11 Songs banned by the Kano State Censorship Board. Photo (c) Alex Johnson
The third on the list of songs that were banned was “Girgiza Kai” (“Shake your head”) by Hausa rapper Ziriums, which was not officially released but uploaded to his myspace page. In “Girgiza Kai,” Ziriums, warns those who hear his song,
“Kai karku taka kun san an hana.
Hey, don’t dance, you know they banned it. ….
.. ..
Gwamnan garinmu ran nan. Shi ne ya hana.
The governor of our city here. He banned it…..”
Instead you should just
“Girgiza kai.”
“Shake your head.”
He also satirically uses the proverb “Mai dokar bacci, ya bige da gyangyed’i.” “The one who says sleep is against the law is the one nodding off…” to critique
“Wanda duk ya hana mu sana’a”
“Anyone who keeps us from working….”
(You can listen to the song on Zirium’s Myspace page, and read the lyrics and an English translation here.).. Already having left Kano for Abuja when the song was banned, Ziriums has hooked up with other Abuja-based musicians, Supreme Solar and T-Rex, to continue his controversial rapping on a larger national scale. Intersection Entertainment has recently released S. Solar’s “Government Money”, (featuring T-Rex and Ziriums), a hilarious take-off on Busta Rhymes’ and Ron Browz’s notorious “hit”: “Arab Money.”
You can view “Government Money” here. Please note that all the videos embedded in this blog post are being done so under FAIR USE laws for review purposes:
Both the original “Arab Money,” and remake of the Busta Rhymes’ tune contain wildly offensive portrayals of Arabs and Islam. (The remix featuring Lil Wayne, P. Diddy and even self-proclaimed Muslim Akon, is even worse, and uses actual verses from the Qur’an as the chorus.) The Wikipedia article written about the remix of the song notes that the chorus is “Bismillāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm. Al ḥamdu lillāhi rabbi l-‘ālamīn”; “In the name of Allah (The God), most Gracious most Merciful. All Praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds.” This chorus is intoned behind the American rappers making dramatic poses , flipping bling, and rhyming about their wealth. The Wikipedia article continues to point out that Busta Rhymes uses the Islamic greeting “As-Salamu Alaykum Warahmatullah Wa Barakatu.” “May Peace and blessings of Allah(The God)be upon you” (A Greeting), to rhyme with “While I stack another billion and give it to the block fool.” Similarly Diddy says ““Al hamdu lillah” ( “All Praises to Allah”) to rhyme with: “With my billions pilin'”
Watch the original “Arab Money” here:
And the remix here:
Obviously, while self-consciously funny, the song is sacrilegious and insulting to most Muslims (though if you read through the comments on youtube or various lyrics websites there are occasional self-proclaimed “Arabs” who take pride in it). I could focus my whole blog post on this issue; however, since this has already been done multiple times (here, here, here, here, here, and here) and since I’m more interested in how S. Solar, T-Rex, and Ziriums rewrite the song in the Nigerian context, I’d like to look more at what seems to be Busta Rhyme’s conscious intention, which seems to be a celebration of bling—exemplified in what, with blinding cultural chauvinism, he calls “Arab money.” He and his fellow musicians are not affected by the recession, he implies, they just move on to the “Arab money,” which “Arabs” know how to respect:
Indeed, in an MTV article, Busta defends himself by describing the way the song was recorded:
[Ron] picked up the phone, and I was like, ‘What are you saying on this joint?[…]
When Browz explained to Busta that he was, in fact, saying “Arab,” Busta was elated.
“I was like, ‘This is genius,’ ” he said. “Just the timing of this. The fact that the recession was crazy. Fortune 500 companies left and right are needing bailouts. I was like, ‘You ain’t hearing none of that going on with none of the people in the Arab community or Arab culture. None of that.’ I was like, ‘You know something? This is a great record to inspire people to incorporate wealth in their vocabulary[my emphasis], because rich has become the new broke.’ ‘Arab Money’ — it felt right. Let’s take something from a culture that has exemplified the rich qualities of spirituality and economic and financial stability for thousands of years. They’ve instilled that in their kids for thousands of years.”
Busta ostensibly praises the “rich Arab culture,” yet the “culture” he claims to admire is an Orientalist fantasy of gold-glittering caves and harems of nymphomaniacs, tied to earlier colonial grabs for land, wealth, and power. At time code 1:54 in the first video he brags that he is
sitting in casinos while I’m gambling with Arafat,
money long now, watch me purchase pieces of the almanac.
Both versions entwine exoticized presentations of supposedly “Arab” moneyed lifestyles with the standard hiphop hymn to wealth, materialism, money, and women—clichés exemplified in 50 Cent’s “I Get Money,” among many others.
These clichés have been adopted (with more or less irony) in Nigerian pop music. (Examples feature Nollywood-like Lagos settings with plush leather couches, sleek clubs, wine glasses, expensive cars, and scantily clad (often light-skinned) women. See Faze’s Need Somebody, P-Square’s “Do Me, I Do You,” Dbanj’s “Booty Call,” or Style Plus’s “Call my Name.”) These popular songs exemplify the “Nigerian dream” of making it big and partaking in the glamourous party-world of Ikoyi, Victoria Island, Maitama, or abroad. In fact, before Intersection’s “Government Money,” Olu Maintain had come out with a track named “Arab Money,” as well, likely inspired by the Busta Rhymes video although he doesn’t seem to have shot a video for it yet. The chorus involved the repeated phrase “I go spend Arab Money, just spend Arab money,” alongside wistful tracks about going “to Abu Dhabi, where we can walk freely.” In this track, there does seem to be more self consciousness about the representation of wealth than much other Naija-pop, as can be seen in the observation that in Dubai “recession no dey there” and in this exchange at timecode 3:04 between Olu Maintain and Bondo Krazzy:
Olu Maintain: On second thought, there are some things money can’t buy [….] You know what I’m talking about?
Bond Krazzy: Hei, Mr. Olu, money can never buy love, Mr. Olu.
The Nigerian music/music videos I find most compelling play with a more self conscious reference to wealth as it is related to corruption and give ironic nods to the particularly Nigerian innovations in 419, from the celebration of the yahoo yahoo boys in Olu Maintain’s Yahoozee, which features row upon row of big hummers to the more self-consciously satirical “I Go Chop your Dollar” by comedian Nkem Owoh (who in a twist of fate was recently kidnapped by entrepreneurial criminals in what has become the hottest new way to “chop money” Apparently, Owoh was released when his family forked over N1.4 billion.)
Watch Yahoozee here:
Watch, “I go Chop your Dollar” here:
With “Government Money,” Intersection musicians Supreme Solar, T-Rex, and Ziriums follow in this satirical tradition: Rewriting Busta Rhyme’s hymn to moola, these Abuja-based musicians echo the “celebration” of money, but with an ironic edge—rapping not of the wealthy lifestyle attainable to them as musicians but to those Abuja Big Boys who are eating “Government money.”
In the tradition of “Yahoozee” and other videos where flashy cars become symbols of power, sexual prowess, and wealth, Supreme Solar raps about his “new Range Rover” leaning against the glossy side of the jeep. The camera zooms out to focus on the license plate, which says FG Kudi, (for Federal Government Money). The use of “Abuja” here is a metonym for government, politics, and all the “promise”of money that Abuja offers those who come to Nigeria’s airbrushed capitol where the poor (or even the simply “middle class”) are swept out to the crowded outskirts of the city. To participate in the lifestyle, then as T-Rex says
What’s the access here?
