“Allyship needs to be loud”: Afrobeats’ uneasy relationship with queerness
- Afrobeats, a Nigerian music genre, is taking global stages that celebrate queer pride, even as queerness remains criminalised at home.
Image Description: A traditional Yoruba talking drum lying on earthy brown ground. Its body is wrapped in bright rainbow-colored lines with faint African-inspired patterns. A single curved drumstick rests beside it.
On August 27, 2024, Nigerian Afrobeat superstars Yemi Alade and Omawumi became the first African women to headline the Global Black Pride in Atlanta, Georgia.
Like every other Pride event dedicated to celebrating the diversity of being queer, Global Black Pride, which was founded in 2020, focuses on bringing together and honouring African-descendant LGBTQI+ communities across the world. With its founder, Micheal Ighodaro, being Nigerian, it felt only natural to globalise Nigerian music—Afrobeats—for an international Black audience by inviting Yemi Alade and Omawumi as headliners.
While this was a bold and admirable milestone for Afrobeats and its women, it also raised difficult questions about platforming a genre and its performers whose intersections with queerness have not always been progressive.
Queerness in Nigerian entertainment is not new, even if it has often been hidden, coded, or mocked. The 2000s, now remembered as the “old Nollywood” era, repeatedly portrayed queerness as taboo, caricaturing queer characters as deviant or cursed. Films leaned heavily on tropes of possession, corruption, or tragedy, embedding stereotypes deep into the public consciousness. In music, queerness appeared more as spectacle than as identity.
Fuji musician Obesere exemplified this paradox. His flamboyance was notorious: skimpy outfits, experimental videos, and scandalous lyrics. In another context, his choices might have sparked speculation about sexuality. Yet because he was simultaneously rumoured to pursue numerous women, his masculinity was never questioned. His eccentricities were framed as entertainment, not identity.
Charlie Boy followed a similar path. In the late 1980s and 1990s, they embraced androgyny, makeup, and bold hairstyles that scandalised conservative Nigerians. Their appearance challenged norms, but their allyship came later. In 2017, three years after Nigeria’s Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act (SSMPA) had already criminalised queer existence, Charlie Boy became more openly supportive. It was a bold move that underscores how rare such advocacy has been among Nigeria’s mainstream artists.
The SSMPA and its aftermath
The SSMPA, passed in 2014, prohibits same-sex relationships and associations. It handed legal backing to homophobia, intensifying risks for queer Nigerians and embedding anti-queer sentiment in law. Ironically, this was also the same decade Nigerian entertainment was expanding globally: Afrobeats became a worldwide phenomenon, Nollywood films hit Netflix, and Nigerian fashion gained international visibility. Within this context, allyship became even murkier—celebrated abroad, silenced at home.
Films like “Country Love” produced and directed by Wapah Ezigwe, and “Ife” produced by Pamela Adie and directed by Uyaiedu Ikpe-Etim, despite not being mainstream due to censorship, told queer stories, providing depth to queer identity in Nigeria.
In music, Eldee and M.I. Abaga spoke in favour of queer rights in 2013 and 2017 respectively. But unlike Nollywood, which saw the rise of underground creators and films focused on the queer experience, these were isolated gestures. For the most part, Nigerian music either ignored queerness or addressed it through homophobic lyrics.
Burna Boy illustrates this contradiction. In the track “Wetin Dey Sup,” a song that encompasses multiple themes like gun violence and police brutality from his fifth studio album, Twice as Tall, he sings “I no be one of those men wey dey fear toto fuck yansh,” which translates as “I am not one of those men who are scared of a vagina and engage in anal sex.” A jab at gay men, who are often considered fearful of heterosexual sex.
On “Real Life” from the same album, another lyric warns: “If dem wan fuck you for nyash, make you no lie down”—in English, “If anyone proposes anal sex to you, do not agree.” Fans sometimes argue the first lyric reflects street slang in Port Harcourt, Burna’s hometown, where it implies a man is unafraid to get a woman pregnant. But even with that context, the line still ridicules same-sex intimacy.
What makes this more jarring is that in the same year, Burna collaborated with Sam Smith, one of the most visible queer artists in the world. The collaboration expanded his global reach and streaming numbers, while his lyrics at home reinforced homophobia.
