On the eve of the new month, DMW star and industry darling, Mayorkun, dropped the visuals for his new track “Up To Something”. The Speroach-produced track is an easy-going Afro-pop tune with a catchy chorus as is typical with most Afro-pop.
“Up To Something” garnered thousands of views within hours of its release. This comes shortly after Mayorkun’s huge wins at the 2019 Headies, where he won the awards for “Best Pop Album” for his debut LP “The Mayor of Lagos“. The artiste also bagged a “Revelation of the Year” award at the event.
The song opens up with Mayorkun crooning about his girl’s attempts to conform to societal beauty standards. He follows up with a hat tip to former Plantashun Boi, Faze, singing “you don’t really understand that you’re beautiful just the way you are”.
From the video, it is quite glaring that Mayorkun’s “Up To Something” is making an effort at preaching body positivity to Nigerian women. However, effort means nothing when the delivery flops, just ask Maggi.
With this song, Mayorkun tries to be the male voice of a movement that has been going on for years. The description box beneath the video proudly brandishes this visionary stand of his against body shaming.
But here’s the problem:
The video itself does an exceptionally lazy job at portraying the different forms of beauty which transcend the standards that society praises. The actresses seem hastily cast. Also, they do a poor job of acting out the insecurities that a lot of women go through. It may even come across to some as a parody rather than a statement.
Even the title and lyrics of the song are detached from the topic and poorly put together. It is as though, the song started out as one thing and then morphed into another without the artiste taking the time to merge the two different ideas.
The shift in the artiste’s train of thought may be a display of the dynamic and spontaneous nature of Nigerian music. But in reality, this song just relies heavily on the basic Afro beats and the love Nigerians have for mediocrity
But the message of the song is deep-fake at worst and cosmetic at best. The higher-budget parts of the video were the dancing and dining scenes. But these were basically a rip-off of the GT Bank Fashion Weekend trailer but in a neutral colour palette.
Those scenes further highlight the hypocrisy of the song’s message. The so-called different-but-beautiful women did not star in those scenes. It ironically portrays them as society does in the first place; as props to be displayed only when convenient.
As far as wins go for Mayorkun, this is not one of them.
Watch the video below:
