by Umar Hassan

 

Two things to take out of MI’s You Rappers Should Fix Up Your Life:

1. SA rappers are slaying everyone out there and
2. MI himself needs to fix up his life too.

But every avid hip-hop listener already knows both these facts, it’s no news. What however is most noteworthy is that on a day MI Abaga decides to go Kingin on wax, the biggest question he raises is ‘U don baff’? Nasty C, Casper Nyovest and Aka all appeared on Sway and even went as far as dropping dope freestyles to do SA proud. Where was our ‘King’?

Nasty C on Sway's in the morning. ????? #031 pic.twitter.com/5xWqZItEVH

— 2 Minutes BARS (@2minsBars) October 12, 2017

The message on YRSFUYL is as disgustingly self-aggrandizing as its hypocritical. MI may be the best Nigerian rapper ever but he doesn’t sound half as good as he used to and he has been so for about a decade.

Safe to say he knew he was going to get gone at from all quarters while making this joint and that should have been enough motivation to spit his best bars but I can point to half a hundred underground MCs who would have dropped tighter lines than he did. It’s a call to order in a baby’s voice. It’s going to infuriate more than intimidate.

He goes at rappers for ‘singing to get popular’ in what may just be a subtle Ycee diss but he forgets SA rappers do too. And even a bird from his flock, Ice Prince. MI switched up major with the pidgin flows in a bid to conquer the market at a time he really needed to so why he is he hating on others for jumping on trends? So is he going to hate Drake too?

SA rappers ain’t killing us ’cause we singing, no. They are ’cause no matter how drastic the switch up, they stay true to the vital aspects of the art in a way Nigerian artistes don’t. They make hip hop songs laced with tight lyrics and don’t have to worry about dance or a sing-along chorus, unlike the average Nigerian rapper.

Some may say MI has always been the type to drop a project and vanish till its time to push a new one but the fact is, he’ll be judged on existing ones. The Chairman album didn’t generate much buzz and his last known effort, the final instalment of the Illegal Music post-album Mixtape series was so wack you probably don’t remember it.

MI is speaking to everyone including himself “You rappers should fix up your life”.

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Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Umar Sa’ad Hassan writes from Kano. He tweets @alaye26