The sanctimony of arts has been under fire the last few months of 2021. Firstly, Africa’s favourite literature auntie, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie got into a couple of spats with her young nieces. The internet was divided, not equally, but divided nonetheless. Then a multimillionaire took a dig at a niche community within the world. ‘Transgender people just don’t get it you see, we want to make fun of them without them taking offense.’ Half of the internet said, “yeah, why are you getting worked up. Its just a joke. How dare you get offended by something. Don’t you know that if you get offended the world will end. Our favourite comedian will have one less million in his bank account.”. The other half of the internet, well…yeah they were pushing the maniacal gay agenda that forces people to be nice to transgender people, and calls people who aren’t nice out. If they succeed then douchebags will be outlawed and the Earth’s core will erupt. This can not happen!
As we wrapped up 2021 you would have thought that there would be no massive twitter webs for the arts to find themselves wrangled in. Surely there isn’t enough time for your favourite practitioner to release a body of work that can stimulate the paneal gland of the conditioned twitterers (?welp), facebookers or redditors. If you thought that was the case then you clearly do not know Winky D’s fame, or Tsitsi Dangarembgas clout. #FamevsClout
I should give the tale of the tape shouldn’t I? In the black corner, book in hand, beady eyed spectacles stamped on the rim of her nose, the voice within Tambu – Tsitsi ‘Man Booker nominee’ Dangarembga. And in the blue corner, straight out of Kambuzuma, flanked by Layan and Oskid, chigaffa, co-owner with Katy Perry of the trademark ‘Extra Terrestrial’ – Winky ‘chiGaffa’ D!
Winky D – the main character
The story starts on the 17th of December. A man. A myth. A well known entity. A puzzle. A clear cut case. A legend. A certain homosapien named Winky of the house D (Winky D), wrote a ballad. The ballad was named Happy Again, and was fusion of afrobeats, um pop and Disney Pixar movies from the early 2000s. The ballad streamed on streaming site, Youtube, and garnered a stream of conscious minds to stream through with likes comments and jokes. The jokes were mediocre. Only O’ Level students would understand this song apparently. Oh HAHA! Some random Spanish people claimed that they weren’t from Zimbabwe, but “ndatoona kuti chigafa chinobata mangoma!”
You see, Winky D is very famous for making Zimbabwean Dancehall popular – an offshoot of the Carribean genre that I know very little about. Winky D is the face of Zim Dancehall, a genre for the ghetto youth to express their energies, frustrations and aspirations. It is a genre that is jumpy, crass, fast paced and often raw. Winky D is tha mainstay. He has been in the mainstream since 2008. I remember his music playing whilst jumping in-between sewage and on the way to buy jolly juice near the bottle store. Fast forward to 2021 where Winky D is very much alive, but singing…in English, and even more off brand writing ballads to…a white woman. The last time he sang a ballad where any Caucasian lady was involved was Gemma Griffiths – an artist who I want an autograph from. Please GG.
Not only that…but this is not dancehall. It is some kind of afrobeats fusion with a dancehall singing. Honestly it sounds like they sped up AKA’s Jika and asked a grade 7 to write some lyrics. I wont critically analyze the song too much…but it does sound bland. Lyrics do not need to mean a lot, but these lyrics mean very little, or rather they were lazily crafted. Let me be pedantic for the sake of it…I cant control myself, I hate seeing people enjoy themselves. Lets analyze the following lines
The three little words, running up in my nerves. If I say I love you babe, and you say I love you too, we can be happy again.
Winky D – “Happy Again”
Firstly…which words? ‘I love you’, ‘I love you babe’, I love you too’, ‘happy again?’ Maybe I’m weaponizing confusion, maybe im trash talking…but then again if Winky wants to box me then I’d like to make it known that I am not Slik Talk…I will refuse. Second…running up in my nerves is a weird metaphor…if that is the term. The little words are given human quality right and they…get him ready? My question is why are they running UP! Rather than running THROUGH! I mean…running UP…suggests that they are coming from down….ehem.
