46. Who Will Tell D'Banj?

On D'Banj's The Entertainer: D'Sequel

In 2008, I bought my copy of The Entertainer CD from a makeshift music store, sitting on a wheelbarrow at Lagere, Ile-Ife. Later that evening, at a classmate's party, the D.J.'s playlist relied heavily on music from D'banj's third album. 'Fall in Love' was a hit the instant it fell on our ears.

Fast-forward to 2024. I find myself in West London, listening to the sequel of The Entertainer. Memories of my classmate's birthday party return. The music, the dance, the laughter, the limber bodies bent unusually—all a testament to wild youth and the ‘good old music’. Today, my classmate is a paediatrician in the midlands home of Peaky Blinders, Birmingham.

As expected, The Entertainer album is tagged as D'Sequel. D'Banj's musical career has been a masterclass in both branding and hype. He was the hypeman before Afrobeats got hypemen toasting beside the D.J. Think about those early Afrobeats days when D'Banj was Don Jazzy's mouthpiece. It was put on; that show brought mystique to their brand, the complementary opposites, the good and bad cop. These days, Don Jazzy garbs. He is a massive influencer on social media. The promotional video that announced this project featured Don Jazzy as the sniper who saves D'Banj.

It is a comical reunion without the sense of a happy ending. Someone is rifle-poised, and the other is grunt-grappling. The tracklist credit says it all. Don Jazzy is not on the production console. We have his replacement, an entourage of high-hitting producers in their prime, hoisting D'Banj against his inevitable decline. We have Don Jazzy with a coy smile and a gun. What is missing is a smouldering cigar, a final shot, and his last laugh.

What kind of desperation makes an artist refurbish their legacy? The Entertainer is one of Afrobeats’ classic albums in the annals of history. D'Banj's showman chops and Don Jazzy's musical vision crystalised effortlessly. D'Banj's outsized phallocentric persona retrofitted easily into older archetypes of highlife musicians, praise singers, and minstrels with avarice in their eyes. Around the time, Don Jazzy also produced Wande Coal's Mushin to Mo'Hits. His production was at the height of his powers.

These folks were on top of the world then—in Africa, at least—and there was an opportunity to do more. They splintered. D'Banj chased after his fortune to America, armed only with Kanye's G.O.O.D. co-sign (in retrospect, it was not so good). The risk did not pay off. The reason is firmly evident in post-Don-Jazzy D'Banj releases, and D'Sequel is no exception.

D'Banj's music relies heavily on his charismatic delivery of signature grunts, catchphrases, buzzwords, and myth-making, particularly of libidinal hypermasculinity. It does not help that he was accused of rape. The verdict may be unclear, but there is much evidence that he used his power and influence to launder his image. It is in poor taste that his music continues to mark this hypersexual murk.

Koko this, Koko that. E sir, we have retired Koko. It is a distant neologism that screams nostalgia. And, as we know, nostalgia hardly travels well. There is turbulence, flashbacks and sometimes tears. There are those that this crooning music accentuated with his signature grunts would trigger. Who stands with them?

The Yoruba say that the past may be revisited if progress is impeded. It would have been better if D'Banj revisited the past with Don Jazzy as a producer. Who will tell D'Banj that casting Don Jazzy as an actor for the sequel to his most significant accomplishment is a mockery of his legacy?