By Festus Adedayo

In perhaps his most famous song after dying in a car crash in 1971, Cardinal Rex Lawson, Kalabari highlife soulful singer of the 1960s Nigeria, would seem to be passing a deeply emotive message to both the Adeleke and Labinjoh families. In a deeply philosophical song sung in Kalabari, a riverine tribe of Rivers State, Rex used the track, So Ala Temen, to preach equality of creation, irrespective of class or wealth. God made the rich – So ala temen; both wealth – ala wolo ma – and poverty/lowliness – igoinderima – constitute a single tranche of God’s creation, he sang. God made the rich/Ori piki igointemen and also created the lowly, Ala wolo ma, igoinderima, he sang in his inimitable melodious rhythm. Rex then advised that while the wealthy deserve the respect of the rich, the rich too should not disdain the poor, the less fortunate of God’s creation.

Last week, a 12-year old controversial paternity feud between the Adeleke and Labinjoh families, resurfaced in the media. At its centre was Afrobeats star, David Adeleke, popularly known as Davido, and a woman, Ayo Labinjoh. While Davido claimed he had never met the young woman, Ayo and her mother insisted that the product of a one-night stand she allegedly had with the musician resulted in a girl child called Aanu. Davido’s father, a widely respected billionaire, had to take a detour off his wont in a press engagement last week to drill deep down into the paternity feud. The summary of his intervention was that the Labinjohs were gold diggers who wanted to reap from the proceeds of an alleged, (which they vehemently denied) illicit romp.

Superstar Davido is reputed to have had children with at least four confirmed mothers, known in youth lingo as Baby Mamas. These include Sophia Momodu, Amanda, Larissa Yasmin Lorenco, and Chioma Rowland, now his wife. Recent reports also alleged that there were potential claims that would come from Anita Brown and Ivanna Bay. In all, Davido is said to have fathered five children, with Chioma being the mother of his twins and his late son, Ifeanyi.

When I imagine the boundless licence the period of youth gives the youth, I wish I could relive my youth again. In fact, Irish author, Oscar Wilde, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, labeled this period in the life of a man as “an age grossly carnal in its pleasures.” At such moments when I crave to be a youth again, I am utterly envious of this category. Apart from the fresh flesh, luscious skin, gentle innocent heap of hairs on the scalp, and energetic limbs, the period of youth also affords the youth some seemingly infinite licence. They can flip their lips with utmost magisteriality, expand the frontiers of their libido as rascally as they can, and dare the world to go to hell.

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In fact, Wilde believed that there is nothing in the world worth having as the period of youth. Age takes all those from us when we begin to grow old. The skin becomes wizened, scalps totally stripped of hairs, face wrinkled, folded brows become comparable to the leaves of moinmoin and feeble legs that can hardly carry you to where you wish are your companion.

Recently, Nigerian singer and songwriter, Ayodeji Ibrahim Balogun, popularly known as Wizkid, took another boundless trip that is in sync with his youth demography. The world was riled when, in an online chatter between Seun, son of Afrobeats legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, and fans of Wizkid, the young Wizkid, on his X, wrote, “ok i big pass your papa!!!wetin u one do? Fool at 40!” taken to mean that he claimed to be bigger than the legendary Fela. Wizkid would seem to have instantly thrown a pebble at a wasp’s verspiary and should be ready for the stings that came therefrom. Immediately after this, the musician began to receive multiple pelts of pebbles of anger from fans who thought the young music star was struck by the spirit of self, arrogance and unbridled audacity. How dare he compare himself to the musical hippopotamus, the erinmilokun, Fela!

Many have likened Wizkid’s infelicitous comparison of his talent to Fela’s as heresy. In my piece of August 10, 2025, entitled “KWAM 1, eccentricity and the cult of the Big Man”, I cited the heresy of The Beatles, a famous American Rock music band, widely regarded as the most influential Western popular music ever. It was formed in Liverpool in 1960 with a core lineup of artists like John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. Lennon had sparked controversy in a 1966 interview with British reporter, Maureen Cleave, when he said The Beatles were even “more popular than Jesus”. He further said, “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and I will be proved right … Jesus was alright but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”

The Lennon comment resulted in a huge backlash and created an uproar which led to wide protests against the band. US religious and social conservatives were outraged. Even the Ku Klux Klan joined the fray. The controversy it sparked was such that The Vatican issued a protest letter. The Beatles’ records were also banned by Spanish and Dutch radio stations and on South Africa’s National Broadcasting Service. When the backlash became too severe, a press conference was organized for Lennon to make a clarification. In 1970, a legal row ensued in the band, leading to its dissolution on December 29, 1974. In 1980, Lennon was murdered and in 2001, George Harrison died of cancer.

To Fela’s fans, Wizkid’s “I big pass your papa” comment is seen in that The Beatles category. The invective they have heaped on Wizkid is so enormous, enough to construct a skyscraper. It may mildly rival the world’s resentment of The Beatles denigrating the signification of the Christian faith, Jesus Christ. Unfortunately for this generation of surviving clan of Fela’s fans who hold doggedly to Fela’s legendary status, and who think Wizkid had committed heresy, it is like a needle that falls off a leper’s hand for whom picking it up would be a huge task. The Fela fan demography has been severely whittled and damaged by age. A large number that still sees the legend in Fela hear of it by words of mouth. Again, the presence of this disappearing Fela worshipers is negligible on the social media, where the battle is raging. They are very far between. As such, they leave a huge demography of youth, who are not only formidable players on the battlefield, but who only encounter Fela’s legend as tale, to see those attacking Wizkid as not making sense. To them, Wizkid’s legend is all they know, all they see and the most effervescent to behold.