We aint makin bucks in excess
Having stocks and investments
But to me it doesn’t’ make sense
To make the excessive “Abuja-style” money, one must go a bit further than stocks and investments, “Duping NGO’s for Virgin dough” and other shady transactions.
What most creates tension between “Government Money” and the original “Arab Money,” taking the tune beyond the “Yahoozee” genre (pushing it more in the direction of Eedris Abdulkareem’s funny but incisively critical “Mr. Lecturer”), is the inclusion of Ziriums, a Northern Muslim from Kano state, with his Hausa chorus “Mu ci kudin Abuja, Mu ci kudin gwamnati” (Let’s eat/spend Abuja Money, let’s eat/spend government money”) and his fierce spoken commentary at the end of the song. Interestingly (even uncomfortably), Ziriums’ chorus in Hausa is used where in the “Arab Money” remix the Qur’anic verses are used, layering on popular Nigerian conflations of Arab/Muslim culture with the Hausa-speaking north, both imagined and real. By the second day the video had been posted, there was already a comment by user “injustice2mankind” saying, “That fool Ziriums is killing me with his attire…note the arab neck scarf on his agbada….so funny.”
Ziriums featured in “Government Money” by Supreme Solar
Where in the American version, there is a blasphemous use of the Qur’an to rhyme with verses about the love of mammon, in this version, Ziriums’ chorus takes the “Arabic” sound and turns it to a satirical first person boast about “devouring government money.” Here, he subversively links Busta Rhymes et al, and their blasphemous use of Islamic creed to support debauchery, with those “Big Men” who use religion (whether Christianity or Islam) as a cover to justify their scramble for the “national cake.” That is, the very elite who tend to self-righteously decry the “immorality” and “cultural imperialism” of hiphop as a genre are the very ones whose personal habits tend have the most in common with the gold-plated lifestyles of those American artists. Dressed in a Big Man’s babban riga, Ziriums and the other two artists take on the personas of government contractors and professional fraudsters, blurring the boundary between the two.
“Cin kudi” (literally “eating money”), the Hausa phrase that parallels the pidgin phrase “chopping money,” reflects both the everyday language of Nigerians when they speak of corruption and the concept in popular culture that corrupt leaders are both metaphorically and literally consuming the wealth of the nation: taking “a chunk of the national cake,” “duping NGOs,” taking their “contracts’ tax”. These conquests make T-Rex “hungrier than ever,” invoking images seen in political cartoons of monstrous fat bellied leaders who as in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s novel Devil on the Crossare in a competition to see who is the greatest thief and robber. If T-Rex’s stomach is burning and hungry,” and “grumbling funny” in hunger for more assets, at the end Ziriums goes into a fierce tirade: “Yunwa, Talauci, […] Don haka, dole mu ci kudin gwamnati, kudin Abuja, dole mu kwashe .” “Hunger, poverty.[…] This is why we must consume government money, Abuja money, we must spend it.” On one hand, he echoes Nkem Owoh’s narrative in “I Go Chop your Dollar,”
“I done suffer no be small. Upon say I get sense Poverty no good at all, no Na im make I join this business 419 no be thief, it’s just a game .”
On the other hand, Ziriums points out that Abuja money and government money, in fact, belongs to everyone in the country—If there is hunger and poverty, then ordinary people must also have access to the nation’s wealth.
Nigerian hiphop is often criticized for merely mindlessly copying American rap. I have no doubt that some may point to the Intersection’s ripping of the production and “sound” of Busta Rhymes “Arab Money” as an illustration of such “unoriginality.” However, the transfer, at least in this case, profoundly changes the song: adding to, subverting, and commenting on the original. “Government Money” ends up being not just a critique of corruption among Nigeria’s wealthy elite, but also a parody/critique of the mindlessly obscene celebration of bling in “Arab Money”—and of the exoticizing colonization of other parts of the world in the Busta Rhymes tune and so often found in American hiphop. (See for example: Ludacris’s “Pimpin All Over the World,” countless beach scenes in the Caribbean, or Nigerian rapper Eedris Abdulkareem’s beef with 50 Cent over a seat on an airplane, about whom he said “You cannot treat me as a second and or third class citizen in my own country, I will not take it from anybody.”) When to a background of the chanted Qur’an, P. Diddy [wearing two cross chains] raps “Fuck the recession. I’m still investin, I’m about to buy Dubai, and swim in the shark section,” P. Diddy seems far more akin to the arrogant Swiss-bank account holding government swindlers of Nigeria than these young, upcoming but still moneyless Nigerian musicians.Thus, “Government Money” blends the ferocious critiques of oppressive society found in politically conscious rap with a parody of the glossy sexed-up materialistic hits most popular on MTV.
There are a few things to work on, here. The video is busy with graphics and, while featuring other artists who are not actually participating in the music is in keeping with the original “Arab Money” mix, here it is just confusing. If the song becomes popular enough, it would be great to have a re-mix video. But it is fresh, funny, and this talent is real. The “Unassailable” S. Solar, the “Extraordinary” T-Rex, and the “Revolutionary” Ziriums, as the video titles them, are musicians to keep an eye on.
And to watch again without having to scroll back up:
Here are the lyrics. Thank you to Korex of Intersection who provided me with the complete corrected lyrics of the verses in English and to Ziriums who corrected my Hausa transcription of the chorus before I posted. (Correction to English made 25 November 2009–and with access to the full lyrics some of the analysis may change… stay tuned… lol)
Lyrics:
The Goose, da goose, is loose in the building.
T-Rex,
Ziriums,
Haha
S. Solar
Chorus (Ziriums):
Naira zamu kashe, mun fito
(We are out to splurge on Naira)
Mu mun fito, mu kashe ‘yan kud’i,
(We’re out to splurge a little money.)
Muci kudin Abuja, muci kudin gwamnati
(Let’s spend Abuja money, let’s spend government money)
Repeat once
Supreme Solar
Verse 1: I appear anywhere with the new range rover
Check the Tints so intense, FG plate number
Can’t stop, coming like a rain, lots of digits in my company name hey, money ain’t a thing
So much money that the bank can’t hold
Too many properties that we can’t disclose
What’s your bank’s name, i’ll call the CEO
When my NGO’ll holler back and make the black case close!
Chorus: Ziriums
T-Rex
Verse 2: More than a slice, I’ll take a chunk of the national cake
Get the ration and break.
Before you know that the transaction is fake
i’ll be in another state
Hooking up another bait, Duping NGO’s for Virgin dough
Cop a lotta paper
Breaking contacts and contracts
It’s a strong task. If there’s a window of opportunity
[Crack]
I’ll make the walls crack, give the guns back
And I’m hungrier than ever, get the cheddar, tell rihanna to get that ugly ass umbrella.
I’m loving the weather, and its Government Money.
I’ve gotta vendetta, I’m gonna be robbin them, sonny.
There’s no time for fumbling,
I’m burning and hungry, feel the mic on my belly
You hear it rumbling funny?
Chorus: Ziriums
T-Rex
Verse 3:What’s the access here?
