Falz Talks To BBC Africa On The Inspiration Behind ‘This is Nigeria’, The Importance & Backlash
Falz has stated that while he anticipated that his 'This is Nigeria' video will generate controversy; he wasn’t prepared for the extent of the reaction received
In an interview with BBC Africa, the rapper talked about the inspiration behind the viral ‘This is Nigeria’ video and his perception towards the fact that his critics are solely focused on shooting the messenger while ignoring the message in the video.
According to Falz, ”The video has been very well received; even initially when I was releasing it, I didn’t sort of anticipate the magnitude of reaction… I thought there will be some form of reaction and conversation but I didn’t know how largely it will be received.”
Opening up on the inspiration behind the video, Falz admitted, ”It was important, first of all I was inspired by the original, This is America by Childish Gambino. I thought it was a very artistic and creative way to tell the American story and I thought it will be amazing to tell the Nigerian story in a similar fashion…
It was very important to stir up a heightened level of political and social consciousness out here…”
Responding to the negative reactions trailing the video, the “La Fête” crooner stated;
”Majority of what I have been facing, in terms of backlash is just a matter of people that are trying to shoot the messenger so that they miss the message, but at the end of the day, the message is really clear and everyone knows that the message is the truth”.
The video ranked No.1 on YouTube the weekend it was released, and currently has over 3.9M views and still counting.