How Niniola exploits Yoruba to sing about sex

Niniola's debut has one of the two characteristics described above. This Is Me opens with ‘Moyo’, a song about penitence and the joy of salvation. ‘Bale’, the third track, is a song of praise about the goodness she has received from God. Between the two, however, is ‘Oyin’, a song unshy about sex.

Sex has always featured in Niniola’s music. Her description of oral sex in ‘Maradona’ is so stark it’s a surprise the song hasn’t been censored by the authorities. In a world where songs are bleeped off for errant mentions of the f-word, the key to Niniola’s subversive sexual freedom lies in her use of the Yoruba language.

The increasing use of local languages like Yoruba, Igbo and pidgin is one of the factors that led to the rise of contemporary Nigerian music. Hip hop artists like 9ice used elaborate Yoruba idiomatic expressions and found success. But there’s arguably no other contemporary pop artist who has explored the explicit nature of the Yoruba language like Niniola.

English, for all the inventiveness it affords, is a prudish language. It’s so squeamish it has meta-euphemisms for banal acts. For instance, it is considered taboo in many places to mention genitalia in public speech, so milder words are invented to reduce the moral abrasion of anatomical descriptions. Those words then have to be written with symbols to make them even less offensive on page. But in Yoruba, “euphemisms” are the scandal. Substitute words are designed not to coddle listeners but to exclude unskilled users.

Niniola is, of course, not the first artist to embrace Yoruba’s relative lack of inhibition. That honour goes to Fuji act Obesere, whose equally subversive act was predicated on unabashed vulgarity. But where Obesere is brash, Niniola is subtle. Her videos contain just enough sensuality to suggest the intent behind her words to those who do not understand her language, while hiding their real meaning until they find a translator.

Rather than present a linear narrative, Niniola often writes with an expressionist style, an aural collage of easy hooks and enigmatic verses that combine samples of folk songs with nursery rhymes, Yoruba idiomatic expressions and even Western myths spoken in her own language.

On ‘Jigi Jigi’ from 2016, she splices “Mirror mirror on the wall” with the Oluronbi myth to sing about vanity. “Kokoro ti n je fo idi efo lo wa” she sings in ‘Oyin’. This is a Yoruba expression for how those who betray us are often closer than we think. But the meaning of the sentence can become a metaphor for sex once its words are stripped to their literal origins: “The insect that’s eating the vegetable lies at its root.” Idi, the Yoruba word for “root”, can also be used to describe the human backside.

There are few Nigerian artists today—male or female—whose embrace of sex positivity can rival Niniola’s. The men are dull in their obsession with endowed women and even adventurous women artists rarely stray into unexplored territory. In Sugarcane, for instance, Tiwa Savage applies the trite food-as-phallus formula her male counterparts have overused.

Niniola finds diverse ways to express desire. In ‘Magun’, she appropriates a patriarchal practice of placing a hex on a woman’s body to keep her faithful by applying the curse on her own body. “O lewu fun anybody to ba fe gun mi / mo fi magun sara to protect body,” […] she sings, announcing the danger in having sex with her.

She adds: “Ere gele, on a surface level / only foreplay is allowed for you.” She goes from describing the utility of arming herself with a curse—it ensures sex is strictly on her terms—then proceeds to show she isn't motivated by just fear, but a need to be in charge of her own pleasure.

For an artist who once said sex is overrated, its centrality in Niniola’s oeuvre might look like a contradiction. But her continued performance of it in song shows she considers banal this activity many hold sacred. And she’s not sentimental about it like R&B artists—the usual merchants of sex—often are.

For all the deficiencies of English earlier described, it's still possible to write excellent songs with it, subject notwithstanding. Mastery of the language, access to a wide array of references and the wit to make poetry out of available material is required to achieve this exellence. And that is a tall order for many—even professional Nigerian writers—so, perhaps criticism of Nigerian songwriting should be done with this handicap in mind.

This linguistic crutch, however, isn't sufficient excuse for the lazy lyrics typical of Nigerian pop. Nigerian artists already sing in local tongue, what remains is increased effort in exploiting these languages for their inherent possiblities. Many have shown this with humour in pidgin, and now Niniola has done same with sex in Yoruba.