We aint makin bucks in excess
Having stocks and investments
But to me it doesn’t make sense.
S. Solar:
Yeah, like Solar, calls it out of the PH [Port-Harcourt]
3 series Beemer, cruising back to the ‘A’ [Abuja]
Bankin on them papers that we packed in the case
Cause that’s how we get the papers that we stashed with the Feds
T-Rex:
I see them crackin the safe with skills can wait
Musta chills and chase still…
lock up the bills than Gates S. Solar:
Go through a couple of milli? no we be down with a Billi
Like a billy a billion… nigga for real, no really we get it
T-Rex:
Too bad we get the credit unrated, then set it(….)
All you you relics are heading for debit
And that is your verdict S. Solar
Bam
Baby pick up the bags and clothes, lets make a final break before the black case close.
Chorus: (Ziriums):
Naira zamu kashe, mun fito
(We are out to splurge on Naira)
Mu mun fito, mu kashe ‘yan kud’i,
(We’re out to splurge a little money.)
Muci kudin Abuja, muci kudin gwamnati
(Let’s spend Abuja money, let’s spend government money)
Repeat once
Ziriums speaks over the chorus: Ziriums, T-Rex, Solar, Korex….Dole mu (….) kudin Abuja, wallahi tallahi, yunwa, talauci,yaudara (?) mutane, Don haka, dole mu ci kudin gwamnati, kudin Abuja, dole mu kwashe…Mu saye gidaje musu, Mu saye motoci, Mu aure mata yan gwamnati. Kawai abin da zamu yi. Habba… Intersection… Ba wani kudin waye waye…Ni kwarai, (….) Kudin gwamnatu, masu gidan rana ehheh
(I haven’t finished transcribing/translating Zirium’s monologue at the end, so if anyone hears the rest of it, I’d appreciate the help. Thanks!)
In my recent interview with VOA, I mentioned that one of the things that first drew me to Hausa films is the singing and dancing. Let me explain a little bit more. I love the singing and dancing in the films because it is both an enjoyable break from the storyline with a bit of spectacle and, often, an important moment in commenting on the overall storyline (whether foreshadowing, summarizing, or sermonizing upon the larger events of the film.) The singing and dancing is pleasurable to watch and also tends to be more tightly edited and choreographed than the rest of the film.
While I know many critics who don’t like the songs and dances and also know quite a few filmmakers who tell me they want to make films without singing and dancing, I hate to see this aspect of Kannywood films be dismissed without thought. The song and dance sequences are what distinguish Hausa films from their Nollywood neighbors and, when well done, add a great deal of pleasure to the experience of watching the films.
In the interview I mentioned a few videos, which I will insert here. [Please note that the videos embedded here are being used under FAIR USE laws, for review purposes.] The first is Jamila Chassis with Sani Danja and Mansura Isa (who later married in real life). I have actually only seen the song and dance on YouTube and have not watched the entire film. But it is one of the most delightful Kannywood song and dances I have ever seen, both for the catchy song but also because of the goofy flirtatious dancing. While I know many are concerned about the objectification of women in these dances, the dancing here is playful rather than sexual–and milder than most dancing I’ve seen at wedding bikis in Kano.
I also mentioned the song “Zazzabi,” again with Sani Danja and Mansura Isa, although this time the main characters are not dancing. The cinematography here is a bit grey, static and unimpressive, but I think the editing to the music is well done. Most impressive are the lyrics, sung by Sadiq Zazzabi, and the way in which the song edited together with shots of the main characters metaphorically encapsulates the story of the film. I will not elaborate here because I don’t want to ruin the twists and turns the story takes. However, the song interacts with the larger story brilliantly. [UPDATE. 27 December 2013: In a later post, I translate the lyrics of “Zazzabi.”]
Finally, I mentioned the choreography in Albashi 2 (starring Abbas Sadiq, Zainab Idris, and Adam A. Zango), which I think is quite well done. I also love the costumes and the attention to colour here. I have here a trailer for Albashi 2 rather than a selection of the entire song (the genre of the trailer for Hausa films is worthy of a post in and of itself), but I think it illustrates what I mean. The pleasure, at least for me, is not in the “shaking body” of the female dancer (as is sometimes asserted in critiques of the dancing in films) but in the choreography and colour of the piece. Start watching at 1:08.
There are other examples I will elaborate on this blog another time, but let me share one last delightful example from the trailer for Shugabanci. Start at timecode 1:37. How can you not love a dancing “Nigeria”?!!
Please note that these videos are used according to Fair Use policies for review purposes.
Forgive me if I rave over something that is very old news to most Hausa computer-users, but today I just used the abdalla font, created by Professor Abdalla Uba Adamu, for the first time. I am ashamed to admit that I had not taken the time to figure out any of the Hausa fonts before–I had just lazily put an apostrophe for the hooked characters while Times New Roman font, and I was often reproved for that by Hausa speakers when they read my writing. However, recently I had some documents I had written in Hausa proofread. The friend who helped me did a fantastic job of correcting my Hausa using the Rabiat font and sent me the Rabiat font so that the fonts would print correctly. Unfortunately I had problems when the font would not show up after being turned from a Word file to a pdf, so I tried the abdalla font instead (which Prof told me would be better for pdf). It’s a beautiful font. It blends perfectly with a Times New Roman font (whereas Rabiat looks like bold wherever a transition is made from Times New Roman) and the keys are easy to remember.
So, since I didn’t find this when I googled it (I’m sure this has done many times before–but I’m redoing it for the google searches), here is a little public service announcement for those hapless researchers like myself first trying to figure out the abdalla font fingerings. (I’m sure this is unnecessary for most people in Kano using the font.)
Hooked capital D = [ (key to the right of “p”)
Hooked lower case d = ] (key to the right of “[“)
Hooked capital K = { (shift on the “[” key used for hooked D)
Hooked lower case k = } (shift on the “]” key used for hooked d)
Hooked capital B = | (shift on the “\” key to the right of the “]” key)
Hooked lower case b = ~ (shift on the “`” key to the left of the 1 key)
My friend Katrin Schulze just sent me the links to some fantastic academic opportunities in the UK that I rather wish I could apply for myself. Since I can’t, I will go ahead and pass them on to any others reading this blog.
King’s College wishes to appoint, with effect from 1st October 2010, a Junior Research Fellow in African Studies. This is defined as the disciplines of humanities and social sciences as applied to the study of the African continent, including history, social anthropology, human geography, politics, literary and cultural studies, and development studies. The successful candidate will be associated with the University’s Centre of African Studies, an internationally renowned interdisciplinary research centre established in 1965 (www.african.cam.ac.uk). He/she would be expected to participate in the Centre’s activities and to contribute up to 6 hours of teaching a week to a new interdisciplinary M.Phil in African Studies which will be launched in October 2010. Further enquiries about the Centre and the M.Phil may be directed to Professor Megan Vaughan at mav26@cam.ac.uk.
A Junior Research Fellowship is a faculty-level postdoctoral position that is tenable for up to 4 years. Applications are welcome from graduates of any university. Candidates will usually have completed their PhD, and must have undertaken not more than 2 years of postdoctoral work by 1 October 2010.
The Centre of West African Studies at the University of Birmingham (www.cwas.bham.ac.uk) invites applications to contribute to the 2010 Cadbury Fellows’ Workshop, which will focus on popular culture in contemporary urban Africa.
