Edited by Azizi Powell
Latest revision: October 29, 2021
This is Part I of a pancocojams series showcasing the Nigerian Afrobeats record "Wo!" by Olamide.
Part I presents information about Nigerian Afrobeats artist Olamide as well as information about Olamide's 2017 song "Wo!!"(rhymes with the English word "oh" with a "w" in front of it). [Additions and corrections are welcome for this pronunciation.]
This post also showcases a YouTube video of "Wo!!" and includes partial lyrics for that song.
According to a number of comments, "Wo" is a Yoruba word that means "Look".
The Addendum below showcases a vlog episode in which a Nigerian woman translates the lyrics for Olamide's son "Wo" into standard English.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/05/funny-serious-wo-comments-in-discussion.html for Part II of this series. Part II provides a compilation of some of the comments in the discussion thread of the YouTube video for Olamide's "Wo!!".. That compilation focuses on some funny and serious examples of comments from that discussion which include the word "wo". My brief editor's note about this sub-set of comments is also included in that post.
The content of this post is presented for cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Olamide for his musical legacy. Thanks to all those who helped produce this embedded video. Thanks also to all who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publisher of this video on YouTube.
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SHOWCASE VIDEO: Olamide - Wo!!
OlamideVEVO, Published on Aug 16, 2017
-snip-
Statistics: as of May 20, 2019 at 12:00 PM
total # of views - 25,358,130 views
total # of likes - 115,000
total # of dislikes - 7,500
total # of comments - 5,609
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INFORMATION ABOUT OLAMIDE
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olamide
"Olamide Adedeji (born 15 March 1989), known by his stage name Olamide but popularly called Olamide Baddo or BaddoSneh, is a Nigerian hip hop recording artist.[1] He records mostly in Yoruba, his native tongue. In 2011, he released his debut studio album Rapsodi while signed to Coded Tunes. YBNL, his follow-up album, was released under his label imprint YBNL Nation. The album was supported by the singles "First of All", "Voice of the Street", "Stupid Love", and "Ilefo Illuminati". On 7 November 2013, he released his third studio album Baddest Guy Ever Liveth. The album's singles include "Durosoke" and "Yemi My Lover". On 17 July 2013, Olamide became the first Nigerian to sign an endorsement deal with Cîroc.[2] Olamide has been nominated and won several music awards, including multiple Nigeria Entertainment Awards and The Headies Awards."....
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ARTICLE EXCERPT:
From https://www.musicinafrica.net/magazine/wo-olamides-call-streets "Wo!! is Olamide's call to the streets" By IfeOluwa Nihinlola, 31 Aug 2017
"Olamide could phone it in the rest of his artistic career and he’ll still have passed the legendary test. Such is the measure of his influence on Nigerian hip hop, and to a larger extent Nigerian pop culture.
On ‘Summer Body’ the artist known for his manic release of hit singles and yearly albums seemed to be settling, finally, into the mediocrity that has plagued mid-career artists like Dbanj. It appeared he was trading his street savvy for international exposure. He was finally following a trend as opposed to defining it.
But in ‘Wo!!’, Olamide arrests what would have been a sorry development. Here, as in many of his hit songs, Young John (the wicked producer) is doing some heavy lifting.... On ‘Wo!!’, his beat is similar to that made by proto-fuji ajiwere groups that used to roam the streets and beat pots and pans on the streets of South west Nigeria. It is sparse, simple and extremely danceable.
Olamide opens the song with a hook that follows the pulsing sound of a countdown beep. “Wo” is Yoruba for see, but in Olamide’s mouth, as on the streets he swears allegiance to, it is an arrogant, aggressive calling of attention. He punctuates every line with the word. The hook is directed at the listener, demanding that she dances properly—like daddy, like mummy, like a rich man, not like a poor man.
