Gospel rapper, B.o.u.q.u.i (Bukola Falayan) has lamented the derogatory way women depict themselves in hip-hop videos. In a no-holds-barred interview with TS Weekend, the gospel singer who just returned to Nigeria after a successful tour that took her to a dozen capitals across the globe described the development as sad and unfortunate. “I have a problem with the way women portray themselves in hip hop videos.
It’s crazy and degrading,” the queen of gospel rap said, expressing her displeasure, “they even call themselves dirty names. Back in the day if any one called you such names you’d take them out! But today those dirty names have been glamourised and if you don’t have certain things in your video, TV stations won’t play your music. “Interestingly, on one-on-one basis, these ladies have beautiful spirits.
However, they want to make money. I don’t blame them because that comes down to strength of character and purpose. I have no problem with commercial music but the message should be objective and impact the lives of listeners especially youths.” Bouqui says artistes should be more objective in their lyrics. According to her, it is unfortunate to know that an artiste is gifted in music but all the artiste sings about is owo (money), Moet, Hennessey and other worldly things.
Hear her: “In just five minutes you have the opportunity of changing the world with what you sing or rap about but all you sing about is women, drugs and violence; it’s not just right. It’s obvious that secular music is promoting wrong values.”
“It’s not only in Nigeria but all over the world and it is sad,” Bouqui says shaking her head and gesticulating, “those days we had the likes of Michael Jackson and Dolly Parton to mention a few artistes singing secular music yet impacting lives and selling millions of CDs. But today, unless you sing about loose girls, drugs, violence, living a carefree life and anger, you’re not considered commercial. “I’m a Christian so I will speak from the Christian perspective. Galatians 5:19 says: ‘These people shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven’. They promote drunkenness and idolatry practices and all that yet these are what we celebrate.
“But you can do secular music and still be objective. Secular is from the Greek word ‘seculorium’ which means, ‘the absence of God.’ If you feel God does not exist, it’s your problem. But you can still be inspirational and motivational in your music. Great musicians like Michael Jackson never sang about sex and they sold millions of CDs.” However, Bouqui is quick to add that there is nothing wrong talking about sex, women, booze and drugs but the question is, “from which angle are you taking it? You need to be careful. There are better things to say than ‘I met her at the bar and I have to take her home.’”
Years after she established herself as a successful gospel rapper, why is it that more young women are not taking after her? Her response: “As a guy, you need to put in five per cent to be successful while for a woman it is different; she has to put in 80 per cent. And a lot of girls are not ready to do that especially when they are confronted with the option of sleeping with a boss they think will sustain them.
“But it’s too late when they suddenly realise that will not sustain them and they fall by the way side. It’s not only about gospel music; it happens in every sphere of our lives. Girls have to work twice as hard to get noticed so it’s not about being the only visible female gospel rapper. “They can do it but it takes a lot of grace. It takes a lot of unction to function and you need to know God, you really need to know God for who he is, not because of what you can get from him.
When you know God, your priorities are set right, when you know him your life is set straight and it drives your character and so if I have a boss who’s trying to hit on me, I already know it’s a no-no. And it’s not because the guy is not cute but because I can’t do it.”
Has she ever been confronted with a situation where a music producer or a label owner wanted to take her to bed before producing her music? “The truth is that I have. I am a woman and I am not bad looking so I have had a few experiences but it does not matter because that’s not what drives me. A good relationship is when I like you for who you are and not what I can get from you; that’s extortion and exploitation.”
The Love Hope War Tour
Bouqui also talked about her concert tagged: “The Love Hope War Tour” featuring American gospel artiste, Da Truth, who is a two-time Grammy award nominee, four times Stellar award winner and two times Dove award nominee among a host of other African acts including Abel Chungu Musuka from Zambia, Prince Cjay from South Africa and Illceey from Zimbabwe. Commenting on the concert Bouqui says: “The concert will also parade the very best of Nigeria gospel stars including Panam Percy Paul, Sammie Okposo, Nikki Laoye, Jahdel, Eben, Tim Godfrey and The Xtreme Crew.
The Love Hope War Tour was put together to promote Da Truth’s new album entitled, Love, Hope and War. It has already begun in many cities across the United States of America. We were at UNILAG earlier in the week and we will hit Abuja before moving to Zimbabwe and South Africa later in the month.” However, the rapper also disclosed that the concert in Lagos and Abuja would serve a double function, as it would also preview her forthcoming double album entitled, Marks of A General and Eve of Independence. “I’m really excited about this,” says Bouqui as she opens up on the project. “My dream is to be the first African woman to release a double album. We have 14 songs in both albums and I also featured Da Truth and a couple of other artistes including the foreign artistes on this tour. It’s a double album because I want to break grounds.
