The marriage act in Nigeria says all a wedding needs in order to be considered valid is an officiating minister and two witnesses. However, when you’re a high profile individual, but you want to keep your ceremony low key, only two witnesses could easily become a crowd.
Former Mo Hits superstar D’Banj and Mo Hits 2.0 singer Di’ja found this out the hard way in their respective low-profile weddings. Di’ja finally went public with details of her 2015 nuptials and the birth of her baby boy last week but we’ll probably have to wait till 2031 before D’Banj confirms media reports of his.
As you’re seeing me now, I’m now Mr and Mrs. Smith, because I’m now already married but I don’t want you to know I’m already married.
And I’m going to wait like that.. like R. Kelly waited 15 years, R. Kelly wait 15 years before una know say him don marry.
R Kelly married an (underage) Aaliyah in the mid-90’s, social media and citizen journalism of the tabloid variety weren’t born by then. A combination of those two helped uncover two of the best-kept secrets in Nigerian music in the last few months – well, almost.
Aaliyah and R Kelly (Vibe)
I have always wondered what the archetypal “Nigerian dream” is comprised of. Being that Nigerians are a heterogeneous bunch with a non-existent middle class, we do not have a uniform Nigerian dream that works as well if you live in upscale Rayfield, Jos as it does if you live in the more modest parts of Mushin, Lagos. But because our common thread is often a religion of some sort, and because practically every one of our religions promote marriage, our picture of success is often incomplete without a family – a husband, a wife (or 4) and some children.
Successful artistes aren’t exempted from this cultural standard, regardless of their fame, travel demands or access to multiple partners. If they need a reminder, there’s always a nosy reporter who doesn’t feel like an interview is complete unless they’ve asked an artiste about the “special someone” in their life and you can only give the generic – I’m in love with my music – for so long.
Away from high-profile individuals, whether it is after university or after your first job, the truth is that society expects everyone of us to get married at some point, even though the probability of all of us staying married longer than 3 years keeps shrinking annually. I can write an epistle on this topic alone but let me not digress.
Now to D’Banj, according to the man himself –
Banga Lee is already married. Because what happened is I thought to myself, am I going to do a public marriage cos everybody’s gonna see me married and when everybody sees me married, they’re gonna say – ah, Banga Lee has married!
If you want to be sinister, you could say the man who built an entire empire off selling sex appeal and portraying an image of accessibility to women, now wants to be unavailable but – in a have your cake and eat it too manner – still wants the illusion of the Koko Master to remain in tact. Time will tell if that last part is true and whether or not there’ll be a transition away from the brand, but ultimately not even time can tell why D’Banj wanted a low key wedding, only the man himself can do that.
Now Di’ja, this one is a bit heartbreaking. In a classic case of who’s fooling who, the singer shielded the details of her relationship – from courtship to her engagement to the birth of her son – from the public but unbeknownst to her, those details were already available to a number of media houses in real time. However, either due to a lack of evidence or out of respect for her and/or her employers, some organizations chose not to publish the details of Di’ja’s private life, until they became undeniable.
Di’ja on Hip TV (November, 2015)
I’m a single lady and i never plural oh /
If you need a better loving /
Then you come and cool her oh /
Di’ja (Janta Manta), October 2015
D’banj and Di’ja present an interesting case study in the never-ending balancing act between what to keep private and what to share with the public in the life of a modern day celebrity, a balance that social media continually tips in favor of the latter. In a perfect world, everybody should have the right to disclose as much or as little about their personal life, as early or as late as they choose, but in the case of successful artistes is it really theirs to choose?
If the public has invested so much in D’Banj’s record sales and Di’ja’s concert tickets, will they be wrong in looking for a return on investment from Dapo and Hadiza’s personal lives? Globally, the public’s interest in the private lives of celebrities is at historical peaks, as indicated by this study. And locally the celebrity worship syndrome (CWS) is growing everyday, encouraged by the 2,000 aspiring celebrity bloggers that register a new domain every hour.
The coverage is nauseating and as much as I personally want there to be a separation between art, artiste and person, and Chiagoziem made a case in defense of J’odie recently, celebrities must understand that there are occupational hazards in every job. Doctors are arguably the most employable professionals in Nigeria, but they put their life on the line nearly everyday when treating patients with contagious diseases. Salespeople are often the best paid people in an organization when sales are coming in but when things go belly up, they are often the first to be let go.
So also an artiste must know that the trade-off for success could be the non-separation of their personal life and their professional life. A doctor can take off her white coat and leave the hospital and no one will know she saves lives for a living, a salesperson can remove his company’s lapel pin and blend in with the rest of us but an artiste simply cannot physically separate themselves from their work tool. You are your work tool, your voice, your body, your face and everyday you live, you are perpetually at work. Sadly, even on your wedding day.
Now, there are creative ways to mask your face and protect your private affairs but as we have seen with Di’ja and D’Banj, there are even more creative ways, for those curious enough, to unmask it and share the details with members of the public that might find it entertaining.