2face, Blackface and the controversial ‘African queen’

I was quite excited when I came across on YouTube, a Blackface interview. The reggae-dancehall artiste was a recent guest on Y!‘s ‘Rubbin’ Minds‘, show with host Ebuka few weeks ago.


You see, I’m a very big Blackface fan – in fact Augustine Ahmedu makes my top ten list of favorite Nigerian artistes; with five solo albums ‘Ghetto Child’, ‘Evergreen’, ‘Jungle Fever’, ‘Me, Musiq & I‘ and ‘Dancehall Business‘, four group albums ‘Body & Soul‘, ‘Sold Out‘, ‘Plan B‘ (with Plantashun Boiz), ‘What We Are‘ (with D Tribunals) and an upcoming sixth solo ‘Defender‘, Blackface is the only Nigerian artiste with the most releases in his catalogue in this music era (1999-present).

Back to the interview; Ebuka delved into Blackface’s relationship with former band Plantashun Boiz member 2face Idibia and more interestingly his role in writing the Nigerian classic ‘African queen’ – and for the first time, Blackface took time to reveal and explain in detail just about everything.

The dark-skinned singer who sounded very enlightened in the area of music publishing and writing credits revealed he was not given proper credit for co-writing the song for a very long time until recently. He however disclosed that he now has 50 per cent writing credit to the song.

‘African queen‘ which will be 10 years old in 2014, still garners a lot of relevance in 2face’s career till today. Sadly, it’s still a controversial pivot between him and his former partner Blackface. According to him (Blackface), they rarely get to see and when they do, it’s nothing more than a ‘guy how far?‘



It was news all over the blogs when Blackface revealed on social media he wasn’t told let alone invited to 2face’s wedding. ‘If there’s a reason for me not to be there, then there’s a reason for me not to be there. No, I was not invited‘, Blackface revealed.


‘I wish then all the best. Maybe he was too busy for him to remember that he’s got one or two friends he should have invited‘, he added sarcastically.
It might look like 2face is the ‘bad guy’ here but a lot of mutual friends would argue back that Blackface is one hell of a cocky fella. And he couldn’t hide it too; when asked about their third Plantashun Boiz member Faze, in the most cockiest of ways he said ‘Faze is my boy, I made him to be strong, I made him to be who he is today but he is my buddy, I still talk with him every time’.

He didn’t stop there; he also added that he expects Faze to work more on his artistry, explaining that Faze would need his help to ‘bring his career back to life but he was thinking something else’. Now that’s just straight up cocky.

Any thoughts of another reunion album should be banished as it seems pride and bitterness won’t be letting it that come to light…