The importance of Reminisce’s Ponmile

There was, for instance, that weird thing about black capitalism being the silver bullet for black oppression—especially when the strip club is black capitalism extraordinaire. But the one that kept people going was the admission, at last, that “Becky with the good hair” was not a figment of Beyonce’s imagination nor was Jay Z the willing prop upon which Solange tried out a newly learned kung-fu chop. In the track 4:44, Jay Z confirms the rumours.

Jay Z isn’t usually one for apology; so, 4:44 is the moon landing: one small step for a man and a giant leap for mankind. But the monstrosity hulking over the apology is the fact of Jay Z’s infidelity, which is, well, a boon to Jay Z’s ego. Jay Z is sorry, you see, but Jay Z also cheated on Beyonce, the Beyonce. Jay Z’s apology, then, is no mere apology; it is mea culpa meets humble brag.

Reverse the roles and reveal the measure of the man. Say Beyonce was the one who, to cite Jay Z, often manized. How might Jay Z have come to terms with the fact?

Ponmile?

(Perhaps another stabbing.) Jay Z’s method is eloquent braggadocio, not an unrapperly advertisement of “impotence.” That sort of sordid linen, you imagine, would be laundered very intimately. Can you imagine Jay Z contemplating a woman’s infidelity to him in art?

Nor would you imagine Reminisce in this contemplative mold. Reminisce has the air of the trigger finger of a trigger-happy policeman. ‘Tesojue’, you’d imagine, is more Reminisce’s shtick, ‘Tesojue’ with its sinister intimations of fluid boundaries, BDSM and Yoruba hyberbole. What is this song ‘Ponmile’, this abject plea for respect when you’re supposed to be dying at the hands of his manhood tonight?

4:44 posits its man as unimpeachable subject, and its women—Beyonce inclusive—as absolute objects, toys upon which the subject enacts. Don’t embarrass me, not be mine, is what subjects say to their objects.

With 'Ponmile' (Pọ́n Mi Lé) we are poised, finely, at the rending of the chrysalis. Always already unstable, the Hegelian dialectic between subject and object is unfolding here. The butterfly is on the verge of emerging, and flying, and 'Ponmile'’s man is confronted by the predominant crisis of masculinity, the very fount of a man’s fear: the undermining of his ego. Respect me—acknowledge me, humanize me—is what objects murmur to their subjects.

'Ponmile'’s man, like 4:44’s man, performs for his public. The Herculean labours he tackles are only an expression of love at second asking: they are staged most importantly for applause—kọ́mọ aráyé kí mi ní well done sir (that the world may hail me well done). Jaywon’s cover makes the case explicitly: ìwọ ni mo fi ń yangàn láwùjọ. You are my open-top bus parade.

If 4:44’s man understands—however belatedly—the canyon of nuance between “don’t embarrass me” and “be mine”, 'Ponmile'’s man knows that loving is easy but not that easy: “Ìfẹ́ ò gbagídí/Bẹ́ẹ̀ náà ni ò ṣ’ABD.” He knows, too, that to love no more is not to transgress.

Regardless of this knowledge, what preoccupies 'Ponmile'’s man is control. He must know. He must superintend the rending of the chrysalis. To be ambushed by this reversal is to lose all àpọ́nlé, a very dangerous proposition indeed.

There cannot be many better musical demonstrations of the unfolding of Hegel’s master-slave dialectic than 'Ponmile'. And this unfolding, a grappling of contending subjectivities, often terminates in violence­—colonialism bears witness.

The simmering violence of 'Ponmile' is where the song’s video, shot by Clarence Peters’ Capital Dreams Pictures, take its cue. “It’s very dangerous”, the song admonishes, this role reversal upon which you insist. And truly, the prophecy comes to pass: the conflict in the video culminates with a man dangling a knife ominously over his wife’s head. The Hegelian strife finally proves too much to negotiate without recourse to extra-rhetorical means. “Violence is never the answer,” is the note on which the video ends. The video’s intent is cautionary but it’s hard to miss the dissonance between this new admonition and “it’s very dangerous”.

That 'Ponmile' rewards such scrutiny sets it apart in the corpus of Nigerian music. It is an astonishing achievement of Nigerian lyricism and demonstrates—to Nigerian pop stars­­—the ends to which songwriting can be pressed in popular music. It stands distinct also, plotting a different path in this epoch where males and females feel compelled to ping tales of scumness at the other like an annoyingly unending game of ping pong. It is equally astonishing that 'Ponmile'’s preoccupations intersects all men. These are high-flown preoccupations equally at home in Jay Z’s New York as they are in Reminisce’s Lagos.

This transcendence—which hasn’t cost US$50,000 to achieve­—elevates Reminisce above the fray, for 2017 at least, and fixes 'Ponmile' in the canon of significant Nigerian music.