Three visiting fellows from Africa will be appointed to participate in a ten-week schedule of seminars, discussion groups, and other activities. The workshop will culminate in an international conference, 6-8 May 2010 jointly organised with Institute of Anthropological Research in Africa (IARA), University of Leuven, within the framework of AEGIS.
One aim of the Fellowship scheme is to assist new scholars to develop a research paper and bring it to publication, and the conference papers will form the basis of a special issue of Africa, the journal of the International African Institute.
Fellowships will cover return air-fare, accommodation and living costs for a period of ten weeks.
We are looking for younger African scholars who have something to contribute to the theme, and whose research would benefit from a residential fellowship of ten weeks at the University of Birmingham. They should be in the early stages of their academic careers and based in an institution on the African continent. They should have a PhD or be close to completing one. It is intended that the Fellows will have time to use the University’s excellent library resources, discuss their work with academic staff at CWAS, and contribute to the intellectual life of the department by participating in academic and cultural events here.
In a 29 September 2009 article “Iyan Tama: Matters Arising” on the Nigerian News Service, Bolaji Oluwaseun reports that when Iyan-Tama’s counsel went to the Federal High Court of Appeal in Kaduna “to file a motion to stop the retrial”:
The judge assigned to the case ordered Iyan-tama’s counsel to go back to Kano to the magistrate that was assigned the case initially to file the motion to stop the retrial (the same court that sent him to jail for over 3months over false allegations), and that if they refuse to grant the motion then they should then come back to Federal High Court of Appeal in Kaduna to re-file the motion to stop the re-trial.
For those not familiar with the case Oluwaseun gives a summary of the case, pointing out:
After spending over 3 months in jail, Iyan-Tama was granted bail and a retrial was ordered following a review of the case by the Kano State Attorney-General and Commissioner of Justice. According to the Attorney-General, Barrister Aliyu Umar, the first trial was besmirched by irregularities. Due process was not followed in the trial that led to the conviction, he said. He used very uncomplimentary terms to describe the trial conducted by a senior magistrate, Alhaji Mukhtari Ahmed, such as “improper,” “incomplete,” “a mistake,” summing up by insisting that a “more competent magistrate” should be given the case to try again.
But yet after having committed an injustice that can be successfully argued even by a baby lawyer to be a travesty of justice, the said senior magistrate, Alhaji Mukhtari Ahmed still works in the court houses of Kano State.
And after all Iyan-Tama went through he was not compensated for his illegal imprisonment by the Kano State Government.
Olawuseun continues with more opinions about the case and provides about 6 scanned in copies of documentation that allegedly support Iyan-Tama’s case at the end of the article. To read the entire article, see this link. [UPDATE 13 Oct 09. For more recent news about how Iyan-Tama was invited to the Toronto Film festival, and a clip from his banned film Tsintsiya, see this 23 September article from the Nigerian News Service.]
In more general news concerning the National Film and Video Censor’s Board of Nigeria (not the same body as the Kano State Censorship Board), Al-Amin Ciroma in today’s Leadership (“Censor’s Board increases Fees”) writes that the NFVCB is increasing their fees for previewing a film by 30%:
The review, the board said in a release signed by the corporations Assistant Director, Corporate Affairs, Yunusa Mohammed Tanko, is in line with its efforts to offer premium service to its stakeholders.
With the acquisition and installation of modern cinema style preview theatres at our Lagos office, which is capable of handling 35mm celluloid video, as well as a digital lounge for clients, the present fees charged for preview of films and movies, musical videos and others are no more realistic. The sustainability of this heavy resource base is a prerequisite in the effort to offer global best practices in the Nigerian movie industry.
He said the new equipment would enhance and facilitate online preview of films and movies within the minimum time possible. It will also afford owners of the movies the opportunity to follow and track the progress of the preview in a seamless manner without being present physically.
New costs will be as follows:
The review, The corporation’s Assistant Director, Corporate Affairs, Yunusa Mohammed Tanko, said for local films made in Nigerian languages (of 0-15 minutes) will be N10,000, while a Nigerian film in foreign language such as English language will be charged N20,00, while a film meant for exhibition will be charged N25,000.00. In a general perspective, NFVCB has made 30% increment of the applicable fees.
To read the rest of the article, see Al-Amin Ciroma’s blog.
[UPDATE: Just communicated with the scholarship founder, and the deadline for application is October 31, so there is still time…. APPLY!!!]
I’m sorry for the long delay in posting to this blog! I have been travelling and busy and have not had as much news to update.
Here’s something a bit late (the deadline is October 1–UPDATE–Make that October 31), but which still might be useful (there are still a few days left in September!). A friend of mine has started a small scholarship fund to help exceptional African students fund their undergraduate education in Africa. According to the Xtend foundation website, they
“granted 6 (six) scholarships […] in 2008 and hope to award an additional 25 (twenty five) scholarships to exceptional African undergraduate students during the 2009/2010 academic session.
The applicants awarded last year were all from south-western Nigerian universities; however, the goal of the founders is to help fund students throughout Africa.
Applicants must have a 3.5/5.0 GPA and come from families with an annual income less than $10,000. The application must include personal university information like a student ID number, name of department, and GPA, as well as reference information from the Head of Department and another lecturer. There is also a short 500 word essay explaining why you deserve the fellowship.
The application window is between August 1 and October 31. You can find out more information and download the application file at http://www.xtendfoundation.org/application.
In a fascinating turn of events, Alhaji Abubakar Rabo Abdulkarim, the Director-General of the Kano State Censorship Board, has been arrested by the police and taken before the shari’a court by the Kano State Filmmaker’s association.
Director-General of the Kano State Censorship Board, Malam Abubakar Rabo Abdulkareem, was yesterday arrested by the police over a complaint filed against him by the Kano State Filmmakers Association.
A reliable source told LEADERSHIP last night that Rabo had been dragged to a Sharia Court in Sabon Gari, Kano, by members of the association over an allegation credited to him, in which he was said to have described movie makers as a bunch of homosexuals and lesbians during an interview he granted Radio Kano recently.In the interview, a copy of which was made available to LEADERSHIP, Rabo stated that he had proof that many of the filmmakers were gay, saying his intervention in the industry had helped sanitise the situation.
The statement incensed the filmmakers, and they wrote him a letter demanding a retraction and an apology within 48 hours.But at a follow-up press conference recently in Kano, the director-general repeated his claim, warning that he would publish more damning reports about the alleged immorality in the industry if pressed further.The association went ahead with its threat, suing him before the Sharia court, which was said to have advised the association to report the matter to the police first. >p>According to a member of the association and the immediate former chairman of the state chapter of Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Malam Ado Ahmad Gidan Dabino, Rabo was picked up yesterday by two plain-clothes policemen at about 4pm and taken to the Metro police station located on Bank Road in the city, following a complaint by the filmmakers.At the police station, three leaders of the moviemaking association – Nura Hussain, Ahmad Alkanawy and Isma’ila Afakalla – endorsed the association’s formal complaint, which Rabo reportedly denied. According to Gidan Dabino, the case is due for hearing at the Sharia Court, Fagge, today. When our correspondent contacted Rabo on phone last night, however, he denied knowledge of the issue, saying he was in a meeting and promptly switched off.