“Won ni wo n wa wa n’gboro,” he says. “They say they’re looking for us in the streets”—a self-referential line that suggests he’s aware of the implication of the bourgeois and sterile ‘Summer Body’....so he knows there should be a search party out for his reputation, even if no one is ready to doubt his abilities or discount his influence. Yet.....
He is back with a promise that there’s room for the commotion he caused upon his entry to the music scene.
[...]
Olamide’s lyrics are filled with obscure references..., both a way of coding his music for his audience on the streets and also making a snapshot of the times he grew up in.
On the last verse, he doubles down, repeating sounds of consonant and vowel pairs—shakiti, faka fiki, a bi di, shaba gidi, waka-wiki, kaakakiki—creating what is close to ena, a form of alteration to defined patterns, which Yoruba speakers use when communicating with the intent of eliminating the uninitiated. It is a strange aspect of the Yoruba language, so why is Olamide doing this?
The final verse of ‘Wo!!’ gives a clue. He mentions Aunty Shakira, a line that can be taken, wrongly, as referencing Colombian singer Shakira, who is famous for her dancing. But Olamide’s Shakira is an elebolo, a more obscure word for prostitute than olosho.
“Aunty Shakira dance shakiti,” he says. She says she likes to “faka fiki”, a sound used by children in describing trains and an adult euphemism for sex. He claims she wants to blow his “kakaki,” a long metal trumpet in North Nigeria.
Olamide has been in PR trouble before for the sexual content of ‘Story for the gods’. So his deployment of coded language limits his audience’s understanding. He sings of a grateful fan who wants to show appreciation.
‘Wo!!’ became instantly popular partly because Olamide asked that dance videos be made and posted online for a prize. The dance videos went viral, and one of them was inserted into the song’s official video. But with popularity comes scrutiny, so perhaps the additional coding in that last verse is deserved.
“What makes the song is the beat,” wrote Adrian Chen in the New Yorker. On first listen, Chen’s aphorism seems true of Olamide’s ‘Wo!!’. But beneath beat and dance, Olamide’s words do more than he’s given credit for.
He is not rapping—at least not in the hardcore sense of the word—but by choosing Young John’s proto-fuji sound, and chanting on it in coded Yoruba, Olamide has sent a dog-whistle to his fans on the streets. He is back to being the local rapper they know."
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PARTIAL LYRICS - WO!! [Yoruba and Nigerian Pidgin English]
(Olamide)
Wo!!
Oya - wo!
Won ba e wi n’ibi - wo
Ma lo se bi ogoro - wo
Awon omo tikabodi - wo
Ma lo lalakibo - wo
Oya jo bi mummy - wo
Oya jo bi daddy - wo
Oya jo bi olowo - wo
Ma lo jo bi olosi - wo
Olorun awa n’gboro - wo
Won lo ti n miss wa n’gboro - wo
A tin bo Ambode - wo
A de si ma fa gobe - wo
Gbona feli-feli - wo
Chicken peri-peri - wo
Ma wo bi teli-teli - wo"....
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[English translation]
"Look!!
Okay, look!
They are correcting you here - look
Don't try to behave like a fool - look
All this naughty children - look
Don't behave irresponsible - look
Okay, dance like mummy - look
Okay, dance like daddy - look
Okay, dance like a rich man - look
Don't dance like a pauper - look
God know! we are on the street - look
They said they've missed us on street - look
We are coming Ambode - look
And we will cause trouble - look
Very very hot - look
Like spicy chicken - look
Just be looking like a television - look"....
-snip-
Click https://lyricstranslate.com/en/wo-look.html for the complete lyrics to this song.
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ADDENDUM: VIDEO
[July 9, 2019]
Olamide - Wo! || Translating Afrobeat Songs #2
Diamante Box, Published on Jan 4, 2018
Happy new year guys! Today we're translating Olamide Wo! This was a very interesting song as the majority of the words made little sense lol but I hope you're entertained by the video.
-snip-
This is a vlog episode by a Nigerian woman translating the lyrics to "Wo" into English
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This concludes Part I of this pancocojams series.
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