Nigerian musician Davido releases a new song, where’s the homophobia?

Popular American-born Nigerian musician Davido, has recently released his fourth studio album to the excitement of millions of his loyal fans across the world.

By NoStringsNG Writer

The 17-track album ‘Timeless’ was released in March this year and has been positively received by many. Also, the album has continued to enjoy massive airplay across radio stations in Nigeria and has also topped the charts of various streaming platforms globally.

On one of the album’s hit singles “Unavailable” featuring Musa Keys, the singer weaves afro beats mixed with Amapiano (a subgenre of house music that emerged in South Africa) to create a catchy dance track.

In the song, Davido repeatedly sings about how he is unavailable and stealthy from his critics and rumor-mongers whilst at the same time peppering in some toxic masculinity and homophobia. 

This is not particularly surprising at all as we have witnessed in the past how in a bid to gain popularity and stay relevant, as well as pass as heterosexual a lot of desperate mainstream Nigerian musicians and celebrities have used their brands and platforms to promote homophobic narratives.

Sadly, the 30-year-old musician also seems to have fallen into the league of Nigerian musicians who are desperately seeking to stay relevant at all costs and would rather take the easy route to placate his listeners for fulsome praise with a lyrically vapid dance track.

In the opening chorus of the song, the musician states:

I’m unavailable, dem no dey see me.

Here we see how he is trying to absent himself from public scrutiny and critics, but as soon as we hit the first verse, we get to hear what the artist is clearly talking about, he goes on quickly about how he is a subject of public speculation and his accusations of being a serial philanderer, 

“Say I carry woman”

Doubling down on his detractors, and for little to no reason, chooses instead to throw gay people under the bus. 

“shey na man I for carry?”

Overall, it should be noted that this kind of toxic behavior is problematic, the performer rather than address his critics as to his polyamorous affairs or lack of, chooses instead, to scape-goat a minority group, in this case, gay men, for no reason but to appeal to a sort of shrewd sanctimony and to fan the flames of homophobia, a truly low blow from the multiple award-winning music performer.

But unfortunately, this won’t work anymore as we are quite familiar with these old antics used by many mainstream musicians and artists to justify their irresponsible behaviors and to divert the attention of their fans who are mostly a group of largely uninformed listeners, mostly young unknowing folks at the expense of degrading homosexual people.

However, we have not always been this unfortunate as other Nigerian musicians have taken a stand to support queer liberation in Nigeria.

Musicians such as Falz and a few others have openly challenged the human rights violations of LGBT people in Nigeria.

On his Hit single aptly titled “Hypocrisy” from his 2019 hit Album “Moral Instruction”, he brilliantly calls out Nigeria’s double standards on the issue of homosexuality.

The musician stated:

“We dey talk human right we no respect am

Who are we to crucify the homosexuals?

Most of una don dey involved from time

But no be anybody business who you wan climb”

Also, quite recently, Marvin Records’ latest signee, Ayra Starr subtly celebrated bisexual attraction in the label’s hit song Won Da Mo, the singer stated, honestly:

“all your boys and your girls them dey crush on my body”

But quite unfortunately, we can’t say the same about Davido, whose views on sexuality are seemingly unevolved, or could it be that he is only pandering towards Nigerian society’s homophobic views about gay people to maintain popularity?

Either way, it is not a good look for the artiste nor for an album that titles itself as “Timeless”.

Nonetheless, we can all agree that the song itself is indeed a catchy dance tune with a simple meaning to it; he’s clearly “Unavailable”, and perhaps also too unavailable to be accountable.

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