Following the arrest, there has been much discussion, on the Finafinan Hausa yahoo group. Ibrahim Sheme has posted one of his responses on the internet group on his blog, saying that Rabo’s intention has never had the interests of the filmmaking in Kano at heart.
According to people who have written me about this (this is unverified rumour), Rabo was given bail, but apparently left his car and driver and went away on an acaba. He is being charged in a shari’a court for “kazafi (invented lies to assinate character).” If convicted, the punishment is 80 lashes with a whip.
Readers will remember that this latest event was precipitated by accusations Rabo made on the radio, saying that filmmakers were homosexuals and lesbians. The filmmaker’s association responded with a letter asking him to withdraw and apologize for the remarks in the next 48 hours or face legal action in a shari’a court. Rabo responded several days later with a press release, threatening to release more evidence saying, among other things:
This address is a by product of the pressing need of the media to balance their stories and the board to have a fair right to reply on the ‘empty threat’ of those practitioners who’s future is endangered or eroded due to our sustainable sanitization exercises. These miscreants are enemies to the present peaceful atmosphere and the cotemporary achievements of the Board because they are the beneficiaries of the old age. The age of un coordinated and un-professionalized Kannywood industry.
Hitherto, this nasty development will not in any way deter the Board on its commitment to safeguard the Kano State ideals in addition to societal values because our statutory legal undertakings are not only the promulgation of state legislation but also constitutional above all holy and sacred.
[…]
Moreso, additional doziers at our disposal will not in any way help the film stakeholders when released to public especially in this period where some further negative developments are continuously unveiling and circulating.
[…]
Furthermore, let me use this opportunities to re-iterate one of the fundamentals of this administration which is the rule of law where equality before law is necessary. Therefore, the Board is happy that constituted measures like threat to sue organisation or person(s) is welcome by our style of leadership. Even though the Board will not hesitate to table publically at the right time and at the right place all at its possession out of social responsibilities and trust but with no meaning to join issues or make filmmakers vulnerable. Let me at this juncture warn that: “Kada Dan Akuya yaje Barbara ya dawo da ciki”. [MY TRANSLATION—CM: A male goat should not go to a female goat and return pregnant…]
For the post on this blog that includes a transcript of Rabo’s statements on the radio, the letter and press release from MOPPAN and the subsequent entire press release from Rabo, see this link.
Authors Ado Ahmad Gidan Dabino and Ibrahim Sheme on the Finafinan_Hausa listserve both report that Aminu Ala was released yesterday, July 9, 2009, on bail, but on the condition that he does not speak with local or international media. The case was adjourned until 20 July 2009.
But there’s a caveat. Ala was barred from granting interviews to local and international media – clearly a desperate attempt to muzzle his freedom of expression and the freedom of the press on the issue. The court ruled that his bail would be thwarted if he does so.
Ado Ahmad Gidan Dabino gives a detailed summary in Hausa of the court case on July 9, which I will copy below. He reports that despite the large rainstorm of the night before and the water on the roads, the court was completely full at 10am when the case was scheduled to begin, including even “girls and married women who had heard the news of the case on the radio.” The judge did not show up, and they were told to wait or come back at 1pm. At 1:45pm, the judge finally showed up, and gave Ala bail until the court meets again on 20 July, except that (Gidan Dabino puts this in all caps) “THE COURT PROHIBITED HIM FROM TALKING WITH DOMESTIC OR FOREIGN JOURNALISTS.” He continues “We and those from outside will continue talk.” In the meantime the Kano branch of the Association of Nigerian Authors came out with a press release on 8 July 2009, which I will copy in it’s entirety after the report in Hausa by Gidan Dabino.
KOTU TA BA DA BELIN ALA
Barka da warhaka ‘yan’uwa, kamar yadda na bayar da bayanin yadda aka ce an daga zaman kotu sai 14 ga wata, baya ta haihu, domin an sami kuskure wajen rubutun da ma’aikatan kotun suka yi, amma bayan kai kawo da aka yi aka gano kuskuren ma’aikatan koton don sun rubuta kwanan watan da ba daidai ba, bayan kai kawo da ka yi an dawo da zama kotun yau kamar yadda aka ambata a baya.
Yau da misalin karfe 10 na safe jama’a sun yi dafifi sun cika kotu, cikar kwari kotun ta yi, duk da ruwan sama da ake yi, yau kotun har da matan aure da ‘yan mata da zaurawa da suka ji labari a rediyo, sun sami hallara. Amma mai shari’a bai fito ba, ya ce sai karfe 1, nan ma bai zauna ba sai 1.45 sannan ya zauna kuma Alkalin kotun ya yarda ya bayar da belin Ala, sannan za a ci gaba da shari’a ranar 20/ga wannan wata.
Sai dai KOTUN TA HANA SHI MAGANA DA ‘YAN JARIDU NA GIDA DA WAJE.
Allah sarki! Mu da muke waje za mu yi hirar. Ai gari da mutane maye ba zai ci kansa ba!
At an emergency meeting held at the Bayero University Kano, today, July 8, 2009, the Association of Nigerian Authors Kano State Branch, frowns at the arrest of one of its members Alhaji Aminuddeen Ladan Abubakar (ALA) over the alleged release of a song that has not been censored by the Kano State Censorship Board.
The Association is seriously looking at the implication of the arrest which is seen as an attack on liberty and freedom of expression. The Association has observed that the authorities in Kano are hostile to art and literature. This action and other past actions of the authorities are seriously undermining the position of Kano State as the leading centre of learning, art and literature.
The Association wishes to advise the authority to be cautious on the way it handles the matters of authors and other producers of art. Art and literature are part and parcel of every
Singer Aminu Ala speaking with friend, novelist Sa’adatu Baba Fagge, before his court case on 7 July 2009, Airport Magistrate Court, Kano. (c) CM
[Check earlier post for a short summary of what happened in Aminu Ala’s court case t0day at the Airport Magistrate court, a so-called “mobile court” attached to the Kano State Censorship Board.” Ala was charged with releasing his song “Hasbunallahu, (a song which prays that God should pour judgment on those who stop them from doing their profession, but names no names) without permission of the Censorship Board. Ala said the charges were false and was denied bail by Justice Mukhtar Ahmad.]
6:20pm. Still at the internet cafe I mentioned in my last post. I am trying to quickly type up my notes of the court case of Aminu Ala today in the next 44 minutes before my time (and computer) runs out.
At around 10:45am this morning I arrived at the Kano Airport Magistrate court on the back of an achaba. There was a crowd of people standing outside, waiting for the court to begin. After Ala’s arrest Saturday he had been granted bail and was told (though not given an official court summons or told the charges for which he was arrested) to show up at the court at 10am on Monday. On Monday, he went to the court, and they told him it had been postponed until today (Tuesday) at 10am. So, today a crowd of friends, colleagues (including Fati Nijar), and journalists were gathered outside the court, including journalists from BBC, Radio Deutchweld, Freedom Radio, Radio Kano, Leadership, Trust, Fim Magazine, and others. Around 11 or 11:30am, we were told the case would start so we all filed into the court. They had to bring in several extra benches to accomodate all of the people, which was according to my estimations above 60.
Ala sat on a bench next to the wall in a crisp yellow babanriga.