This contradiction is not accidental. It reflects the economics of allyship. Global markets reward inclusivity, especially in queer-friendly countries. Pride festivals, collaborations with openly queer artists, and inclusive performances deliver visibility and revenue. At home, however, silence, or coded homophobia, keeps artists “safe” within conservative Nigerian society. It is allyship when profitable, not when it matters most.
Performances of allyship
In 2023, Ayra Starr asserted a form of allyship for marginalised communities when she performed in Brazil, highlighting the admiration she received from her queer Brazilian fans. Even before then, Ayra seemed to hint at inclusivity. A viral tweet in late 2023 affirmed this image, reinforced by her use of openly femme-presenting backup dancers, all of which endeared her to queer Nigerians hungry for representation.
But Ayra’s stance also makes commercial sense. Brazil is one of the world’s largest music markets, generating nearly $3 billion annually. It also ranked twelfth globally for LGBTQ friendliness and queer rights in 2023, according to Equaldex. For Ayra, embracing inclusivity was both solidarity and smart market positioning.
“I do not believe it is allyship when it is done when there’s a financial or socioeconomic incentive,” says Temmie Ovwasa, an openly queer artist credited with having released Nigeria’s first openly queer album. “However, I think there’s an understanding of the culture at play, an understanding of the shifting tides.”
Temmie’s critique points to a deeper frustration within Nigeria’s queer community. Pride events are not just about music; they are about survival and liberation. Global Black Pride should have centered openly queer African artists like Angel Maxine, Chimano, JOJO Abot, or Ovwasa themselves. Instead, it featured mainstream stars with no public record of queer advocacy. For queer Nigerians, it was a reminder that even in queer spaces, their voices can be sidelined.
Supporters argue there is value in inviting mainstream stars. Olaide Kayode Timileyin, founder of Pride in Lagos, frames it as a strategy: “Sometimes we do these things to bring people into inclusion,” he says. “It could be a way of introducing them.” Yet even he admits, “It is sad that none of the openly queer African artists who have worked so hard were recognised. The platform took the opportunity away from them.”
The stakes of silence
This matters because queer Nigerians face daily violence. In August 2024, a trans woman in Abuja known as Area Mama was brutally murdered: one of many attacks against queer people across the country. Online hate regularly spills into real life, fuelling fear and repression. Against this backdrop, allyship cannot be selective. It cannot only appear when profitable abroad.
Outside Nigeria, global stars provide examples of more consistent allyship. Madonna championed queer rights as far back as the 1990s and dedicated a tour to LGBTQ advocacy in 2023. Beyoncé and Taylor Swift have woven LGBTQ themes into their music and activism, often at personal or political cost. Nigerian artists, now commanding global stages, could emulate this model. Allyship should be public, consistent, and willing to withstand backlash.
“Allyship has to be both public and intentional,” says Chimee Adioha, an editor and co-founder of Diaspora Africa. “Considering the state of both global and national homophobia, allyship seriously needs to be loud. What the loudness does is send a signal to the public. Homophobia largely stems from public hate, and many times, to face it, we have to go public.”
He goes further to state what allyship should look like: “Being an ally also means you do not back down when facing scrutiny and criticism based on your allyship because that is inevitable, as an ally, you are constantly listening, you are continually seeking information from the queer people around you, and you are also hyper-aware of the struggle of marginalised communities.”
Nigerian music, for all its global dominance, has yet to embrace that level of allyship. What exists is too often a strategy without solidarity. Afrobeats is now one of the world’s most listened-to genres. Its stars headline Glastonbury, sell out Paris stadiums, and dominate Billboard charts. With that power comes responsibility. Queer Nigerians are part of the audience streaming songs and buying tickets. They deserve more than symbolic gestures at Pride events abroad.
Yemi Alade and Omawumi’s Global Black Pride performance mattered. Burna Boy’s collaboration with Sam Smith mattered. Ayra Starr’s queer visibility matters. But all of these remain incomplete, rooted as much in market logic as in solidarity. Allyship tied to profit risks becoming shallow; a performance rather than a commitment. Until allyship in Nigerian music becomes consistent, public, and rooted in defending queer Nigerians at home, it will remain just a performance.
Edited/Reviewed by Samuel Banjoko, Uzoma Ihejirika, Awom Kenneth and Caleb Okereke.
