Once upon a time, I recapped an insane Christian book that claimed the devil created football as a tool to destroy humanity. The article’s popularity made me turn my recaps into a weekly series named “So You Don’t Have To“, where I find batshit crazy pieces of media (books, movies, etc) and recap them for your pleasure.
Continuing the trend of tackling Nigerian music video, today I’ll be recapping the music video for Daddy Showkey’s “Dyna.”
For those who don’t know (I’m looking at you Gen Zs), Daddy Showkey (Real name: John Asiemo) is a Nigerian singer. Super famous in the 1990s, he’s a veteran performer whose style of music helped popularise the dance, Galala — or as I like to call it: That one dance that makes you look like a Victorian-era child battling cholera and polio at the same time. In 1996, he released the smash hit titled “Dyna.” The story is straightforward and cliché. It’s about a woman stripperly named Dyna and chronicles all the shit she puts up with trying to get pregnant. The unintentional comedy here comes from the way the events play out in the music video.
The song starts with the title character sitting on the stairs in front of her house, crying struggle tears.
The camera pans out to reveal Daddy Showkey standing next to her. With his hand on her shoulder, he’s consoling her by saying stuff like:
As he’s saying all this, I notice that she’s not acknowledging him. Turns out that Daddy Showkey exists outside the music video’s narrative as some kind of in-universe narrator no one sees who’s just there to observe and spill tea. The chorus comes next and makes things clearer.
If you see my mama (Hosanna!)
Tell am say oh (Hosanna!)
I dey for ghetto (Hosanna!)
I no get problem (Hosanna!)
This chorus has nothing to do with the song. But because I’m determined to find meaning in it, I’ve interpreted it to mean that Daddy Showkey left his mother’s house to go to the hood searching for hot tea because he’s a messy bitch who lives for drama.
Dyna — yep, it’s Dyna not Diana — is a beautiful woman whose womb has refused to bear fruit after 9 years of marriage. Even though her husband doesn’t care and is kind, Dyna is super bummed out. This is why she has chosen to sit in front of her house and weep. Before we go on, I need you to see how the video shows that Dyna’s husband is caring. He feeds her water and sucks on her cheek:
Sucks her forehead while sitting up:
And sucks her forehead while sitting down.
Dyna and her husband are chilling in their Mount Zion-style living room when her husband’s mother kicks down the door like a wrestler and is like:
This bugs me because while I understand a mother being upset about her daughter-in-law not getting pregnant (even though it’s fucking stupid), why did the whole village come with her?
And why are they all barefoot??
They try to convince Dyna’s husband to throw Dyna out and when he refuses, they proceed to do so themselves. They’ve brought a very strong midget with them who they instruct to go in and pack Dyna’s belongings. The weirdly strong midget goes into the room and returns almost immediately with one Ghana Must Go bag already packed, which I think is super convenient.
When Dyna’s husband tries to stop them, they whoop his ass.
It’s revealed that Dyna’s husband’s mother has brought a girl from the village for him to marry. The girl doesn’t look like she’s into the whole thing tbh.
Dyna’s husband is disgusted by all this and is like:
After making some more angry village noises, they leave. By the next verse, Daddy Showkey is telling everyone to give a round of applause for Dyna because she is finally with child.
And the entire time I’m just like, “Can you let her announce her own pregnancy? Jesus.” He proceeds to throw shade at some “bad people” who I assume are people who didn’t want Dyna to get pregnant. However, it’s never made clear if he’s referring to random haters or members of her husband’s family. They cut to this woman who looks PRESSED.
When Dyna goes into labour, she’s driven to the hospital in a HEARSE.
And for some reason, the entire neighbourhood has come to watch her give birth.
Peep the people there just watching.
Dyna gives birth to a boy and at his naming ceremony, she just sits there quietly next to her mother-in-law who is carrying the baby. It seems like they’re on good terms now but the look on Dyna’s face makes it look like she’s thinking this:
This had me wishing that the video took a different turn and Dyna did poison all the food at this party, killing everyone. Then she would have a costume change and dance around the bodies like Lady Gaga and Beyonce in the video for “Telephone.” But sadly, that doesn’t happen. The video ends with Daddy Showkey dancing away, probably to go write another hit song about someone else’s life falling apart.
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