WIZKID, BEYONCE, FAKE NEWS AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN

Recently I was scrolling through my timeline on twitter and came across a track list of a Beyonce project which was way too good to be true, containing features that are basically a music lover’s wet dream. The track list included her hubby the legend Jay Z, rap queen Nicki Minaj and surprisingly Rihanna (a collaboration fans have been praying for years but alas might never become a reality.

But the particular feature that peaked my interest was at the bottom of the track list, cause written in bold italics was none other than arguably the biggest afrobeats artiste in the world presently, Wizkid.  I was overjoyed at this and even had to examine it closely to be sure I wasn’t seeing things, but my joy was cut short when on checking the previous tweets of the initial poster, this alleged Beyonce project was nothing more than a fan-made concept album, a well designed one if I may add.

So you can imagine my surprise when some Nigerian blogs started broadcasting this story as facts while some gullible Nigerians ate it up like it was freshly made Nigerian jollof rice. Now fake news is not a new phenomenon and is not just restricted to Nigeria or Africa but is a global epidemic, case in point being its crucial role during the late United States of America Presidential Election and the debates it has sprung since then.

While it is easy to blame the lazy consumers of such information for not questioning the information they receive and doing further research, a huge chunk of the blame fall on the publications, blogs who disseminate these news and stories, whom due to prioritizing site traffic, views and financial gains over the truth and honest journalism spread in some cases inciteful fake and unverified stories.

Given the current socio-economic climate of the country, these actions are understandable but the potential dangers of these practices are enormous and there is a great need for blogs and new agencies to be responsible in their reporting. It is important to note that this matter is a rather delicate matter if government interference is to play a role in solving this issue, due to the debate of censorship over freedom of speech and expression, a debate which I shall explore in the future.

In all this, perhaps the one positive from these incident is the giant strides the afrobeats to the world movement in making, for a non-African to the best of my knowledge to consider ”Daddy Yo” to be worthy of a feature with Queen B, on her “dream Beyonce concept album” shows the enormous growth of the hitherto very niche genre.

Be that as it may, something proactive needs to be done to solve this fake news menace in the blogging and mass media sphere, because today it is “Yonce Riddim” tomorrow it might just lead to the end of the world as we know it.

The Afrobeats Nerd