Apart from being the only visible gospel female rapper, I also want to be the first female to drop a double album in Africa. “Like I said, we’ve have this structure for a while now. It’s called The Redefinition Campus Storm. We go round campuses in Nigeria so it’s a double for us as we would be previewing my album and it will also serve as a platform for Da Truth’s album promotional tour so we merged everything together.”
According to the musician, Redefinition Campus Storm is a movement close to her heart. She says it is unfortunate that the media is concentrating on only a kind of music to the detriment of other genres. “So, we use the Bible to create disciples and whether we are celebrated or not, there is a huge following, there are people that have been saved. You need to watch our shows and see the awesome crowd.”
Putting a show of that magnitude together surely costs a wad. How has she been coping with funding? “It’s by His grace,” Bouqui confesses, “I have people that believe in my passion, people like Sam Adeyemi and Festus Ighodalo to mention a few. I have patrons that believe in me; they have a passion for the youth but can’t go out there and say ‘yo yo’ because that’s not their calling so what they do is use someone that does that and they’ve been very encouraging. “These men of God are filled with a strong desire to mould the next generation.
Whether we like it or not, the next generation are the leaders of tomorrow. Nigeria is one of the few places where you have 70-year-old leaders clinging unto power and that’s not right. If the glory of the youth is in their strength, they should be strong people who should lead so we need to motivate them. “ Bouqui says what gave her the inspiration for Redefinition Campus Storm was her experience with her label after she released her self-titled debut album.
She adds that at the time her record label was secular and kind of pushed her in the direction of secular music but she didn’t find fulfillment hence she had to retrace her steps. “A lot of people told me then that ‘Bouqui, you can rap more than this and you can rap more than that artiste; why don’t you just go secular? And then I had this conflict in my spirit and everything just went crazy! I was trying to be who I wasn’t created to be.
But then I am happy that it happened to me because it gave me the opportunity to broaden my horizons because I was on TV, I was on MTN Campus Storm and many other platforms and I saw people doing hero worship, and I realised that these kids don’t know what they wanted so I said to myself, ‘one day, I would do Redefinition Campus Storm and reach out to all these youngsters.’
Music affects your sub-conscious without you knowing it. What we are trying to do is get these kids that listen to music and tell them that they really need to check what they listen to. “You’re a product of what you listen to. A lot of people don’t know that but you’re a sum total of what you listen to. You’re a projection of your thoughts, your words and your actions. A lot of people feel they can separate what they listen to from who they truly are but the answer is no. So, I said I was going to do Redefinition Campus Storm when I eventually get the ability to. And God has given me grace, people are buying into it.”
However, the artiste admits that because she does gospel music, corporate bodies don’t want to touch Redefinition Campus Storm with a 10-foot pole. “Corporate sponsors are saying ‘take Jesus out of it; there’s too much Jesus.’ But I am saying why should I take the reason why we are doing this out of the picture? You need to see the crowd at our shows; it’s massive and the essence for us is the souls that we save. At the end, we make an altar call and hundreds of kids respond because it dawns on them that they are not living right; they realise that they can live better lives and that’s our greatest joy.”
Bouqui is successful, attractive and upwardly mobile. In a career spanning seven years she has established herself as a successful female rapper. When is she tying the knot? She smiles as she responds, stating that when it is time, the world will know. “The Bible says for everything there is a time and a season,” she says, laughing.
Is there a guy in her heart right now? Bouqui laughs again as she responds: “Let me keep that to myself.” Once upon a professor’s daughter Born to a family of six kids, Bouqui is second to the last child. Recounting her early years, she speaks glowingly about her late dad who wanted her to be a medical doctor.
“My parents did not spoil us one bit. My father was a professor who made you work twice as hard for whatever you wanted. He wanted me to study medicine; his dream for me was that I should be a medical doctor,” she said going down memory lane, “but then he passed on and today I am a rapper. “I wish he was alive today to see that even though I studied Administration in the university, I turned out well.
And even though I didn’t become a medical doctor, I am healing souls with my music; for me, it’s also a kind of therapy; a kind of healing which is what doctors do so in some special way, I still see myself as a doctor.” Greatest challenge “I would say it’s the challenge of a lot of people not taking you serious because they feel that as a woman, your emotions are fleeting, your values ephemeral and you can change your minds at any time. That has been a great challenge.”
Happiest moment “When I am on tour performing to a group of people who don’t even understand Yoruba and they are loving every moment of it. Imagine performing before a white dominated crowd and getting such amazing responses! I know it is because I sing about something that’s bigger than me, a power that’s higher than me.”
Advice Having seen it all and done it all in a career spanning over seven years, Bouqui has an advice for young girls who want to take to gospel rap as a career. “I would encourage them to know God and seek God more because you cannot sing about a God you don’t know. You have to know Him, then He will give you the message that people need to hear.”
Me? i go rush the medicine oh. If i hear......... lol
Culled from THE SUN
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