His lawyer, in a suit but no wig, sat at a table at the front of the court with other court workers. Phones kept going off, although the court requires them to be turned off. I noticed that I was one of four women in the room: Fati Nijar, Rukkaya the journalist from Trust, and another woman I did not know. Two men with video cameras (I am told later they are from Hikima Media, the company owned by Ala’s sponsor) shot footage of the room.
The gavel is struck three times, we all rose with a hum.
Alkali Mukhtar Ahmad, a small rather frail-looking man, comes into the court in a grey suit and no wig. (I assume that magistrate courts/mobile courts are free of the wig and robe requirement?). He said that the prosecutor could not make it so they were pushing the case to 1:30 or 2:00pm. About that time the judge’s phone went off (or at least a phone very close by to the judge–as he seemed to be moving to turn it off, I assume it was his). He said something like “I can’t be prosecuter at the same time as the judge. Since they have brought the charges we will have to wait for them.”
The defense lawyer accepted the postponment but noted the breech in proper proceedure, saying “Officially a letter should have been submitted to the court if the prosecutor could not come […]we should correct ourselves sometimes.”
Justice Mukhtar Ahmed acknowledged the correction but said “Something else may have come up and we don’t know the issue. Not like you who are on your own. You have to give them the benefit of doubt. But it is only a matter of one or two hours. It is unfortunate.”
After this exchange in English, there was a translation into Hausa.
At 12:21 I sat outside on a bench under a tree beside Aminu Ala and some of his other friends. They joked and told stories. If I were an intrepid reporter, instead of just an academic who sometimes writes for newspapers maybe I would have asked him for an exclusive interview (the other journalists had run off to internet cafes in town to write their predictions about what would happen. They ended up being right.). But I didn’t. I just listened to the people talking around me, watching planes take off at the airport.
When the journalists got back, one told me that he had gone to see the hisbah, and they had said they just sent a warning to the Association of Nigerian Authors that there had ben 11 poems released without being censored.
Another tells me “writers write about the facts. Writers are not politicians. They are not loooking for anything. And it’s not even just Kano now. They are spreading this all over the country.
About that time a medicine seller of the sort that have recently been hauled into jail by the censor’s board began trying to (with colourful language) sell aphrodesiacs and impotency cures to the men gathered around the court.
At 2:13pm the court recommenced. The judge came back in with a suit and no wig.
He asks Ala. “Do you speak Hausa or English.”
Ala responded, “Hausa.”
The prosecuting and defending lawyers identified themselves.
The charges were read in Hausa. Ala was accused of having released his song “Hasbunnallahu” without passing it through the Kano State Censorship Board (the name in Hausa has “film” in the title).
Ala was asked “Gaskiya ko ba gaskiya ba ne?” (True or Not True?)
Alsa sai “Ba gaskiya ba ne.” (Not true)
In the meantime, more benches kept being moved in and more and more people kept coming into the court.
The prosecutor said he would like to “apply for another date to air this matter.”
The defense said “I don’t oppose the issue of having another date, but” that they were making a petition from 340 of the criminal proceedure code from 3605 of the 1999 constitution, which was an application for admitting bail to an accused person pending his trial. The lawyer continued that Ala had been told to show up in court yesterday and he had showed up and he also showed up today when it was postpond. “This attitude of the accused shows he will attend whenever he is told to. The accused may not tamper with the course of justice. We want you to exercise justice by letting the presumed innocent person go on bail.”
The Prosecutor responded that “the issue of bail is discretionary matter of the honourable court.” He encouraged the court to “exercise this discretion judiciously.”
The judge asked the defence if he wanted to say something. He said he did not object.
Still more people were still coming trying to find space to sit in the court.
The judge said “The appeal is adjourned to next tomorrow.” Justice Mukhtar Ahmad gets up and walks out.
As we file out of the court, two men exchanged an impassioned hand clasp saying in English “He will be free.”
I did not realize what had just happened, but was quickly informed by very glum looking friends who had come out before me and had seen Ala being taken away in the prison vehicle that had arrived at the court even before it commenced. They quickly explained that “Bail was not granted. The prison bus was called before the case was heard.”
Apparently he will be held till Thursday, after which the judge will decide whether or not to give him bail after the next hearing.
Another journalist told me, shaking his head. “There are politics under it. We are in the political era.”
(I would do more analysis, but I’m here at an internet cafe on a computer not my own, and just had a huge scare that I had lost the entire post when an internet cafe turned the generator off without checking with everyone in the cafe, but fortunately wordpress saves drafts… so stay tuned…).
6pm, I am at an internet cafe, not on my own computer, so I will post a quick update and then keep working on the report of Ala’s court case today at the Airport Magistrate court, Kano, the so-called mobile court attached to the Kano State Censorship Board. He was charged with releasing his song “Hasbunallahu,” a song which requests Allah to punish those who keep them from practicing their profession but which mentions no names, without passing it through the Kano State Censorship Board. He pleaded not guilty. The judge in the case is Mukhtar Ahmad, who had been found “incompetent” by the Kano State attorney general, in the earlier case with Iyan-Tama (who serve three months in prison before the state declared a mis-trial). Today, Justice Ahmad denied Ala bail and posted the next hearing this Thursday. A prison vehicle had been waiting for Ala before the court even started and whisked him off to jail by around 2:30pm this afternoon. Readers will remember that Ala has been a long time supporter of the present Kano State administration but recently fell out with the Censor’s Board after his song “Hasbunallahu” started making the rounds on bluetooth. The song was banned around two weeks ago.
You know those dangerous singers. If you let them go free two days, no telling WHAT they might sing….
Stay posted (hopefully in th next 45 minutes) for a full report of what happened. In the meantime google yesterday’s Leadership, the article by Abdulaziz A. Abdulaziz titled “Aminu Ala Arrested, Released on Bail,” for the details of Ala’s initial arrest last Saturday.
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A Tunanina... 
“Government Money” a remix of “Arab Money” by Supreme Solar, T-Rex, and Ziriums
A few months ago I wrote a post on 11 songs that had been banned by the Kano State Censorship Board in Kano. This memo prohibiting the sale of the songs, photographed by documentary filmmaker Alex Johnson, was posted at the market where cds are sold.
11 Songs banned by the Kano State Censorship Board. Photo (c) Alex Johnson
The third on the list of songs that were banned was “Girgiza Kai” (“Shake your head”) by Hausa rapper Ziriums, which was not officially released but uploaded to his myspace page. In “Girgiza Kai,” Ziriums, warns those who hear his song,
“Kai karku taka kun san an hana.
Hey, don’t dance, you know they banned it. ….
.. ..
Gwamnan garinmu ran nan. Shi ne ya hana.
The governor of our city here. He banned it…..”
Instead you should just
“Girgiza kai.”
“Shake your head.”
He also satirically uses the proverb “Mai dokar bacci, ya bige da gyangyed’i.” “The one who says sleep is against the law is the one nodding off…” to critique
“Wanda duk ya hana mu sana’a”
“Anyone who keeps us from working….”
(You can listen to the song on Zirium’s Myspace page, and read the lyrics and an English translation here.).. Already having left Kano for Abuja when the song was banned, Ziriums has hooked up with other Abuja-based musicians, Supreme Solar and T-Rex, to continue his controversial rapping on a larger national scale. Intersection Entertainment has recently released S. Solar’s “Government Money”, (featuring T-Rex and Ziriums), a hilarious take-off on Busta Rhymes’ and Ron Browz’s notorious “hit”: “Arab Money.”
