Folarin ‘Falz’ Falana says he
expected the backlash he received after releasing the controversial ‘This is
Nigeria’ video.
Taking a cue from American
musician Childish Gambino, the Nigerian artiste/actor addressed a number of
topical Nigerian issues in the video, one of which is the Chibok and Dapchi
schoolgirls’ abduction.
Following the release of the
song, the singer was criticised for featuring hijab-wearing girls dancing
‘shaku shaku’.
The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC)
had threatened to take legal action against the entertainer but later
backtracked, urging the government agencies responsible for censoring films and
videos to act on the matter.
Reacting to the brouhaha during
an interview on SoundCity FM, Falz said: “I expected the reaction, I expected
discussion, I expected controversial discussion.”
When asked what he hoped to
achieve with the video, he said: “It’s pretty obvious that the girls in the
Hijab are very symbolic with the Chibok girls that were taken away.
“Over 200 of them, at the end of
the day, after the government’s extremely sluggish response, half of them were
brought back.”
The rapper recently said he made
the song to remind Nigerians of the issues bedeviling the country.
He said: “I feel like we need to
stay at a heightened level of social consciousness and political awareness out
here because everyone is seemingly distracted by entertainment… that we sort of
forget we’re facing a lot of struggles as a country.
“At the end of the day, money is
very important. People need to make money, even I need to make money. But I
feel like at every interval we need to stop and think. We need to pause and
look around. Are we becoming too insensitive?”
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