<\/p>\n
If it seems like every other day, another Nigerian celebrity creative succumbs to alarming depths of vacuous thought and action, even as we face multiple crises, then it is because this is our current shameful reality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Somewhere along the pop culture highway, the pedestal-ed few, from film to music and literature, collectively abandoned the reins of activism. We became inundated with a brand of celebrity that lives in a different Nigeria from their audience.\u00a0 And because nothing exists in isolation, this apathy has led many to begrudgingly accept that celebrities owe us only to the extent to which we use our voices. <\/span>Vox populi, vox dei<\/span><\/i> before <\/span>vox celebritas.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Certain excuses have become standard fare for their apolitical vacuousness. First, is the fan favourite: \u201cnot all art has to be political.\u201d Proponents of this theory believe that art\u2014mostly music and cinema\u2014doesn\u2019t have to be deep. They refer to party-starter jams that are now rated as classics, and to comedic films holding up the banner of new Nollywood, in their crusade. This particular set of preachers consider criticism an unmerited venture, talk more of infusing sociopolitical commentary into the art that\u2019s produced. The anti-Susan Sontag, if you will, in that nothing is ever too serious to them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In his Culture Custodian essay, \u201c<\/span>How Nigerian Music Lost its Political Voice,\u201d<\/span><\/a> writer Patrick Ezema traced a genealogy of sociopolitical commentary in contemporary Nigerian music. The late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti might be the poster persona for conscious music in Nigeria\u2014an image artists like Burna Boy, Wizkid, and rather ironically, Bella Shmurda have attempted to co-opt over the years\u2014but it stands to reason that, beyond Afrobeat\u2019s jazz-high life imprint on Afrobeats, or Afropop, the music has always reflected the times to a large extent. One can draw a definitive line to Junior and Pretty\u2019s 1994 single <\/span>Bolanle <\/span><\/i>as the beginning of this new wave. Slowly but steadily, as the genre found its voice, so also did it lose the people\u2019s voice. Declining quality of content in the mainstream somehow coincided with Nigerian music spreading its wings beyond the continent\u2014only that unlike in previous iterations, stadium shows and world tours didn\u2019t require a compendium of politically aware music. The foreign labels returned to sign our artists, and they didn\u2019t care one bit that substance was a foregone conclusion.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For avid music enthusiasts, this is certainly not your first time encountering complaints about the hollow praxis of Nigerian pop. The truth of the matter is that music, and other forms of art, are inherently political. Everything is serious. Even comedy is serious.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When your <\/span>newest generation of mainstream singers<\/span><\/a>, self-acclaimed <\/span>alternative<\/span><\/i> kids, mostly create music about hedonism and the joys of chasing wealth, they\u2019re making a political statement about what society values. The irony is that this is also the generation with the most politically liberal takes\u2014progressives making regressive art, but at least they know what each queer flag represents and are vocal about Congo and Sudan on X posts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When there\u2019s an audible decline in the quality of songwriting and screenwriting about banal quotidian issues like <\/span>romance<\/span><\/a> or 9\u20105s, artists and labels are essentially telling listeners standards aren\u2019t important. When the films that flood NollyTube are populated with rich bachelors and sultry housemaids, the message to audiences is simple: We do not think that you think, so here\u2019s the film version of instant noodles. It won\u2019t fill you up. Heck, consuming too much will make you sick. But it\u2019s easy to create and even easier to digest once you lower your culinary standards.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This then creates a feedback loop of garden-variety work becoming the norm. In a <\/span>discussion at the 2018 BAFTA Screenwriters Series in London,<\/span><\/a> iconic Hollywood screenwriter, Paul Schrader (<\/span>Raging Bull, Taxi Driver<\/span><\/i>) spoke about this phenomenon, albeit in reference to the audience\u2019s role in building quality cinema. \u201cWhen people take movies seriously, it\u2019s very easy to make a serious movie. When they don\u2019t take it seriously, it\u2019s very, very hard. We now have audiences that don\u2019t take movies seriously, so it\u2019s hard to make a serious movie for them.\u201d Over here, the loop didn\u2019t begin with the audience exactly. But it has been reinforced by constant support for the nadir. From box office records for <\/span>populist films built on moral lessons and a dream<\/span><\/a>, to paying tens of thousands of Naira to watch artists <\/span>who perform 8 hours behind schedule, <\/span><\/a>the loop has never been stronger. So much so that when creators deviate from this base-level status quo, many accuse them of pretentiousness.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n One would be remiss to imply that all arthouse films or self-professed conscious music is automatically good. You can sing about Nigeria <\/span>being a one-party state<\/span><\/a> and it would still be sewer music. