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“Tell Your Papa”: Aesthetics Of Confrontation And Visual Witnessing In Nigerian Protest Music, Omotayo Jemiluyi

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

This study analyzes the music video “Tell Your Papa” (2025), a politically charged protest song by Nigerian artiste Eedris Abdulkareem, as an exemplary case of aesthetics of confrontation, here conceptualized as a multimodal strategy in which direct address, anti-spectacle visual style, literalism, and discomfort converge to confront political power. Focusing on the song’s explicit critique of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, his son Seyi Tinubu, and other prominent political figures, the analysis demonstrates how Abdulkareem renders indistinct the line between music and political discourse through a visual-sonic language that is accusatory, documentary-stylized, and unflinchingly courageous. While building on the lineage …