One of Africa’s biggest artists walks into the room wearing a shiny black suit, white shirt, bright red socks and, of course, dark-shades. His entourage scurries around to make sure he is comfortable. He steps forward, extends his hand and uses the opening line to all his songs, “I am D’banj”.
It’s an introduction that makes women, from Nigeria to Britain, swoon. But life hasn’t always been easy for the 33-year-old musician. He has come a long way from his days in Zaria, in northern Nigeria, where he found his passion for music in unfortunate circumstances.
“When I was 13, my brother died in a plane crash. At the time, I didn’t fully understand what was happening. Before we left for school, I went into his room and found the harmonica among his belongings and took it with me.”
D’banj spent most of his time playing along to Bob Marley and Céline Dion. The harmonica kept the memory of his brother alive.
At university, he began writing his own songs and it wasn’t long before he produced his first hit single The Koko. The song, a collaboration with producer Don Jazzy, gave them both a taste of success.
“We were like Batman and Robin, it was a great synergy. He knew my style, he knew how powerful my voice was, he knew how much energy I had and how I liked to perform. He studied me well.”
The two have since produced many hits which won D’banj an array of awards including: Best African Act at the MTV Europe Music Awards in 2007, Artist of the Year at the MTV Africa Music Awards in 2009 and Best International Act: Africa at the BET Awards in 2011.
The pair also created the record label, Mo’Hits Records, which launched the careers of Wande Coal, Dr SID, D’Prince and K-Switch. In 2012, Don Jazzy and D’banj split, sending shock waves through the music industry.
“We just grew apart. Change is the only constant thing and hopefully we changed for the better… Doing music with one producer for eight years, then coming out again, makes you feel brand new. You find skills you didn’t know you had and you find flaws about yourself that you thought you knew…”
It didn’t take long before D’banj moved onto a more lucrative deal under Kanye West’s record label, Good Music. Their partnership began as a case of mistaken identity.
“On my way out of Dubai I stopped at the first class lounge with my entourage. A few airhostesses ran up to me screaming ‘Mr Kanye West’. So I looked at myself, then I looked at them and said ‘I am D’banj. But if I look like Kanye West it means he must be around’”.
They tracked down the American star in the building. West liked D’banj’s fresh Afro-pop sound and they later met in Los Angeles, where D’banj was introduced to some of the industries big names such as Big Sean, Pusha T, Hit-Boy and LA Reid.
Contracts were signed, deals made and in the days that followed D’banj recorded Oliver Twist, the song brought him even greater international success.
“The fans overseas are different. They absorb the music differently and they really want to get to know you as a person, they want to know what you are about. Here, our people are more excited about the music.”
D’banj says getting to the top is the easy part; it’s staying there that’s difficult. Among his biggest competition is fellow Nigerian musicians P-Square.
“If we were in a dance battle they would beat me, I would have to get some help from Chris Brown. But I think overall you would definitely be entertained…”
The African hit maker looks forward to a successful year and the release of his documentary celebrating his 10 years in the music industry. D’banj seemed very confident that he would top the FORBES list of Africa’s 50 Richest, until he realized Aliko Dangote was number one.
“Dangote? Ahhh no, no, no that’s the father… this interview is over. She asks me if my turnover is higher than Dangote… very soon. Maybe in a couple of years,” he jokes while looking at his entourage seated at the back of the room.
I guess we’ll just wait and see.

I Am D’banj  And I Am Going To Be Rich

Angry families and politicians are stepping up a nearly 30-year fight to bring back the head of a grandmother executed 117 years ago for standing up against colonialism. It is believed her head lies in one of Britain’s famous museums.
In 1898, Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana, or Mbuya Nehanda as she was known, was a powerful spirit medium, a person who speaks to the gods, and heroine of the First Chimurenga, the revolt against the British South Africa Company in Matabeleland. She led the uprising by Zimbabweans against colonizers and was hanged and decapitated. It’s believed her head was shipped more than 12,000 kilometers to England.
“We cannot have other people keep the remains of our ancestors in a cardboard box elsewhere,” says Godfrey Mahachi, Director of the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe.
Nehanda was not the only one. Her skull could be at the National History Museum in South Kensington, London, with the remains of the other executed leaders, Sekuru Kaguvi, Chingaira Makoni, Chinengundu Mashayamombe, Mapondera, Mashonganyika and Chitekedza Chiwashira.
“There are implications to do with how we treat the deceased; these implications have a bearing on the past, present and future,” says Mahachi.
Sixty-three-year-old Donald Kamba is a direct descendant of Chief Chingaira and an estate agent from Rusape, in eastern Zimbabwe. He says this is where the headless body of his ancestor is buried.
&#8220;Ever since Chingaira&#8217;s head disappeared, every subsequent Makoni chief, irrespective of their house, went blind,” says Kamba.
“The British have been called upon on a number of occasions over the last three decades or more for the return of the remains of Chingaira in particular. The party went to Britain in 1988 and they were advised that there were no such remains of Chingaira and that they were to try South Africa,” says Kamba.
Zimbabwe’s Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Jonathan Moyo, stirred emotions on Twitter.
“How can we focus on the economy when the skulls of Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi are displayed in a British museum? These barbarians have been displaying the skulls of our First Chimurenga heroes and heroines in their libraries!” says Moyo.
On Heroes Day in August, President Robert Mugabe claimed the British were performing “racist moral decadence, sadism and human insensitivity” in keeping the skulls as trophies.
“The formalities are being handled by the foreign affairs ministry in collaboration with the British government. It has always been our wish to have those remains back home but we have to proceed in this process with much caution,” says Mahachi.
“Proper identification and research needs to be conducted so as to ensure that whatever we bring back to Zimbabwe is ours.”
The British museum denies having displayed any of the remains. It says it is not clear if any of the remains are from the First Chimurenga and implied that repatriation could be a long process.
The descendants of Nehanda and her comrades hope it won’t take another 117 years.

