2- October-2023
New millionaires, new music: How cybercrime was codified into Afrobeats
Former US official Colin Powell’s dance 15 years ago was a seminal moment for Afrobeats, long before it took the world by storm
In doing the Yahozee dance, Powell, one of the most idolised Black men in the world even after his October 2021 death from COVID-19, had unwittingly given a stamp of approval to an ode to flamboyance underwritten by internet fraud. The irony was highlighted by The Guardian two days later.
“The Nigerian hit is a celebration of that country’s most infamous export, advance-fee email fraud (sometimes called 419 fraud, after the relevant section of the Nigerian penal code),” the article read. “The perpetrators are known as “Yahoo Boys” after their email service provider of choice
Young men began trooping to cybercafes to send “Nigerian prince” letters and a culture of flamboyance from ill-gotten gains followed, so the EFCC had its hands full
‘New millionaires’ In 2002, Nigeria had established the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). One of its first high-profile cases was the trial of Emmanuel Nwude, a former bank executive who impersonated the central bank governor and defrauded a Brazilian bank of $242m.
Internet connectivity was on the rise and cybercafes were dotting small towns across many parts of Nigeria. Young men began trooping to cybercafes to send “Nigerian prince” letters and a culture of flamboyance from ill-gotten gains followed, so the EFCC had its hands full
An enduring legacy
Olu Maintain has always denied that the song glorified internet fraud.
“When you create a body of art, people can misinterpret it the way they see fit … I cannot be responsible for how people interpret a work of art,” he told Nigerian daily Punch in 2018.
Nevertheless, it represented another chapter in the relationship between crime and music; the Italian-American mafia bankrolled many acts in its heyday, just as South American drug lords had ballads written for them and gangster exploits have been extolled in hip-hop.
Over the last decade, Yahoo Boys, too, have become grand patrons of the arts, setting up record labels and financing music projects in what is a multimillion-dollar industry.
“A lot of fraud money has definitely gone into (our music), from people who wanted to genuinely clean up their acts to people who really loved the music and needed to do something to get themselves out there because a conventional label is not going to give you a deal, they do not understand your vision,” said Agwu, the talent scout.
The music business is capital-intensive, and in Nigeria, where the industry still lacks adequate funding and infrastructure, upcoming artists, especially from inner-city areas, find it hard to access funds to boost their careers.
Many of these musicians, born and raised in slums, turn to internet fraudsters to help fund their ambition of being the next superstar. For many Yahoo Boys, it’s a win-win situation; bankrolling an artiste allows them to launder their money and boost notoriety via songs since artistes sing the praises of their benefactors.
“In Nigeria, we can say the Yahoo Boys or the internet fraudsters were the first set of people to get into talent, investing money in talent. And as a way to pay back, a lot of the talent who had benefactors who were internet scammers showed appreciation and reverence,” said Akinyemi Ayinoluwa, the lawyer
