The saying that, ‘blood is thicker than water’ has always found relevance in human
relations. While Femi Falana is a human rights activist and lawyer known for standing up against everything that is wrong in the society, his musician son, Folarin Falana, popularly known as Falz, is fighting everything that is wrong in the nation’s music industry.
Though Falz has abandoned law for music, his recent outburst on the need for musicians to stop celebrating fraud and fraudsters seems to have reminded all that he is the son of a lawyer. It really does seem he is still well in touch with his father’s values.
Speaking with HIP TV recently, the ‘Soft Work’ crooner slammed all the Nigerian artistes who are always glorifying fraud and celebrating fraudsters with their music. According
to the rapper, no one should promote fraudsters as it is doing moreharm than good to the youth who look up to the artistes in the society.
He said, “You are an entertainer and in your musical record, you are greeting all the yahoo boys and fraudsters and calling their names personally. This culture makes the younger ones believe that it is cool to do it.”
Laudable as the observation and crusade may be, the war on ‘yahoo boys’ may be bigger than Falz alone. The truth is that only few musicians in Nigeria are not guilty of this anomaly.
Recall that a song inspired by Internet fraud was released by D’banj in 2004, titled, ‘Mobolowowon.’ In the song, he explained how he escaped from the police in London when he tried a credit card scam. But we didn’t know if it was pure creativity or a narration of a real event.
Similarly, the first authentic Yahoo single was Olu Maintain’s 2007 classic hit, ‘Yahoozee.’ It was a tale of the luxury lifestyle of the ‘G-boys’.
With ‘Maga Don Pay’ in 2008, Kelly Hansome ruled the airwaves for a while. Maga is the name ‘Yahoo boys’ give a victim of Internet fraud.
In 2012, Reminisce did a song, ‘2 Musssh,’ and all I can still remember is him calling out names of some Malaysian-based businessmen, who were rumoured to be into Internet fraud.
In recent times, the trend has continued. Small Doctor cannot do without praise singing ‘Wire Wire’ gang. After years of struggling to come back to limelight, 9ice managed to release a hit song, ‘Living Things’. He achieved some form of hit status with the song by giving praises to alleged ‘Yahoo boys.’
Since Falz’ attack, he has been bashed and called names. Some concluded that his privileged upbringing has blindfolded his eyes from reality. Others said he lacks respect for literally calling out 9ice who is older than him in age and in the game.
But what has age got to do with this. What has background got to do with being against wrongdoings? By now, Falz should know that he is up against the majority and he would be bullied.
It is, however, difficult to see guilty musicians changing their ways. For a while now, as a matter of fact, ‘Yahoo boys’ have financed the careers of many artistes. They’ve paid for expensive music videos and dropped the money for promotions. They’ve established music labels, while some are using music to cover up. A perfect example is rapper Sauce Kid, who has been jailed for two years after being found guilty for stealing $15,388. We
are yet to know the fate of Dammy Krane, who is currently facing a third degree grand theft in the United States of America, which attracts a five-year jail term.