Over A Century Later, Mbuya Nehanda Could Return Home

When Kenya decided to go to war against the Somali offshoot of al-Qaeda terrorist group, al-Shabaab, it looked like a straightforward affair: go in with powerful hardware, smoke out these little irritants all the way to their port base of Kismayo and get back by Christmas. That was October. A month later, the Economist lamented that the Kenyans had spent more time tweeting than fighting.
Take for instance Afmadow, which fell to the joint force of the African Union and the Kenya Defence Forces in late May. This southern Somali town—al-Shabaab’s stronghold—should have been captured just days into the offensive: “Our troops are heading to Afmadow now, and we expect to capture it either today or tomorrow,” the head of a Somali militia collaborating with the Kenyan army told Britain’s Guardian on October, 18.
Just three days before al-Shabaab rebels abandoned Afmadow, allowing the African Union team a walkover, another stinging reminder of the cost of war hit Kenya. Police blamed the Islamist militant group for a blast in downtown Nairobi that killed at least one and left 35 injured. International news agencies reported on the blast with typical breathlessness and urgency. Both Mount Kenya University, the building next to the blast site, and Moi Avenue, where it happened, were trending worldwide on Twitter within minutes. For the outside world, more evidence that Kenya was unsafe, had just presented itself.
Britian’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the US Department of State both keep helpful guides on travelling around the world with updated travel warnings. “The US Department of State warns US citizens of the risks of travel to Kenya. US citizens in Kenya, and those considering travel to Kenya, should evaluate their personal security situation in light of continuing and recently heightened threats from terrorism…” stated the official website.
Kenya’s former colonial master, Britain, also advises “…against all but essential travel to within 60km of the Somali border (including Kiwayu and coastal areas north of Pate Island), to Garissa district…” on the FCO website. All the reconstruction work done by hard working Kenyan entrepreneurs and the government are rubbished within a single mouse click.
The country had little choice but to take al-Shabaab head on. In the months leading up to October, the militant group was responsible for a sequence of kidnappings and attacks in coastal areas of the country. When two Spanish aid workers were abducted, it was time for decisive action.
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Screwed if you do, screwed if you don’t
In 2011, Kenya earned about Ksh98 billion ($1.1 billion) from one of its largest foreign exchange sources—tourism. The notable take-away from this was that the increase from Ksh74 billion ($863.5 million) in 2010, was mainly because of improved arrivals from high spending Emiratis, Chinese and Indians. The traditional source markets of Europe and America were slowing down as the constant fear mongering by their governments took effect. Not that bureaucrats in Washington, London, Paris or Zurich are to blame, they are merely doing their job. The same way the Kenyan government is doing its best to secure homeland security.
Al-Shabaab has threatened to carry out more retaliatory attacks in Kenya’s highly populated urban centers within the next six months. The American ‘private contractor working for intelligence agencies’ warned, in a report in early June, that a huge attack against Kenya was imminent because of the increased Kenyan activity in Somalia.
What Kenya has on its hands is a perfect storm. Al-Shabaab continues to cause fear at home with their spontaneous attacks, the international community is afraid to visit or invest in the country because of the security concerns and everybody is on edge. If it were to pull out of Somalia before conquering the militant group’s Kismayo headquarters, there is no telling what harm they could do. If it continues advancing to the port town, just 115 kilometers from Kismayo, its people remain targets for retaliatory attacks. Either way, tourism suffers, investor confidence dampens and the economy slows. Just how costly is a march to Somalia?

Tag: Britain

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

I Am D’banj And I Am Going To Be Rich

Over A Century Later, Mbuya Nehanda Could Return Home

Kenya’s Long, Painful March To Somalia