Niniola’s Oyin recalls 1990s RnB

Its recently released video reminded me of an exchange last year. I told her I was considering writing about her singles, and like many other listeners, I had noticed her love for the South African house—the sound that gave her the hits ‘Shabba’ and ‘Soke’. She smiled and gently told me she had done other kinds of songs. What she was really saying was that she would rather not be put in a box.

Indeed, her album shows deviations here and there, but its spine is South African house. And yet ‘Oyin’ is a testament to the truth of her admonishment at that event.

The song’s opening recalls some of the cooler tracks from American R&B’s great decade. The 1990s (and early 2000s) gave us the music of Dru Hill, Ginuwine, Usher, Aaliyah, Brandy, Monica, Donnel Jones, Toni Braxton. The same decade held some of the best songs from Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson and Madonna. It was the era of producers Baby Face, Teddy Riley, Rodney Jenkins. Practically speaking, every Nigerian artist now in her mid-20s to late 40s with access to a radio as a child heard American R&B. It is only natural that some have tried to produce songs in a similar vein.

For Niniola’s ‘Oyin’ that has taken the shape of a song that takes the shape of a Donell Jones track and closes on the chants—Hey! Hey! Hey—that brings to mind hip-hop from the 1990s. Already her album title seems to use Jennifer Lopez’s 2001 album This is Me...Then; her video for ‘Sicker’ pays an explicit homage to Missy Eliott. These touchstones are quite like a debt repaid. And certainly, these are not idle references. (As I mentioned in the album review, in the heydays of Missy Eliott Niniola was experiencing teenagehood, a time particularly susceptible to influences.)

The song also uses the coyness associated with many an R&B single. They seem to talk about love, but they really are about sex. The first few seconds of ‘Oyin’ are cool enough to lead one to a feeling of warmth and take that as a lead-in to a meditation on love. But, possibly, her line in Yoruba, about an insect eating something from the inside has sexual implications. Just to be sure, she sings "I can feel your blood pumping/Do you know I'm all yours/And I don't really mind".

Compare this to, say, Janet Jackson's 'That's the Way Love Goes' (1993), Donell Jones 'This Luv' (1999) or Aaliyah's 'Rock the Boat' (2001) or even Craig David’s 'Rendezvous' (2000). Each of those songs have sexual meanings obscured. This, in some cases, distinguished R&B and rap songs. (To take two random examples, 2Pac’s Hit ‘Em Up and Next's Too Close were released about a year apart. The former song is about sexual arousal in its entirety but few listeners realise this; the latter has very few lines about sex—but those bits are what many remember about the latter.)

By obscuring 'Oyin''s carnal implications with semi-melismatics and cool production, Niniola turns it to a love story. Speaking about the inspiration for the song in a behind-the-scene production, Niniola said, she listened to the song's beat and "it just had this love song vibe". The music video goes on to perpetuate the love story idea. We see a lonely girl (played by Niniola) longing for a neighbour having problems with his girlfriend. Lonely Girl finds a way to catch guy’s attention and ends with her presenting a cake—and all it connotes—to the love interest. The scheming lady finds a way to get the guy. Nobody knows (or cares) about the other girl.

The video's story, which is different from the song's straightforward love tale, continues what appear to be Niniola's belief in the idea that what is desirable by one is desired by all: In 'Ibadi', a girl puts on a show for a man looking at another girl in a club; 'Maradona''s titular man has been selling his affection to a number of women. In Niniola's music, heterosexual love is competitive.

Across the continent, the music scene is particularly unfair to women. Niniola must have faced some challenges. She appears to have faced them with a healthy dose of talent and, in this case, with some help from 1990s music.

Artist: Niniola
Song: Oyin
Label, Year: Naija Review, 2018