When Tuface’s first album as a solo artist was released, it was a mega hit. The artist who was under the music production company, Kenny’s Music, paved the way for international recognition within the Nigerian music scene. And one of the songs that achieved this feat is African Queen. Going beyond endorsing a song over social media (which has its perks of ego-gratification; not necessarily financial turnover), African Queen was featured as a soundtrack for the Hollywood movie, Phat Girlz, in 2006.
Before Hollywood got wind of the song, it was being jammed to in every Nigerian home and the lyrics recited on everyone’s lips. As we look back as a Throwback Thursday feature, we’re stating 4 reasons we love this song.
It puts women on a pedestal
Although women don’t need the help of men to be placed on a pedestal, when counterpart songs were projecting women as sexual objects to be lusted after (women gyrating near-nude in music videos comes to mind), this song was a positive deviation, projecting African women as queens while praising her natural beauty.
It promotes positive skin image
The European physical features have been touted for years as the standard of beauty hence the self-hate promoted in the beauty industry by Africans.” If you are not light skinned you aren’t beautiful”. The words “…So black; so beautiful” was embedded in the lyrics of the song to emphasize the beauty of a melanin-loaded woman.
It’s an uber-romantic song
When it was released, it was featured at every wedding, and although other wedding-appropriate romantic songs have been released afterwards, knocking it off its spot, it doesn’t take away its relevance as one of the best romantic songs of all time
It Promotes natural hair
While this is not expressly mentioned in the song, in the music video, the women or video vixens spotted natural hairstyles, except one.