See, these lyrics seem to have been drawn up in a hurry. They make sense but they’re just…jumbled together by someone who needs to write a song but doesn’t have any emotion they want to elicit besides the commercial objective of ‘DANCE BOY! SHUCK!’ Zimbabwean artists…in particular dancehall artists are not typically like that…they are very intentional with lyricisms…offering a wide range of emotions and issues to the plate. Thirdly…we can be happy again? Well, ok. Why were you sad? What happened? I cant for my life think of why they need to be happy again. Happy again indicates that they are not currently happy, despite being happy in the past, therefore they need to revert to that previous state. Well besides the music video, which shows the twi woman clearly unhappy that she has to be a queen…and I for one do not know why she does want to be a queen. Is she a free spirit? Is the groom a ball sack of noodles? BE A QUEEN WOMAN! STOP BEING DRAMATIC!
See I started off this piece thinking that I don’t want to blast the song too much but here I am, going off in a tangent. But alas, if any recruiters are scanning this page confused, rest assured that I can learn writing tones, and am often punctual. Its just that the brand of this blog is a bit stream of consciousness, ¾ lucid, Paul Beatty seasoning of light heartedness sprinkled around VERY SERIOUS BUSINESS…Dambudzo Marechera type writing…nothing serious.
The ‘issue’ with the music video
The music video is where we get majority of the content. Let no Winky D stan tell you otherwise. If not for the music video, none of this furor would be furoaring. The music video has almost 1 million views on Youtube. It is a high quality production. It looks like a Disney movie. It’s perfectly optimized for social media. They made this song to trend. Its not the best of Winky but damn can you dance and watch this music video a couple of times.
The ‘problem’ is that Winky D’s storytelling has been disneyed up. In Happy Again there is a story of a noble princess, primed to become a queen one day. The princess is sportingly nudged with expectations from her mother on the role she is to play. But princess girl just aint feeling the vibes. Princess girl for some reason doesn’t want the life of nobility. Spoilt brat. People want to serve you all day just for the symbol of peace that your status gives – just tow in line! No, the princess is falling for the humble, lower and eherm black!, who is Winky D. Yes, major throwaway but the princess being serenaded by Winky D’s jester character is a twi oan.
Racial politics aside, it’s a tacky song and I think I’ve said that enough to create a craving for tic tacs (teheheh). But why put racial politics aside? Famous author and apparent ‘clout chaser’ Tsitsi Dangarembga thinks that racial politics can not be put aside. She thinks there is something problematic, fishy and down right off about the ‘recent’ affinity with white bodies by Winky D.
There is a theory that race relations are swept under the rug in Zimbabwe because of the demarcations between economic status. Due to an mouth watering head start in the generational wealth games – most white people are well to do. The theory states that they congregate in the same areas to eat, educate, do leisure stuff, braai, wear khaki shorts and do whatever it is that rich white people do in the aforementioned places where rich white…argh you get me. You’d be wrong to assume that racial relations are a small matter, and that we get along well enough, if you as a black person are not economically to do enough to be in the same spaces. In those secluded spaces, is where the racism stuff happens according to theory. It where the uncles can really say what they think. Its where biases rule, and privileges are a trophy on ones shoulders that can only be balanced with the eccentric strut of a Vincent Mcmann. Just cause you didn’t hear the tree fall does not mean a tree did not fall in the forest.
So what does this have to do with Happy Again. Well recently Winky D has had two songs with said white people. One was MuGarden with Gemma Griffiths. Quick word on Gemma, hey girl I think we would get on like a house on fire…any way.
Its not typical to have white artists in Zimbabwe, let alone white artists singing in Shona. Andy Brown was not white, please…vae shy. Although Gemma doesn’t speak the language well…she put in the work to achieve passable pronunciations and the novelty of her craft has not fallen off yet. Coupled with Winky, MuGarden was a hit…captivating Zimbabwean music. Although my die hard feminist cousin wasn’t too impressed by Gemma getting props because of her identity, and neither was I to be honest, I have to admit muGarden is a good song. Winky doesn’t stray too far away from what he does best, Gemma sounds okay, the beat is dancehally enough, the visuals correlated well with the song. Fast forward to Happy Again, you have Winky now going out of his comfort zone singing in English, ballads and afrobeat tunes…and most importantly twi irems. The song is a hit currently, with a little over 1million views on Youtube…but the musical aspects of the song…are not strong, argue thine mother if you disagree.
