Nigerian hip-hop is having a sleepy 2017, perhaps it’s indicative of how quiet the local scene has been that the war of words between veteran MC’s Terry tha Rapman and Ikechukwu has been the most exciting moment in the culture this year, by far.
Ikechukwu said some extremely disrespectful things about Terry in an interview on the Loose Talk podcast – including discrediting his legacy in the rap game by repeatedly calling Terry an ‘upcoming artist’, questioning the authenticity of the northern hip-hop movement that he was an integral part of because it didn’t have the elements of hip-hop that Ikechukwu was familiar with and most salacious of all, alleging that Sarah Ofili slept with Terry when he and the ex-model were still together.
Listen here:
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There were two layers to Ikechukwu’s insults, the personal and the professional.
On a personal level, Ikechukwu suggested that one of the reasons why he and Sarah Ofili went their separate ways is because of her alleged romantic involvement with Terry. These are strong allegations that have ramifications for the relationship between Terry and Sarah, who are family friends, but the allegations represent a significant change from when in 2014, on Ice Prince’s song “Carry Me”, the bald-headed rapper pleaded with his ex-fiancé over something he said he did, rather than something he’s now saying she did. The whole thing has become very messy and quite frankly, this is not the kind of thing I like to spend time discussing – ultimately the only people who know the truth are the 3 people involved.
The professional insults are, however, clear for everyone to debate – facts are not opinions and opinions are not facts. Terry tha Rapman hasn’t had the career highs of a “Wind Am Well” or a “Critical” and has never been signed to the biggest record labels in the country or performed on the biggest stages on the continent, but the 2 things he has that Ikechukwu simply doesn’t is a pioneering status in modern Nigerian hip-hop and over 15 years of relevance since then.
Terry’s career has had some peaks too – the Boyz Are Not Smilin (BANS) movement was groundbreaking and revolutionary, while records such as “Na Beanz” “Sample (Ekwe)” and “Spazmodic” are undisputed hip-hop classics. He cosigned the likes of Olamide, Kel, Muna, Lil Kesh, Wizkid and Skales before they got their big breaks and Terry was a proud winner of the Headies for Best Rap Single in 2014. All this while remaining an independent artist for most of his career. If you separate the professional taunts from the personal insults, Ikechukwu has put a large question mark on Terry tha Rapman’s very legacy in a simple 2 hour 30 minute interview.
Both Terry tha Rapman and Ikechukwu are now vets and are both no longer at the peak of their powers. They are also blessed to come from a different era of hip-hop, an era where things smaller than this are a declaration of lyrical warfare. Take veteran femcee Remy Ma, for instance, the “Ante Up” rapper felt that Nicki Minaj was taking shots at her, so over the weekend, she brought out the bazooka on “shEther” to take control of the beef and possibly to awaken interest in her new collaborative album Plata O Plomo that has struggled to move units in its first week. The friction could yet bring an upturn in sales of the project, we’ll have to wait and see, but the global hip-hop community is loving the energy! You see, hip-hop is a contact sport, and Ikechukwu has initiated contact, the purist in me would have preferred the contact to be in the form of bars, but he has initiated contact all the same.
Terry would have preferred bars as well, the MC gave an interview where he says that if Ikechukwu had a problem with him, he should have entered into the studio and let his feelings be known on wax.
Watch here:
Perhaps he ought to take his own advice.
Terry released his first single since the beef bubbled up to the surface, it’s titled “Gangstar” and it was produced by Pherowshuz. I’ve played the song back several times to see if there was even an inkling of a message directed toward Ikechukwu. Anything, a line, a word, a subliminal, anything! Instead Terry spent most of the record talking up how much of a bad guy he is and conveniently avoided the elephant in the studio. And that’s on a song titled “Gangstar”.
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No gray hair but I be rap baba
When I drop rhymes, I dey scatter dada
The record was released to build anticipation for Terry’s new mixtape Joe Spazm 2.0, the follow up to 2009’s Joe Spazm mixtape. So my question would be – what better way to build anticipation for that project than by going ahead to address the professional insults on wax after you have addressed the personal insults on camera?
“Gangstar” has been streamed less than 800 times in almost 2 weeks, hardly inspiring numbers. Ikechukwu’s new songs aren’t exactly flying off the shelves either, his adoption of the moniker and double entendre ‘Ike God’ has gone largely unnoticed and his last video “Za’m Oku” has been watched less than 3,000 times! Success at the cinemas with movies like Wedding Party hasn’t rejuvenated Ikechukwu’s rap career at all, it’s clear that it’s now in desperate need of a reboot. Why are both MC’s then shying away from the opportunity to iron out their differences on a microphone and draw attention to the projects they are trying to promote?
Hip-hop is unique in that it is one genre of music that comes with a description of what an artist can do in this kind of situation – hip-hop beef is a perfectly acceptable promotional tool. If two seasoned vets can’t pick up the manual and do the needful, then I’d love to see what other bright ideas they have to get consumers excited about their new projects.