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Hip-Hop where rappers layer boring, unnecessarily complex rhyme schemes over even worse monotonous boom bap beats, and then lament about the audience lacking taste; as if classics and cult classics like Falz\u2019s <\/span>Moral Instruction<\/span><\/i><\/a>, ShowDemCamp\u2019s <\/span>Clone Wars IV: These Buhari Times<\/span><\/i>, and Paybac Iboro\u2019s <\/span>Cult! <\/span><\/i>don\u2019t exist. It\u2019s also why <\/span>stans<\/span><\/i> would expect critical acclaim for a song like Burna Boy\u2019s <\/span>20.10.20 <\/span><\/i>even though his resultant politics\u2014flirtation with Nyesom Wike and the young all-father Seyi Tinubu\u2014makes the record taste like chunky cuts of chalk.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Which then brings us to the next excuse, you can\u2019t expect artists to speak up when people aren\u2019t speaking up. The logic for this line of defence is decidedly more straightforward. Proponents argue that asking celebrities to lend their voice to liberation causes only makes sense if regular citizens are doing the work themselves. After all, these celebrities don\u2019t experience the effects of poverty, femicide, insecurity, police brutality, food insecurity, and all these other injustices.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n This writer concedes that citizens have a responsibility to one another, first. With regard to current issues\u2014particularly the spate of terrorist attacks across the country and xenophobia elsewhere \u2014it\u2019s hypocritical of us not to speak out more. \u201cThere were parties in Lagos while babies died during the Biafran War. And now, there are raves in Ibadan while school <\/span>children remain in captivity just kilometres away\u201d<\/span><\/a> All of this is true. All of this is problematic. Opting out of radically proclaiming our grievances to the government and leaders obsessed with the 2027 Elections alone is cowardice. We can\u2019t pull an Obi-Wan and claim the high ground when even digital activism is on the back burner. There are set to be <\/span>roughly 21 Raves across Lagos, Abuja, and Ibadan, in June<\/span><\/a>. 21 isn\u2019t 5 or 7. And raves aren\u2019t the cheapest events to execute either. Escapism at such a precarious nexus point in Nigeria\u2019s history surely is one hell of a choice. That\u2019s a difficult truth to sit with as one who\u2019s recently been an attendee.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n A penchant for performative activism means that ready-made excuses also surface in defence of these events. There\u2019s the low hanging fruit of pointing the spotlight on the government alone. Or the stronger steelman that these events are primarily safe spaces for minority groups who are themselves victims of the Nigerian state (Proliferation of raves in June coincides with Pride Month). When all these fail, escapism presents itself as a viable excuse. Yes, yes, and yes. None of these change the fact that revelers are too disconnected from the whole. As much as it is a logistical nightmare to cancel all of these events planned months ahead, refusing to consider outright postponements, or messages of solidarity at worst, is fast becoming an onrush towards the moving train of tone-deafness; <\/span>especially with regard to xenophobia<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But for the life of us all, this does not mean celebrities shouldn\u2019t use their voices to speak up against the chaos. The issues plaguing audiences aren\u2019t so nuanced that our artists need extraordinarily extensive education to understand. What\u2019s so hard to decipher about <\/span>over 2,531 students being kidnapped in school attacks since 2014?<\/span><\/a> And how much studying is required to learn about the impact of <\/span>xenophobia<\/span><\/a>?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For <\/span>all the stick an artist like Portable recieves<\/span><\/a>\u2014rightly so, one must add\u2014the fact that he contributes to societal discourse in both his music and social media posts says a lot about who the true elites are. On June 2, 2026, the controversial singer put out a video appealing for an end to stereotyping of Fulanis and Hausas living in Yoruba land, while still acknowledging the insecurity situation in the region. One would think that his colleagues, many of whom are significantly more educated than the street-hop star, would be more in tune with the situation on ground. And by education, it\u2019s not just about attending universities, these A-listers are exposed to the world at a scale the average person can\u2019t think of. They\u2019ve undergone special media training. They have a network of workers, business partners, fans, and everyone else affected by such stereotypes, and even more affected by the conflict leading to these stereotypes, and yet, not a peep. Even if they aren\u2019t directly affected, staying silent only certifies what\u2019s continually called out\u2014their lack of guiding politics. The average listener can tell more about Portable\u2019s politics from listening to his 14 April, 2026 <\/span>Undefeated World Star <\/span><\/i>album, than from most of the mainstream releases this year. Irrefutable misogynistic to the nth degree on certain songs. Unfortunately, even with that, Portable still has more of a spine than our A-listers, a paradox that couldn\u2019t be any sadder if you tried.<\/span><\/p>\n The final excuse is to accept defeat: that Nigerian celebrities have no depth to begin with and as such, requesting that they speak out is only a waste of time. One must ask if this should apply to the average citizen, as well, so that everyone just forgoes striving for sanity. If we can criticise those who accept money to sell their votes, despite acknowledging how politically-induced poverty propels their paucity of thought, then we can also criticise celebrities for staying silent because of <\/span>support from \u2018ST\u2019 and other so-called patrons of the art<\/span><\/a>. Especially when these celebrities benefit from our own patronage.<\/span><\/p>\n