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Famous singer Damini Ogulu, widely known as Burna Boy, is also inebriated in his own youthful vagaries. Perceived as brash, vague and driven by an imponderous ego, he is the grandson of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s first band manager, Benson Idonije, who is also a revered music critic and broadcaster. Burna is also a crowd put-off. Recently, a video went viral showing a Burna Boy fan, ostensibly swept off his feet by his musical bravura, jumping on stage to approach the star musician at an event in Lagos. Though security personnel swiftly prevented the fan coming in contact with him, Burna Boy abruptly left the stage, leaving his fans shocked and disappointed, and without any explanation for his gruff. This has become his familiar trait.

Same thing happened at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in November 2025 in Denver, Colorado. At the concert, he ordered security personnel to remove an American fan, Chowtu Jeteni, and her boyfriend, even after purchasing expensive tickets. They had sat on the front row at the concert. Her offence was that she reportedly slept off during the show. Burna Boy then momentarily stopped his performance, claiming that he felt insulted that a fan dared doze off on his show. As the fan and boyfriend were taken off the concert, he yakked, “I’m not doing no more song until you take her home”. Jeteni, on her Instagram page, later described the event as humiliating. She took a trip into the emotional distress she was embroiled in while yet having to attend the show. Said the fan, she was on that day grieving the death of her daughter’s father. She said she had to attend the Burna Boy show to let off burning steam within and brighten her mood. This event led to a significant backlash thereafter for the musician, with fans refusing to go for his shows.

In the above cited piece on KWAM 1, I struggled to put the chunk of asocial behaviour exhibited by musicians and artists in general to eccentricity. I had said, “on stage, wowed and giddy female audiences have reportedly removed their undies and flung them at musicians. Even when they engage in pure outlawry, musicians’ acceptance as daemon by the world is mind-boggling. Discussions on whether society should continue to abet artists’ display of eccentricity as acceptable mode of behaviour or not is rife. The question then is, is eccentricity a victory of aesthetics, artistic expression, extravagant gaining of attention to be different, or simply victory for artistic narcissism?”

How does one describe the atypical manifestations of musicians, many of whom are in their youth: eccentricity, Oscar Wilde’s explanation of the queer manifestations of youth as product of age, or pure outlawry? In the course of writing the biography of Yoruba Apala music legend, Ayinla Omowura, I interviewed his protege, Ayinla Kollington, in his house at Alagbado, Lagos. In the very early 1970s, Kollington, bent on avenging the acerbic attacks on Omowura by his Egba kinsman and contemporary Apala musician colleague, Fatai Olowonyo, had waxed an album he titled Omo Iya Onipako. Asked to reflect on it, the Fuji music great pleaded not to, submitting that, whenever he remembered the phalange of acerbic words he used against Olowonyo, he always regretted going to such extreme. It will seem that age had tempered the boundless province of word usage that Kollington explored in his youth.

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Apparently disregarding Rex Lawson’s evergreen preachment not to take the rich for granted, I think the Labinjohs merely wanted to turn Lawson’s plea on its head. Being a student of logic, I hold that Davido’s father’s appearance last week and his arguments against the lady, who allegedly opened her laps to a celebrity she was meeting for the very first time, conform to the rules of inductive logic. As God created the rich/Ori piki igointemen, said Lawson, he also created the lowly, Ala wolo ma, igoinderima. Those who queue by the tantrums of that father cast out and social media perdition on this matter are merely leaving their flanks open for easy shellacking. When someone, whose father, first class mathematician, scientist and engineer, publicly posted a disclaimer and warned the whole world that this fruit from his tree was cognitively deceased, but foolish you says she is your preferred scientist, I am sorry for you. The Adelekes have enough wealth to take care of another addition to their offspring but science repudiates this obviously orchestrated consanguinity.

Having said this, however, I think that gold-diggers, capitalising on the liberal, boundless libido of Davido and the undemarcated operational base of his underneath member would continue to feast on his Achilles’ heels.

I think the very idea of Wizkid thinking he is bigger than Fela should be seen from the prism of anger. Seun, Fela’s son, has become a sore in the throat to so many on account of his exuberant irritancy, mostly on the social media. Rather than flaunting the “$120,000” he claimed to have recently collected, “simply because I am Fela’s son” he should flaunt what he has been able to make of his life as a result of his own name. Wizkid’s father may be a nobody, but he has built a name for himself which attracts the world, far more than Seun’s name. The latter’s name is more significant for his irritancy than his musical or societal contributions. Certainly not on account of anything substantial on the bandstand.

Davido, Wizkid, Burna Boy and the like, still salivating the lush of their youths, should adore it while it lasts. I remember this long serenade of youth by Wilde, which is apposite here. He had said, “For there is such a little time that your youth will last – such a little time. The common hill-flowers wither, but they blossom again. The laburnum will be as yellow next June as it is now. In a month, there will be purple stars on the clematis, and year after year, the green night of its leaves will hold its purple stars…Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth!”