, like the reimagined version, features a rapper, Shifi Emoefe, a member of the musical quartet, Styl-Plus. The reimagined version, on which Odumodublvck appears, features, besides the producer ID Cabasa, three other artistes: Fireboy DML, Joeboy, and BOJ.
A juxtaposition of the original and the reimagined is crucial if we are to make sense of what necessitated the furor that followed Odumodublvck’s verse:
In the original, Shifi’s character is gentle, pleading. He is on his knees for the thing. He speaks to the woman, in tandem with preceding verses, with respect. His sotto-voiced rap hints at a kind of decorum, or respect.
The woman is in charge, holds the power, and has to be convinced—Tunde (Tdot) sings, “I’ll pause my heart for you / when you come home you’ll be the one to make it move”; Zeal sings, “That’s why when I think about you leaving, I find myself grieving”, and Shifi: hear this: “You could be the one to make a fool of me / And you could be the one that’d be confusing me”
Or this:
“That’s why I know I’ll never love another woman / That’s why I can never love another woman”
Shifi’s man promises, over-promises, reduces himself to the Petrarchan object of his affection, frothing at the mouth like a pot of okra. Now compare this with parts of Odumodublvck’s verse, which so vexed listeners, years later:
“She thinks I’m Baddo, ‘cause of my parol / The way I roll can be likened to Sango / Strike am, pierce am, dagger am (pow) / Use my black man bulala (grr)”
“Oya keles dey worship my banana / Showcase her bunda, commot my rubber, secure my woman”
The man, the lover, here, is not on his knees. He is, let’s say, Shakespearean, in the sense that the love object is not showered with overblown praise, nor is she venerated; her eyes are not “like the Sunne”.
Instead, the man here brags about himself, is rough, likens himself to the God of Thunder—a symbol of brute strength. He is, like it or not, more lyrically inventive—in new-speak, we may say he has game.
His verbiage is rife with violent images of piercing, striking and daggering. These are harsh pictures of sexual penetration—bulala stands in cataphoric reference to banana, one echoing the other, uniform in their tri-syllabicity.
He is nothing like Shifi’s mellowed lover. This one touts his phallus, and one sees, easily, the reason for the outrage. Listeners, perhaps, wanted consistency: whatever was being made had to respect the original song.
First, the original song had been “violated”—people chorused this—by the mere fact of his being on it, and the verse, perhaps unwittingly, bore a resemblance to his verse on “Cast”.
But this is not an Odumodublvck problem. What is at play is more sinister, and larger. A closer listen to the other verses on the 2024 version would reveal to the careful listener that, except Joeboy, all the other artistes commit the same sin laid so heavily on Odumodublvck.
He is only a scapegoat, a victim of his own reputation. Fireboy’s lover, who opens up the song, is nothing like Tunde’s: he is brazen in his declaration of want, and this want, in how it is expressed, has strong sexual undertones:
“Come closer, I don’t do long distance”; “Omoge sunmo mi jo / Call me anytime you wan(t) link up”. This lover is self-centred, issues imperatives, and dictates terms. Compared to the lover that is worshipped in the original, this one is not. She is wanted, but on the terms of the one who wants her.
BOJ’s man, too, self-absorbed, naked with want, sings: “If you no dey with me / I cannot bear it when you’re far away from me”.
What we may justly accuse Odumodublvck of, then, is poor artistry: the others are skillful enough to veil their true intentions. They are able to tone down the fireworks. But Odumodublvck, in his unfiltered manner—which, by the way, is consistent with the tradition within which he works—is unable to.
Part of being a great artiste is recognising the balance between what is superfluous and what can justly be said in the work, and, accordingly, expunging all superfluities, anything merely performative.
This is his only recognisable failure, and it is aesthetic, not moral. He strayed entirely, by trying to stay true to his artistry, to the persona he has built over his growing discography, from the thematic trappings of the original song, and this is why listeners were so mad, though they didn’t know it, or were unwilling to acknowledge it.
Odumodublvck’s verse as a symptom of a larger malaise
Odumodublvck’s verse becomes problematic—and we must admit this—only when contextualised, for at a purely semantic level, here was a man wooing his love object the way he knows to, bragging about the size and extent of what he believes makes him a man.
Shifi’s verse is no less, or more, moral than Odumodublvck’s if we are to consider both as existing outside of the socio-political/cultural context that produced them. They serve the same purpose: to woo a love object. It is the manner of approach that differs.
And this is where the problem lies: Shifi’s approach can be taken as representative of his time, and Odumodublvck’s approach, too, of his. Shifi’s time, we may say, then, was a time where there was respect in dealing with, speaking to, or wooing, women.
Of Odumodublvck’s time, we cannot say the same: there is no respect for women; what we have is individualism and a perverted understanding/expression of love, which listeners have interpreted, somewhat hastily, as misogyny.
If Odumodublvck’s verse is taken to be representative of his time, of the socio-political/cultural context that produced it, then it is not only the artiste that is indicted; we are culprits, too. We have as much hand in it as Odumodublvck does.
But, are we prepared, or able, to accept this?
Can we hold Odumodublvck’s verse to a standard of political correctness or appropriateness without appearing hypocritical ourselves?
Would this idea of moral rightness also apply to that line from Rema’s 2022 track, “Calm Down” about non-consensual touching—“Then I start to feel her bum bum”—to Bloody Civilian’s 2023 song, “How to Kill A Man”, which offers suggestions on how to kill a man, or to Olamide’s “Infinity” (2020), on which he sings, “It’s what you do with the banana / Go determine if you go get house for Banana”?
What makes one okay and not the other? What, really, is the problem? Who, really, is the problem? The man or the society that made the man?
Sanni Omodolapo is a Nigerian short story writer. He was shortlisted for the Writivism Prize for Short Story (2023).