A music video is meant to be a short film representing an artiste’s interpretation of the fusion between his/her/its song and visuals. In other words a music video is meant to amplify the message behind the music for promotional and marketing purposes. What a music video is not meant to do is act as a substitute for a documentary on the living conditions of a country or act as a video version of the CIA World Factbooks Reference on a country. Now that we have gotten that out of the way, we can now begin to address the issues arising from the recent release of the video to Rick Ross’ “Hold Me Back”. But scratch that. The bearded rapper had actually earlier released a video for the same song which was shot in the back streets of New Orleans, Louisiana. This explains why the recent video shot when the MMG rapper came to Lagos on August 17 for a concert, is tagged as being the West African version.
Nigeria Version
When one puts the two videos together, one begins to notice similarities between the two. For one, both were shot in seedy surroundings depicting people who are trying to eke out a living from such almost nothing. Literally. But such similarities are seemingly lost on the people who have took turns to castigate the rapper. Castigate him for having the effrontery to show that such ghettos exist in our country. Like that would be a complete surprise to the rest of the world.
Explicit Version
So it was okay for Olamide to shoot his “Eni Duro” video in the ghetto, a video that won Best Video at last year’s Headies but when Rick Ross shoots a video for a song with a similar theme in the slums, everyone decides to cry foul.
But this is not the first time an American rapper would be shooting a music video on the streets of Lagos in unflattering surroundings. In 2008, Talib Kweli shot the video to “Hostile Gospel” on the streets of Lagos, complete with a scene shot on Kuramo Beach with a white-garmented prophet praying in the background. Now that didn’t attract much criticism, probably because Talib wasn’t as well known and our music industry wasn’t as developed. Or maybe we have just grown to be more xenophobic as a people. How else would one explain the negative criticism that has trailed the release of the video? That instead of focusing our voices on castigating our leaders that have created an economy that allows such ghettos to thrive as places of abode for our people, we would rather blame a foreign rapper for not shooting a video with bum-shaking girls and flashy cars.
A major plank in the criticism of the video is why Rick Ross decide to shoot his video in the swamps of Mack and other shanty places rather than the amongst the manicured lawns of the houses on the island or even in any of the dimly-lit night clubs that dot the city. Here is what marks the largest difference between the music industry abroad and right here. Over there, shooting a video for a song that preaches struggling and succeeding in the face of mighty odds in a location that actually shows people struggling to make ends meet would make perfect sense. But not here. We would rather veil everything behind colourful videos showing off the latest dancing moves, and it doesn’t even matter what the song is about. It’s pretty easy and simplistic to say that its not Rozay’s place to tell the stor of the daily struggles of the average Nigerian. But, despite the millionaire status of the rapper plus flashy cars he raps about, the struggle is a universal one. And if we do not tell our own stories adequately, someone else is going to come and tell it for us. There are many stories to be told about the Nigerian and African situation and our music used to be a way of telling these stories. The real shame is when our music is now failing to do so and we attack someone who attempts to bail us out
