I'm
in Frankfurt, Germany now awaiting my connecting flight to New York after an
amazing trip celebrating the release of the Africa39 anthology—and a LONG day at Mohammed Murtala International Airport in Lagos,
Nigeria. But more on my day in Lagos later.
I
spent the week in Port Harcourt—designated the 2014 World Book Capital by
UNESCO, a first for a country south of the Sahara—meeting and connecting with
brilliant writers, students, authors, bloggers, radio personalities, publishers, ghost writers, poets, reality show personalities, journalists, booksellers, and more. As a group, the Africa39 authors, and our editor Ellah Wakatama Allfrey, spoke with students at the University of Port
Harcourt, visited the Ken Saro-Wiwa Foundation which is about to commemorate
the 20th anniversary of the activist writer’s execution, spoke on
panels, and shared our work. Audience questions seemed to unite around themes of Western influence on African writing.
From
prizes to publishing, some noted, validation from the European and American
industry seemed to be the ticket to acclaim. What did this mean for writers on
the continent without ready access to an international network of publishers,
editors, and writers—or even information about less publicized prizes? Others
wondered how the African voice is compromised when local languages are
translated to English or French. Still, others questioned what African writing
even is. Who is an African writer? Does a writer born to African parents in
America/Europe/Asia qualify? Does an Asian/European/American writer born and
bred in Africa make the grade?
These
questions bled into our discussions outside the festival setting. On wicker
clusters by the hotel's big blue pool, and in one another’s rooms, over tots of whiskey and vodka, sweaty bottles
of water, and tumblers of wine, there was passionate conversation over the
future of African literature and style inspirations that ranged from Anton Chekhov to
Zora Neale Hurston, John Updike to Jhumpa Lahiri.
Some of us made light of heavily religious upbringings; while others expressed opinions on sex and
relationships between "modern African couples". There was a lot of talk about African
history and politics and culture; why things were/are the way they are.
Heavy discussions tended to comic relief. Corruption. Classism. Chronic standstill traffic. Ebola
hysteria. South African tabloid reportage. Hahaha.
Then
it was over. Our last night together burned long and slow, like a cigarette, as
one writer deejayed contemporary African hits while the rest of us poured in
and out of the hotel room, imbibing and passing around our anthology copies for last
minute autographs. A muted cable station blared hip-hop and R&B music
videos while we carried on.
The
following evening, I boarded my flight from Port Harcourt. On its refuel stop
in Lagos, I was awakened to the news we had to disembark because there was a
crack in the plane’s windshield.
With
no more information than that, we were herded onto waiting buses, then
dispersed to nearby hotels. I spent this morning awaiting word from the airline
and watching hours of music videos. African and American artists popped bottles
(or bragged that they could). They boasted about how much Rands/Naira/Dollars
they had, their world travels and their cars, and paraded a bevy of half-naked
women.
The
videos got me thinking about a conversation I’d had with two other Africa39 writers and an activist
Nigerian blogger about the detrimental role prosperity preaching plays in
African life. As a Christian, I felt my defenses go up during the exchange, but
I had to admit they were speaking truth.
Not every pastor is out to pimp their
congregations for money, I told them from experience. And what about the esteem
and hope the good news of the gospel provides to a people who need to be
reminded they are the head and not the tail, that God is a lifter of their
heads; a people that need a miracle to change their situation? But I couldn’t
deny that so many of the men and women smiling down from roadside
billboards advertising salvation seemed no different than the politicians on the signboards next to them. On TV, I saw one
politician in conflict with the president being referred to as a messiah by a
collection of clergymen. In Ghana, there are churches (and billboards
advertising them) galore, and puffed up pastors with endless titles, but I
guess experiencing it in another country that looks so much like my own gave me
new perspective.
As
I watched the music videos, I realized the rappers were preaching their own gospel of prosperity. In
Port Harcourt, I went to one club and it looked like the set of a 1990s hip-hop
video from the accent wall décor to the fishbowl placement of the VIP area at
the center of the tight space, to the bottles only service. Prosperity is being
preached in many ways and to some extent, we’re all followers.
On
the second day of the book festival a man named Bishop Kukah spoke about
Africa’s future. In particular, he indicted complacency and
challenged those of us in the room to evolve the world our parents bequeathed. A Ken Saro-Wiwa quote on the walls of his Foundation said
much the same about writers/writing:
“The
writer cannot be a mere storyteller; he cannot be a mere teacher; he cannot
merely x-ray society’s weaknesses, its ills, its perils. He or she must be
actively involved in shaping its present and its future.”
Here’s
the poem, I wrote in the hotel courtyard trying to process all of the above:
FUCK MONEY
By Nana Ekua
Brew-Hammond
Fuck money
Get bitches
Show these
niggas how much shit you got
Wishes
Not riches are
the currency
Envy the commodity
Hierarchy the
celebrity
A gospel of
prosperity
Rapped and
preached to the least of these
Get ‘em good
and hooked so they believe
All this
paper?
All this
pussy?
All these
whips?
These first
class trips?
Just ride this
dick.
Get on this
clit.
You know you
wanna be up in this clique.
Fuck bitches.
You got money.
You ain’t a
nigga you ain’t got a couple shorties.
Fuck these
niggas.
You got cream.
And if you
don’t you got a fat ass for the team.
It’s all
transaction.
You ain’t
shit.
They running
game and you ain’t even got a chip.
All this
paper?
All this
pussy?
All these
whips?
These first
class trips?
Just ride this
dick.
Get on this
clit.
You know you
wanna be up in this clique.
But life is
not a video
Mad hoes are
unsustainable
We can’t serve
God and mammon, yo
We want to
reap, we have to sew
Security built
on poverty
Is not secure
at all
Paper? Pussy?
Whips? Trips?
There’s more
to life than amassing shit.
You’re really
rich when you don’t buy into it.
