A couple of weeks ago, I was privileged to be at the Lagos premiere for Gangs of Lagos. It was a wonderful evening, well put together by Livespot and everyone was well hosted by the Amazon Prime team.
However, beyond the hospitality and events, I had a feeling that something had shifted as I marveled at the movie, and some people even cried during some of the scenes. As the movie ended, the standing ovation was spontaneous as we all knew we had just witnessed something really special.
I recall major brands, corporates and even global players back in 2003 trying to work out how to make the Nigerian version of the cult Brazilian movie “City of God” which made the world know the Favelas of Rio.
Gangs of Lagos is its own film with its own flavor and for that we must thank the wonderful cast and crew. I felt the film on the same level as when I first saw City of God and I told the director, Jade Osiberu, as I congratulated her, that there may be pushback, and it was good she is from this part of the country, as that may have become the deflection and another point of contention, real or imagined.
I find all of the “faux” outrage interesting but predictable as many of our minds are closed. I saw the film and believe it’s definitely one of the best films yet made out of Nigeria. I didn’t see any cultural insults or diminishment, in fact the Eyo were magnificently captured and their role in the movie made sense. They were not critical to the story but it made sense.
It seems everyone is all caught up in their morality fables but meanwhile have refused to convert or document our natural assets which are our common heritage.
Our inability to embrace our mythology and cosmology and reinvent those fables has been a massive loss for us and has led to us making a lot of antiseptic content. I always laugh when people talk about going global but ignore the very essence that makes them globally relevant. You will find that Disney and others will mine our culture just as Shell mined our oil, maybe then we will wake up to our value.
There are always cultural custodians and I’m always on the side of culture, but sometimes they do need to have context and embrace the art of storytelling and not push back on creativity. The simple truth is that before this movie where was Eyo in public consciousness?
Let’s just hope after all this we will see the Eyo festival back and properly produced. Where are the Eyo merchandise and memorabilia and why doesn’t every Lagosian or even Nigerian have any element of that culture to hold on to? There is almost no memorabilia, no digital merch, no physical merch and zero story telling about the actual culture. We can repeat this ad infinitum about all of our culture, indigenous innovations, dance fashion and music that we all routinely ignore as if we brought no value to this world. The sad thing is, I then watch the magnificent unreleased documentaries by Niyi Olagunju, the celebrated artist who has been documenting our culture and telling the actual story of the Eyo and that of other major cultural festivals and moments in Nigeria but is anyone supporting him? All those who are busy losing their minds over some perceived slight I believe, are simply riding the hype to jump on the bandwagon and insult the creative team who made the film.
I thoroughly enjoyed the film and believe the cast was excellent with standout performances from Tobi Bakre, Kazeem the gangster and Chioma Akpotha, who might have stolen the movie with one particularly poignant scene.
For over a decade I have publicly asked what is the real difference between Shango and Thor? Nigerians always reply that it’s packaging. It’s actually major investment in the legend. Someone reinvented Thor and made him relevant to a new world, turned him into a superhero and by now that franchise has earned well over 20bn dollars in comics, merchandise, movies, tv series, video games and toys. Over here, not only do we deny Shango, if someone makes the movie, we will also shout him down because we seem to misunderstand creative licence and storytelling. It is sad to read creatives sounding like demagogues and state censors when they have not even promoted or told the origin stories of their own culture themselves. If you have an issue with the story, make your own and let’s hope it’s as good? We have deep issues in truth and we need to step back and let art be art.
Jade made a magnificent film and actually took Eyo global, it’s now for the custodians to benefit from that free plug and go and make competing stories to edify the Eyo if they are so mortally offended. Literature, film and music should always seek to be authentic and impact emotionally. I believe Gangs of Lagos did just that and I’m proud of the director and told her so. She made me proud to be a Nigerian and Lagosian too, (maybe someone will now tell me we have no locus to speak lol.) Gangs of Lagos is something everyone should be proud of as a piece without having to judge anyone at all.
On a serious note however, it’s unfortunate that we generally don’t seem to be able to have proper intellectual conversations without being rude and demeaning, it’s actually totally normal to disagree without being disagreeable. I am very sure that people have all kinds of opinions but as long as the atmosphere for proper conversation is there, then I don’t see any issue.
It’s not compulsory to like something, but to suggest that this was some attempt to denigrate culture is a fallacy, simply grandstanding and a serious overstatement. We are way too precious about our various cultures, the mafia movies are an entire genre, I’m sure many grew up thinking all Italians are in the mafia? However you didn’t see Italians protesting and trying to shut down the world because they understood that those movies also glorified them and their culture, language and traditions. Have we even made 419 movies or we keep waiting until someone does a proper one then we can all claim to be offended. Crime is one of the biggest genres in all art. Hollywood is optioning Hushpuppi and other stories because they are compelling and not for the morality play. People can watch the old Cosby show for those morality fables built into tv and no doubt someone could do something similar here but it has to work to come alive. The simple truth is a great story is a great story and it could be crime, drama, action, comedy or period, what is important to me is to tell the story properly and to follow through. I loved the cinematography, the pacing and all the rooftop shots, Lagos was most definitely a character in this movie. Our penchant for overacting was reined in by the director, and there was plenty of nuance to make the film layered. I really think the Eyo were incidental at best, and all that noise is just noise. The real power move is to ask the director of the film to shoot some tv commercials celebrating Eyo and Lagos and get Lagos to be big enough to own that.
● After forty years of watching Italian mafia films I don’t meet Italians and think, “ah I’m about to be in a gang war.” Life is not that literate surely? The real advice to the community is to use this energy to revive the Eyo festival. Instead of talking down the movie, talk up your culture and put the pressure back on the Lagos State Government to bring it alive with your curation, and find some young people to translate it and make it hot for 2023.
Gangs of Lagos has actually given Eyo a new breath of life and with all the talk one might think they were central to the movie, but they are not. Therefore make them central again to the culture in this web3.0 age and use your energy that way. Instead of wasting energy trying to talk down art, make your own art and uphold the values you want to see and do it in a way that it attains mass support. In a country like ours with perhaps the most cultural diversity on earth and with ancient cultures and traditions, respect is always important but we must always look to the future and to do that, we must disrupt and bring our essence into the stories we tell and not leave it in our villages and memories.
Make sure you see Gangs of Lagos and let’s keep talking about it.
PS: Jade also managed not to have random shots of the Lekki bridge as had become de rigueur in many of our releases. If only for that, I’m thankful.