You can view “Government Money” here. Please note that all the videos embedded in this blog post are being done so under FAIR USE laws for review purposes:
Both the original “Arab Money,” and remake of the Busta Rhymes’ tune contain wildly offensive portrayals of Arabs and Islam. (The remix featuring Lil Wayne, P. Diddy and even self-proclaimed Muslim Akon, is even worse, and uses actual verses from the Qur’an as the chorus.) The Wikipedia article written about the remix of the song notes that the chorus is “Bismillāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm. Al ḥamdu lillāhi rabbi l-‘ālamīn”; “In the name of Allah (The God), most Gracious most Merciful. All Praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds.” This chorus is intoned behind the American rappers making dramatic poses , flipping bling, and rhyming about their wealth. The Wikipedia article continues to point out that Busta Rhymes uses the Islamic greeting “As-Salamu Alaykum Warahmatullah Wa Barakatu.” “May Peace and blessings of Allah(The God)be upon you” (A Greeting), to rhyme with “While I stack another billion and give it to the block fool.” Similarly Diddy says ““Al hamdu lillah” ( “All Praises to Allah”) to rhyme with: “With my billions pilin'”
Watch the original “Arab Money” here:
And the remix here:
Obviously, while self-consciously funny, the song is sacrilegious and insulting to most Muslims (though if you read through the comments on youtube or various lyrics websites there are occasional self-proclaimed “Arabs” who take pride in it). I could focus my whole blog post on this issue; however, since this has already been done multiple times (here, here, here, here, here, and here) and since I’m more interested in how S. Solar, T-Rex, and Ziriums rewrite the song in the Nigerian context, I’d like to look more at what seems to be Busta Rhyme’s conscious intention, which seems to be a celebration of bling—exemplified in what, with blinding cultural chauvinism, he calls “Arab money.” He and his fellow musicians are not affected by the recession, he implies, they just move on to the “Arab money,” which “Arabs” know how to respect:
Indeed, in an MTV article, Busta defends himself by describing the way the song was recorded:
Busta ostensibly praises the “rich Arab culture,” yet the “culture” he claims to admire is an Orientalist fantasy of gold-glittering caves and harems of nymphomaniacs, tied to earlier colonial grabs for land, wealth, and power. At time code 1:54 in the first video he brags that he is
Both versions entwine exoticized presentations of supposedly “Arab” moneyed lifestyles with the standard hiphop hymn to wealth, materialism, money, and women—clichés exemplified in 50 Cent’s “I Get Money,” among many others.
These clichés have been adopted (with more or less irony) in Nigerian pop music. (Examples feature Nollywood-like Lagos settings with plush leather couches, sleek clubs, wine glasses, expensive cars, and scantily clad (often light-skinned) women. See Faze’s Need Somebody, P-Square’s “Do Me, I Do You,” Dbanj’s “Booty Call,” or Style Plus’s “Call my Name.”) These popular songs exemplify the “Nigerian dream” of making it big and partaking in the glamourous party-world of Ikoyi, Victoria Island, Maitama, or abroad. In fact, before Intersection’s “Government Money,” Olu Maintain had come out with a track named “Arab Money,” as well, likely inspired by the Busta Rhymes video although he doesn’t seem to have shot a video for it yet. The chorus involved the repeated phrase “I go spend Arab Money, just spend Arab money,” alongside wistful tracks about going “to Abu Dhabi, where we can walk freely.” In this track, there does seem to be more self consciousness about the representation of wealth than much other Naija-pop, as can be seen in the observation that in Dubai “recession no dey there” and in this exchange at timecode 3:04 between Olu Maintain and Bondo Krazzy:
The Nigerian music/music videos I find most compelling play with a more self conscious reference to wealth as it is related to corruption and give ironic nods to the particularly Nigerian innovations in 419, from the celebration of the yahoo yahoo boys in Olu Maintain’s Yahoozee, which features row upon row of big hummers to the more self-consciously satirical “I Go Chop your Dollar” by comedian Nkem Owoh (who in a twist of fate was recently kidnapped by entrepreneurial criminals in what has become the hottest new way to “chop money” Apparently, Owoh was released when his family forked over N1.4 billion.)Watch Yahoozee here:
Watch, “I go Chop your Dollar” here:
With “Government Money,” Intersection musicians Supreme Solar, T-Rex, and Ziriums follow in this satirical tradition: Rewriting Busta Rhyme’s hymn to moola, these Abuja-based musicians echo the “celebration” of money, but with an ironic edge—rapping not of the wealthy lifestyle attainable to them as musicians but to those Abuja Big Boys who are eating “Government money.”
In the tradition of “Yahoozee” and other videos where flashy cars become symbols of power, sexual prowess, and wealth, Supreme Solar raps about his “new Range Rover” leaning against the glossy side of the jeep. The camera zooms out to focus on the license plate, which says FG Kudi, (for Federal Government Money). The use of “Abuja” here is a metonym for government, politics, and all the “promise”of money that Abuja offers those who come to Nigeria’s airbrushed capitol where the poor (or even the simply “middle class”) are swept out to the crowded outskirts of the city. To participate in the lifestyle, then as T-Rex says
What’s the access here?
We aint makin bucks in excess
Having stocks and investments
But to me it doesn’t’ make sense
To make the excessive “Abuja-style” money, one must go a bit further than stocks and investments, “Duping NGO’s for Virgin dough” and other shady transactions.
What most creates tension between “Government Money” and the original “Arab Money,” taking the tune beyond the “Yahoozee” genre (pushing it more in the direction of Eedris Abdulkareem’s funny but incisively critical “Mr. Lecturer”), is the inclusion of Ziriums, a Northern Muslim from Kano state, with his Hausa chorus “Mu ci kudin Abuja, Mu ci kudin gwamnati” (Let’s eat/spend Abuja Money, let’s eat/spend government money”) and his fierce spoken commentary at the end of the song. Interestingly (even uncomfortably), Ziriums’ chorus in Hausa is used where in the “Arab Money” remix the Qur’anic verses are used, layering on popular Nigerian conflations of Arab/Muslim culture with the Hausa-speaking north, both imagined and real. By the second day the video had been posted, there was already a comment by user “injustice2mankind” saying, “That fool Ziriums is killing me with his attire…note the arab neck scarf on his agbada….so funny.”
Ziriums featured in “Government Money” by Supreme Solar
Where in the American version, there is a blasphemous use of the Qur’an to rhyme with verses about the love of mammon, in this version, Ziriums’ chorus takes the “Arabic” sound and turns it to a satirical first person boast about “devouring government money.” Here, he subversively links Busta Rhymes et al, and their blasphemous use of Islamic creed to support debauchery, with those “Big Men” who use religion (whether Christianity or Islam) as a cover to justify their scramble for the “national cake.” That is, the very elite who tend to self-righteously decry the “immorality” and “cultural imperialism” of hiphop as a genre are the very ones whose personal habits tend have the most in common with the gold-plated lifestyles of those American artists. Dressed in a Big Man’s babban riga, Ziriums and the other two artists take on the personas of government contractors and professional fraudsters, blurring the boundary between the two.