The novelty of Winky as quirky jester singing in English to the most Disney sounding ad is what has caught the publics eye. Tsitsi does have a point. There is an emerging trend where the common denominator is twi oans. Artists water down their craft, pander to popular yet limiting tropes, center the white girl around everything – and clicks are seemingly guaranteed.
Fame vs Clout
Is Tsitsi, 2020 Man Booker Nominee, first black woman author, international acclaimed, producer of Neria, filmmaker, global feminist icon – clout chasing? Don’t make me laugh. If you, as a Zimbabwean, have never heard of Tsitsi Dangarembga…well that’s fine…not everyone has that exposure…I just never want to hear you talk about Mental Colonization ever again. The point is that there is no clout to chase. The fact that you engaged with the views of Ms. Dangarembga is a factor of the FAME That she has.
You might have a point to highlight the irony, of a woman married to a white man calling out artistic expressions of love to the other race. If the problem in art is the sudden fixation with the other race, to the extent that you water downs local art – then why cant Tsitsi’s and her reality be now assessed against this understanding we are drawing up. Nervous Conditions is a racial topography of Rhodesia, which explicitly expresses the racial dynamics that were explicitly laid out in Rhodesia. But now that those dynamics have gone underground…we can not necessarily keep on viewing Tsitsi’s art, thoughts under that NC context. Disclaimer…I am writing this before I have read A Book of Not and This Mournable Body. Maybe there is an evolution of Tsitsi’s thinking that I am late to pick up on.
Wrapping it up
So what have we learnt. That Winky D’s Happy Again is not a particularly good song. It makes no attempt at lyrical relevance. Instead it looks to emulate the successful methods of pop Afrobeats, and only strives on the stardom. No seriously, I do not rate this piece. I hope AKA’s team seriously investigates the piece because it sounds similar to Jika.
Yes yes yes, there is an emerging element of inauthenticity when artists suddenly pander to white looks. Is this trend harmful considering that we are in 2022 where ‘our enemies’ are not necessarily classified by race? In an era where bigotry is shunned…does it make sense to vilify white people and all associated whitenesses wherever they pop up. Well no, maybe its not. Its now not that simple, despite Jake Paul knocking out Woodley. But in specific contexts perhaps it does make sense to be protective of the arts. That’s where Tsitsi comes in. Her entire career stemmed from a study of racially divided society and its effects of family, women, education and culture. Its literally her life purpose – to speak on the power dynamics she knows about.
But in exploring the modern African dynamics you have to consider also the sentiment of the new Africans. Their voices will live on longer into the future. I don’t necessarily agree with Tsitsi. Yes, there was something inherently problematic with white fixation in Rhodesian era. However, new generations are not longer intuitively compelled to import the perspectives of the old – continuously empathizing with and building a future based on past traumas. Sons turn out gay. Some speak English far too often. Some of them become chefs and make careers and families doing ‘women stuff’. Other daughters become engineers lawyers and shit, instead of staying indoors and making Mr Man happy with food and foot rubs. Men drink Savannah, Women drink. In the words of Erykah Badu – ‘Times achanging, don’t you waste your time young man’.
No, I do not mean forget the history and live off vibes…but if Winky D fans see nothing wrong with their gaffa loving a twi hun…then that’s that. That is the new Africa. Love is love is love is love. But kindly turn that shit off!
Hey guys thank you for being an audience to my very informal stream of consciousness. I started this project riding a high of mind numbing proportions. I was tired of being defined by decade long issues and Ngugiest philosophies. I thought we could reconstruct an identity. An African Identity. I am not the owner or the ultimate authority of it…but I hoped my thinking and interactions would be a welcome new voice in the mix. An authentic voice. I never thought many people would read…let alone…10…so when the news came through that New African Identity was nominated for The Best New Voice category in the Afrobloggers Awards 2021…well was I shocked. Thank you guys for the nomination, and I don’t even care that I didn’t win, cause its not about how fast I get there, its not about whats waiting on the other siiiiiiideeeeeeee yeeaaaaah, IT’S THE CLIIIIIIIIIIIIIMB!
New African Identity 