On Nigerian Music and Misogyny - Letter one

Introduction: The industry-wide problem.

This is part one of a five-part correspondence series between

Azeezah

and

Feminist Inc

.In this series, we explore misogyny in Nigerian music—its lyrics, themes, and the industry-wide culture that enables it.

Feminist Inc will be publishing parts 1, 3, and 5 on here, while

Azeezah

will publish parts 2 and 4 on her Substack.

Links to each letter will be added as they are published: letter 1, letter 2, letter 3

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If she no suck o, if she no fuck who go pay for her wig and handbag?

~ erxcept from ‘Cast’ by Shallipopi and Odumodublvck

I think we can all agree that Nigeria hates women. And a lot of Nigerian men hate women. Now, quite a number of Nigerian musicians are men (do you see where this is going?) so, definitely a lot of Nigerian musicians hate women. The logic made sense in my head. Argue with your keyboard.

Because if not that they hate women ehn, they wouldn't be singing some of the songs that they sing. They wouldn't tweet some of the rubbish that they tweet and say some of the shit that they say. Case in point.

And it's not just one artist or two or even three. It's almost like a rite of passage. As a man, if you want to blow in the music industry your music must debase, degrade and insult women.

It even goes beyond the lyrics, these men don't just sing rapey, misogynistic lyrics they embody it. Take Davido’s utter disregard for his wife Chioma (he's a serial cheat) or the Burna Boy and Shatta Wale drama where violence, hyper-masculinity, and ego played out in real-time.

In this series,

Azeezah

and I will be breaking down some of the industries most misogynistic lyrics —songs that blame women, body-shame them, and reduce them to objects to be bought and discarded.

We will also be questioning why even the so called good guys in the industry don't seem so different after all.

From Kizz Daniel’s Pak N Go to Cast and beyond, we’re asking: Do male Nigerian musicians truly hate women, or are they just giving the audience what they want? And more importantly—why do they get away with it?