“Cin kudi” (literally “eating money”), the Hausa phrase that parallels the pidgin phrase “chopping money,” reflects both the everyday language of Nigerians when they speak of corruption and the concept in popular culture that corrupt leaders are both metaphorically and literally consuming the wealth of the nation: taking “a chunk of the national cake,” “duping NGOs,” taking their “contracts’ tax”. These conquests make T-Rex “hungrier than ever,” invoking images seen in political cartoons of monstrous fat bellied leaders who as in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s novel Devil on the Cross are in a competition to see who is the greatest thief and robber. If T-Rex’s stomach is burning and hungry,” and “grumbling funny” in hunger for more assets, at the end Ziriums goes into a fierce tirade: “Yunwa, Talauci, […] Don haka, dole mu ci kudin gwamnati, kudin Abuja, dole mu kwashe .” “Hunger, poverty.[…] This is why we must consume government money, Abuja money, we must spend it.” On one hand, he echoes Nkem Owoh’s narrative in “I Go Chop your Dollar,”
On the other hand, Ziriums points out that Abuja money and government money, in fact, belongs to everyone in the country—If there is hunger and poverty, then ordinary people must also have access to the nation’s wealth.
Nigerian hiphop is often criticized for merely mindlessly copying American rap. I have no doubt that some may point to the Intersection’s ripping of the production and “sound” of Busta Rhymes “Arab Money” as an illustration of such “unoriginality.” However, the transfer, at least in this case, profoundly changes the song: adding to, subverting, and commenting on the original. “Government Money” ends up being not just a critique of corruption among Nigeria’s wealthy elite, but also a parody/critique of the mindlessly obscene celebration of bling in “Arab Money”—and of the exoticizing colonization of other parts of the world in the Busta Rhymes tune and so often found in American hiphop. (See for example: Ludacris’s “Pimpin All Over the World,” countless beach scenes in the Caribbean, or Nigerian rapper Eedris Abdulkareem’s beef with 50 Cent over a seat on an airplane, about whom he said “You cannot treat me as a second and or third class citizen in my own country, I will not take it from anybody.”) When to a background of the chanted Qur’an, P. Diddy [wearing two cross chains] raps “Fuck the recession. I’m still investin, I’m about to buy Dubai, and swim in the shark section,” P. Diddy seems far more akin to the arrogant Swiss-bank account holding government swindlers of Nigeria than these young, upcoming but still moneyless Nigerian musicians.Thus, “Government Money” blends the ferocious critiques of oppressive society found in politically conscious rap with a parody of the glossy sexed-up materialistic hits most popular on MTV.
There are a few things to work on, here. The video is busy with graphics and, while featuring other artists who are not actually participating in the music is in keeping with the original “Arab Money” mix, here it is just confusing. If the song becomes popular enough, it would be great to have a re-mix video. But it is fresh, funny, and this talent is real. The “Unassailable” S. Solar, the “Extraordinary” T-Rex, and the “Revolutionary” Ziriums, as the video titles them, are musicians to keep an eye on.
And to watch again without having to scroll back up:
Here are the lyrics. Thank you to Korex of Intersection who provided me with the complete corrected lyrics of the verses in English and to Ziriums who corrected my Hausa transcription of the chorus before I posted. (Correction to English made 25 November 2009–and with access to the full lyrics some of the analysis may change… stay tuned… lol)
Lyrics:
The Goose, da goose, is loose in the building.
T-Rex,
Ziriums,
Haha
S. Solar
Chorus (Ziriums):
Naira zamu kashe, mun fito
(We are out to splurge on Naira)
Mu mun fito, mu kashe ‘yan kud’i,
(We’re out to splurge a little money.)
Muci kudin Abuja, muci kudin gwamnati
(Let’s spend Abuja money, let’s spend government money)
Repeat once
Supreme Solar
Verse 1: I appear anywhere with the new range rover
Check the Tints so intense, FG plate number
Can’t stop, coming like a rain, lots of digits in my company name hey, money ain’t a thing
So much money that the bank can’t hold
Too many properties that we can’t disclose
What’s your bank’s name, i’ll call the CEO
When my NGO’ll holler back and make the black case close!
Chorus: Ziriums
T-Rex
Verse 2: More than a slice, I’ll take a chunk of the national cake
Get the ration and break.
Before you know that the transaction is fake
i’ll be in another state
Hooking up another bait, Duping NGO’s for Virgin dough
Cop a lotta paper
Breaking contacts and contracts
It’s a strong task. If there’s a window of opportunity
[Crack]
I’ll make the walls crack, give the guns back
And I’m hungrier than ever, get the cheddar, tell rihanna to get that ugly ass umbrella.
I’m loving the weather, and its Government Money.
I’ve gotta vendetta, I’m gonna be robbin them, sonny.
There’s no time for fumbling,
I’m burning and hungry, feel the mic on my belly
You hear it rumbling funny?
Chorus: Ziriums
T-Rex
Verse 3:What’s the access here?
We aint makin bucks in excess
Having stocks and investments
But to me it doesn’t make sense.
S. Solar:
Yeah, like Solar, calls it out of the PH [Port-Harcourt]
3 series Beemer, cruising back to the ‘A’ [Abuja]
Bankin on them papers that we packed in the case
Cause that’s how we get the papers that we stashed with the Feds
T-Rex:
I see them crackin the safe with skills can wait
Musta chills and chase still…
lock up the bills than Gates
S. Solar:
Go through a couple of milli? no we be down with a Billi
Like a billy a billion… nigga for real, no really we get it
T-Rex:
Too bad we get the credit unrated, then set it(….)
All you you relics are heading for debit
And that is your verdict
S. Solar
Bam
Baby pick up the bags and clothes, lets make a final break before the black case close.
Chorus: (Ziriums):
Naira zamu kashe, mun fito
(We are out to splurge on Naira)
Mu mun fito, mu kashe ‘yan kud’i,
(We’re out to splurge a little money.)
Muci kudin Abuja, muci kudin gwamnati
(Let’s spend Abuja money, let’s spend government money)
Repeat once
Ziriums speaks over the chorus: Ziriums, T-Rex, Solar, Korex….Dole mu (….) kudin Abuja, wallahi tallahi, yunwa, talauci,yaudara (?) mutane, Don haka, dole mu ci kudin gwamnati, kudin Abuja, dole mu kwashe…Mu saye gidaje musu, Mu saye motoci, Mu aure mata yan gwamnati. Kawai abin da zamu yi. Habba… Intersection… Ba wani kudin waye waye…Ni kwarai, (….) Kudin gwamnatu, masu gidan rana ehheh
(I haven’t finished transcribing/translating Zirium’s monologue at the end, so if anyone hears the rest of it, I’d appreciate the help. Thanks!)
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Tagged "Arab Money", "Government Money", 419, Abuja music, Busta Rhymes, Hausa hiphop, Hausa music, hiphop, I Go Chop your Dollar, Intersection Entertainment, Kano State Censorship Board, music video, Naija music, Nazir Hausawa, Nigeria, Nigerian hiphop, Nigerian music, Nkem Owoh, Olu Maintain, Ron Browz, social commentary, Supreme Solar, T-Rex, Yahoozee, Ziriums