Illbliss has always been opinionated, his group Da Thorobreds saw hip-hop as a vehicle to speak on social issues first, other things came later.

The mid-2000s had a number of crews like Da Breds but few that did it with the same skill, depth and frankness as the hip-hop collective from the East.

Illbliss carried this on into his solo career, especially at the early parts. His music challenged everything from government injustices to negative cultural trends even to how bars should be counted.

But somehow in his brashness, Illy was never really the type to court controversy. Yes, he did call Denrele’s clothes weird. Yes, he did threaten to flush skinny jeans down a toilet, along with almost an entire generation that embraced it.

Spray your hair, skinny jeans, very little manners /
We go chop you die like piranhas /
Just in case nobody warned, I’ll flush you /
Down with the rest of my poo, don’t be a waste /
Juveniles slow the eff down, kill the haste /

But when it was easy to join his Igbo colleagues to lambaste the Oba of Lagos over his insensitive pre-election statements in 2015, the portly MC masterfully held his tongue.

Inadvisably, when he found out Empire’s Jussie Smollet and Lee Daniels were actually a couple, he couldn’t hold it any longer.

 

I’m utterly disgusted at how society keeps embracing homosexuality till it’s become almost normal…

The premise of his argument is that sexual orientation is a social construct and that it’s a person’s choice whether or not to affiliate. The age-old nature vs. nurture debate that has an equal number of proponents and opponents on both sides. Yet we on this side of the moral and geographic divide stubbornly refuse to see what could possible be confusing about a person’s sexuality. Homosexuality is trendy, homosexuality is evil, homosexuality is a sin.

As a God-fearing rapper, oh the oxymoron, Illy bases his argument around the Bible. But the Bible also says that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). All sin, not some sin. There isn’t a separate hell for white liars and a separate one for gay people. Singling out homosexuality for special rebuke is convenient because our most common sexual orientation and broader cultural beliefs don’t align with gay people’s. Illbliss raises a valid point in that it is embracing sin that is the problem, but what we need to do more is shift the conversation towards the constant repetition of sin and the acceptance of a sinful lifestyle and not the sin itself.

This is wrong according to Gods Laws and I follow Gods laws and not man’s .

We all cherry pick our sins. After cherry picking, we use what’s left in the basket to judge others, like we are part of Heaven’s legal department or something. Galatians 6:7 says “do not be deceived, God cannot be mocked.” Choosing what we feel might or might not mock God is like how years ago in the US, possessing 1 gram of crack could give you the same sentence as possessing 100 grams of cocaine, when the only difference between the two is water and baking soda. Cherry picking crime and judgment. Judging another person by preempting God’s reaction towards them is actually man’s law and not His.

I don’t give a flying 747 F if it affects my fan base..

But ultimately Illbliss is just like the overwhelming majority of Nigerians. According to the 2007 Pew Global Attitudes Project, 97% of Nigerian residents believed that homosexuality is a way of life that society should not accept. This percentage decreased to 87% last year. Much better, but at a ratio of 1 to 10, Illbliss is smart enough to play a dangerous game but one with very low stakes on his rap career.

What cannot be argued however is the propagation of “gay culture” in the media and it’s not even subtle anymore. But in pointing an accusatory finger at “Empire” and other international shows, we could miss some even more salient examples closer to home. The Initiative for Equal Rights (TIERs) is a Lagos-based NGO that has put its weight and finances behind media projects promoting the sexual health and rights of LGBT persons in Nigeria, one of such projects is the upcoming movie “Hell Or High Water” starring Enyinna Nwigwe and singer Ashionye.

Soon enough gay people will no longer be hiding in the closet, it is those that have strong views about them that would have to hide.

But if anybody in Nigeria can change this, Illbliss looks at him dead in the face every time he looks in the mirror.

Music videos have a very interesting effect on people’s sexual behaviour, a 2003 study showed that a greater exposure to rap music videos among black females in America was associated with them being two times more likely to have had multiple sexual partners. So as a rapper, Illbliss has an important role to play but there’s even more.

A more recent study by the University of Port Harcourt on a public secondary school in Rivers state found that watching sexual acts on the television could hasten the sexual initiation process in adolescents and fundamentally frame their understanding of it. Music videos make a huge chunk of what we do on the television and on the internet and with as little as N1,050 a month, GoTV offers viewers access to 2 out of 4 of Nigeria’s premier music stations. That’s direct access to Nigeria’s number 1 video director Clarence Peter’s catalog, whose videos feature a minimum of 5 times every hour and that’s an extremely conservative estimate.

Working with Clarence is a fantastic experience. We share the same mindset about so many things

As a partner in Capital Hill Pictures, Illbliss has the opportunity to affect the way gay culture is propagated in Nigeria. We’ve already failed in the hyper-sexualization of our youth but he cannot claim that he doesn’t have the tool to stop their potential homo-sexualization, as he sees it.

Illbliss’ influence on the creative process of making music videos might be limited but at a corporate level, Illy and company must see the influence they yield on Nigeria’s youth and make a choice. Do I stand for what I fundamentally believe in when shooting these music videos or do I continue to allow the direction of a sexually-liberated millennial generation dictate my decision-making?

If they continue to choose the latter, Illbliss should realize that the only person he has to blame if things go pear-shaped is himself.