Glorifying Yahoo Yahoo in music is wrong
No matter the Nigerian reality, Yahoo is stealing; robbing other people of their hard-earned money, but then it is a societal issue, not about any group of men.
A little over a year ago, in the thick of rapper, Falz’s criticism of veteran act, 9ice, Pulse did a breakdown of the yahoo and fraud glorification in Nigerian music. Fast forward to a year later, Pulse also did a breakdown of how Yahoo boys are easily identifiable in a crowd from their accepted fashion and appearance standards.
They place a premium on wealth and make everybody else not interested in Yahoo-Yahoo, catfishing, and fraud feel like ignorant people who will never make it in life.
Yahoo has now gotten so ingrained that the fundamental wrongness of it has been normalized by conversations like, ‘Money na money, nobody wants to know how you make it, just make it.’
The average Nigerian street song is either laced with subtle instances of celebrating Yahoo like Victor AD’s “Wetin We Gain” or unrepentant yahoo rhetorics like on Chinko Ekun's “Able God,” featuring Lil Kesh and Zlatan Ibile?—?whose lyrics were riddled with Yahoo talk.
He said, “Omo ase, o lo n to’ro jacky, kuro n’be, To ye ko lo ra lappy. Tete connect, ki iwo na le collect, Ko le rale si Lekki, ko put e for Rent.”
It basically translates to, “Bastard, you’re begging for jacky (Jack Daniels), Leave that place and go get a Laptop (For Yahoo), Connect (Start Yahoo) so you can collect (Money), so you can buy a house in Lekki and put it up for rent.
Sadly, the issue has again crept its ugly head, like the villain in a horror movie or a thriller - worse a cockroach - that never really dies.
Blaqbonez vs. YBNL Boys
Two days ago, a salient issue sailed sadly under the conversational radar, either because the people involved had no real pedigree or because we’ve so normalized yahoo that conversations like that have become cliché.
Apparently, YBNL signees, Picazo Rhap, Limerick, Yomi Blaize and another rapper, Kayzmoore performed at King's College, Lagos and rapped some offensive lists off Kayzmoore’s sleeper hit, “Jaro”.
On December 12, 2018, 100 Crowns signee and Rapper, BlaqBonez jumped on his Twitter account (@BlaqBonez) , to criticize the lyrics of Kayzmoore’s sleeper hit, “Jaro,” performed at King's College. He felt the lyrics “offensive.”
Blaq felt the lyrics glorified fraud and placed a sizeable pressure on young men to make money.
For nuance, the lyrics to which BlaqBonez took offense were rapped in Yoruba, “At your age, se ko ye ko ma to ra benz ni? Ate your age, se ko ye ko to ma se yahoo?”
In English, it simply means, “At your age, shouldn’t you have bought a benz? At your age, shouldn’t you be doing yahoo?”
What ensued was a social media barrage from YBNL boys; Picazo Rhap, Yomi Blaize and Limerick who all mocked and shamed BlaqBonez either as ignorant to the ‘reality’ or as a poor struggling artist via Instagram either to support Kayzmoore or glorify Yahoo.
