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Somebody’s son

By Sinem Bilen-Onabanjo
16 October 2021   |   2:41 am
As she shared the video, Tiwa added, “This is a special one, may we all find our ‘somebody’s son’ ‘daughter’… Somebody’s son visual out now, head on and stream.”

Brandy & Tiwa Savage in Somebody’s son music video. Photo/Youtube

‘Somebody’s son go find me one day
One day
I don dey wait, don’t stay too far away
Somebody’s son go love me one day.’
This week, Tiwa Savage premiered the video for her global hit titled Somebody’s Son, which features American singer Brandy, taken off Tiwa’s latest EP Water & Garri.

As she shared the video, Tiwa added, “This is a special one, may we all find our ‘somebody’s son’ ‘daughter’… Somebody’s son visual out now, head on and stream.”

Featuring an ageless Brandy and a gorgeous Tiwa, the suitably sweet video features scenes from various stages of romantic relationships – from romance to proposal to pregnancy and feels like a warm hug. It us certainly fitting for the Segun Michael Ajayi-produced track, in which Savage and Brandy, amid run-ins with heartbreak, remain optimistic that the perfect man will find them and treat them like deserving queens.

So far, so good… but I have a problem.
Why, oh why, in the 21st century we live and thrive in, as women, we have still peddled the same medieval fairy tale tropes of damsels and knights in shining armour? I have no issue with Tiwa Savage or what is on paper a sweet romantic song, much like I don’t often have a problem with ‘leave your brain at the door’ sickeningly syrupy sweet romantic comedies until it gets to the part where ‘little girl lost’ countless times heartbroken goes on a rollercoaster ride of excitement and anxiety in equal measure until she ends up with her knight in shining armour.

This is no different than the mediocre Turkish TV series, often timed for a summer release when the audience – tired of the heavy-hitting dramas of winter prime time – want light-hearted entertainment, often featuring scantily clad women and gratuitous use of male nudity, as well as flashy cars and fancy settings with storylines that take place in either an advertising agency or architecture firm. Young women appear in mini skirts and crop tops as office wear that you wouldn’t be able to step out on the street and walk 200 yards in without being catcalled let alone make your way across town at rush hour to an office building. Guys are fashionably cool, with chest hair strategically sprouting from their shirts. There are often party scenes, a pool scene where the ‘main girl’ ogles her love interest’s muscles, often a scene where the clumsy main girl trips and falls and miraculously escapes death thanks to the main guy catching her in a firm embrace. Oh, and there is plenty of staring…

No matter how good the premise of a story is, as soon as the romantic interest enters, what follows is an insult to the viewers’ IQ as we end up watching a series of improbable events to throw the love interests together and then break them apart only to neatly wrap the story up in 50-odd episodes towards a happy ending. The happy ending of course involves, if you are lucky, a wedding, if you are really unfortunate a fast-forward scene to five years into the future where our main couple has a kid and the main girl is pregnant again! What happens to the other characters? From the best friend to the grandmother, everyone’s matched up with a love interest… except of course the evil people who are neatly written out of the story.

As heart-breaking as it is for a woman to keep falling for the wrong guys, more heart-breaking is the fact that in this day and age we still tell our girls – and even our grown-up women – that the way to happiness is through the arms of a man.

Even if it is a feel-good song of hope over hurt or a brainless romantic comedy we watch for kicks, all that we see and read is part and parcel of what we feed our mind and soul. Worse yet, we feed young girls on the same diet.

Isn’t it time we start telling our girls happiness is possible even on your own? Or that we don’t have to pair up with our match as if we are all rushing on to Noah’s ark? Maybe then, they will stop going from one heartbreak to another in the quest of the man who will complete them, confident that they are already full and complete and perfect as they are.

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