Niniola – Maradona

The videos of Niniola work her own sensuality subtly. Some of her songs hint at a liberated sexuality.

That first statement proceeds from Niniola’s beauty and her physical response to music: she really can dance. The second proceeds furtively to English-speaking listeners because sexual sections of her lyrics are almost entirely in Yoruba.

Her latest single ‘Maradona’, a cool number compared to older singles ‘Soke’ and ‘Shabba’, is about a cheating boyfriend whose pelvic ministrations have been offered generously to many women including the singer’s girlfriends.

The cooler vibe is at one with the singer’s resigned tone on this remarkable song. Niniola adopts a Nigerian slang taken from the great footballer, whose name was famously the nickname of former head of state Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, quite a politically adept leader. Here, Maradona is working a sexual ministry. Are you Maradona? she queries because the titular playboy plays the field too much. Are you a telescope? she asks. He looks at every woman walking past.

We mostly hear only the aggrieved. Maradona gets a small chance at defence, a detail repeated in the video. At the end he is humiliated at a poolside party—but he recovers in time to attempt to charm yet another lady.

The video and song offer two ways by which women handle a cheating partner. While comeuppance is served in the video, the song shows exasperation. Only listening to the song gives the impression that the relationship will continue. The video adds some complication to the relationship. And romantic relationships in many forms are at the centre of the Niniola oeuvre. Joyfully, she plumbs the ways men and women are with each other.

There is talk of a wedding cake on ‘Akara Oyibo’, lust is all around on ‘J’ete’, a promiscuous man shows up on her song with DJ Spinall, ‘Ojukokoro’. And on perhaps her most popular song ‘Soke’ her lyrics go from talking dance—”In the time of ijo Shina, I was the dancing genius”—to demanding not to be treated like a loose basket, a reference she makes in crudely explicit Yoruba.

And yet she has been chaste in her videos. As said there is sensuality—she’s a young attractive woman after all—but so far no video has shown her in anything more than an amorous embrace with her male characters. She gets close on 'J'ete' but for most of the time that the male lead is onscreen in the video for ‘Jigi Jigi’, he is alone. Her viewers are welcome to hear evil; seeing it is a different matter.

On ‘Maradona’, some explicit Yoruba once again comes up as she sings the character’s explanations: She said I should close my eyes, open my legs—that she'll lick it. He seems to be saying these are not propositions to be ignored.

The tension between her harmlessly groovy beats, well borrowed from South African house, her not-overtly-seductive sweet voice, and these Yoruba explicities makes for some head scratching: she could be the non-kissing tease or the risque singer. As is well known, the Nigerian music industry isn’t quite as indulgent of female performing acts as it is of male ones. Yet Niniola hasn’t quite taken the route of some of her female colleagues. Yemi Alade filmed a steamy video with R&B man Dipp not long after she appeared on the scene. Chidinma shared a kiss with Flavour. And from her very first video, Tiwa Savage, pop queen of the sex vibe, was a frankly sexual personality. Niniola is no prude but she doesn’t want your catcalls either.

Although ‘Maradona’ is not a sad love song, it marks the first time the way a man is with a woman in a Niniola song is less than joyful. There are no wedding bells ringing, no pillow talk, only female complaint. Even on ‘Ibadi’, where a desired man gawks at another girl, the sentiment was agreeable: “I stand up...and dance, ’cos...I know that’s what you like.” Not this time.

‘Maradona’ is another step on Niniola’s journey to capturing the many patterns of heterosexual relationships. Her frequent collaborator, Sarz, supplies production, slowing things down on the song, emphasising vocals over jaunty beat, apt for such a sour story. So while you can dance to ‘Maradona’, you are also haunted by its moodiness, by the lady's lament. The song's subject may be a new place for Niniola but in just over three minutes, she makes it home.