Beatles t-shirt stirs controversy in Nigeria

[warrrreagl]

One of my music students from Nigeria brought me this article, describing some political hot water in Nigeria over a Beatles t-shirt.

How The Beatles T-shirt caused stir in a Kaduna Shari’a court

Friday, October 9, 2009
What’s a T-shirt got to do with dispensing justice?, you may wonder. But T-shirts could actually ignite controversy. Hassan Ibrahim recounts the ordeal of human rights crusader, Sheu Sani, recently in a Shari’a Court.

For Shehu Sani, President of the Kaduna- based Civil Rights Congress (CRC), protecting and upholding human rights whether in a civilian or military administration is a sacred duty. That is why he often incurs the wrath of the authorities.

During the military era, he was in jail on many occasions, and was said to have even stayed in the same jail with the late General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua. His offence was his being vocal and active in pursuit of a much better society where everybody would enjoy the goodness of life.

In Kaduna and other states in the North where it operates, the CRC, under Shehu Sani, is used to defying all odds and standing in the defence of the downtrodden, especially in the courts, as was exemplified when the congress mobilised lawyers to stand in for Baba Masaba, the man in Niger State reported to have many wives.

A few years ago, Sani and his CRC fought for the freedom of about six people, who were to have their limbs amputated. One of the culprits had stolen a bag of maize. Last week, in Kaduna, there was a mild drama at a Shari’a Court in Magajin Gari Kaduna as the Judge, Alkali Lawal Ibrahim, sent the civil rights activist, Malam Shehu Sani, out of the courtroom because he was wearing a T-shirt which had the portrait of a popular music group in UK, The Beatles.

The Beatles were a group of musicians who were even more popular than the Jackson 5, especially in Europe and the Americas in the 1960s and the 70s.They were loved mostly by the youth and till date, many remember them and cherish souvenirs that carry their portraits.

But the Shari’a judge said he had no reason to allow Sani, who either by accident or design wore The Beatles T-shirt, to remain in the courtroom. He even threatened to charge him with contempt of court if he stayed any longer in the courtroom. While narrating his ordeal, Sani said he and other rights activists were in the court to observe the proceedings and render assistance to those that might need legal services, but could not do so.

On sighting Sani in his courtroom, the judge had taken offence and told him that the T-shirt he was wearing, which had The Beatles’ portrait, was against the religion of Islam and the Northern culture and tradition.

The judge explained further that the attitude of The Beatles and other similar musicians would not augur well for Northern culture and religion, adding that he was not deliberately stopping Sani from coming to the court because he knew him as a renowned civil rights leader in the North.

“But in my capacity as a Shari’a judge, I declare that the T-shirt Shehu Sani is wearing, with the picture of The Beatles, is offensive. I know them and the kind of music they played was not for public peace and was against the authorities. They were four devil-minded personalities in the West,” he said.

The judge added that “Sometime on the 26 November, 1969, one of The Beatles, John Lennon, returned his knighthood of MBE to the Queen of England and his reason was that he was against British involvement in the then Nigerian civil war.”

The judge was of the view that John Lennon’s position was subversive to the British government because the British involvement in the Nigerian civil war assisted Nigeria tremendously to restore peace and orderliness.

“John Lennon was with The Beatles; he is not to be emulated; he is not a role model. I won’t tolerate putting on a T-shirt with his portrait,” he roared. However, Sani politely told the judge that he and his colleagues were not in court for any judicial or moral interpretation of The Beatles, but to monitor proceedings and see where they could come in and assist the less-privileged.

“John Lennon was a man of peace and The Beatles in the T-shirt I am wearing were neither trouble makers nor against the religion of Islam and our values.”

Sani said that The Beatles were successful young men who were great entertainers and offered to bring some of The Beatles CDs to the judge to watch, thus throwing the entire courtroom into hilarious laughter.

But when the judge insisted that Sani must leave the courtroom or be charged with contempt, Sani said he respected the pronouncement of the judge but would never accept that The Beatles were bad, as perceived by the Shari’a judge.

For now, the development remains a topic of discussion in Kaduna. While Sani has remained undeterred and vowed to continue fighting for the downtrodden, the public has kept its fingers crossed to await further explanations on the matter from the public court.

How freakin' cool is that? Even after 40 years, The Beatles are still confounding to the adults...

[Plan9]

Niger, please.

[warrrreagl]

Originally Posted by Plan9

Niger, please.

I checked with the student, and he says it was in Niger State, which is in Nigeria.

[FelixP]

The beatles are one of the worst bands of all time, but I'm not sure I'd consider them offensive.

[Plan9]

Originally Posted by warrrreagl

I checked with the student, and he says it was in Niger State, which is in Nigeria.

You missed the pop culture reference.

[yournamehere]

Originally Posted by FelixP

The beatles are one of the worst bands of all time . . .

based on . . . ?

We all know it's cool to go against popular opinion, but, really? You're actually going to make a stand that The Beatles were one of the worst bands of all time?

<insert pop culture reference here>

[SSJTWIZTA]

Originally Posted by yournamehere

based on . . . ?

personal opinion?

never been much of a beatles fan myself. its hard to tear up the dance floor when you're nodding off to sleep, but i still enjoy 4 or 5 of their little diddys.

this kaduna guy sounds like a prick...add another reason to the long list of "reasons to stay the hell out of africa"

[Charlatan]

To declare that the Beatles were the "worst band of all time" is worthy of ridicule.

Musical taste is subjective. Yes. But really, there isn't a case to made that they are the "worst band of all time".

You give hyperbole a bad name.

[Plan9]

Well, there are two types of people in this world:

Rolling Stones fans and Beatles fans.

[Charlatan]

Even seen through that lense... to say they are "the worst" suggests you don't listen to music.

[SSJTWIZTA]

/still off topic

you know, i wouldnt say im a fan of either of those groups.

[mixedmedia]

Originally Posted by FelixP

The beatles are one of the worst bands of all time...

So where does that leave Three Dog Night?

[Charlatan]

or Creed?

[warrrreagl]

Originally Posted by Plan9

You missed the pop culture reference.

No, I didn't.

Originally Posted by FelixP

The beatles are one of the worst bands of all time, but I'm not sure I'd consider them offensive.

No one is saying you MUST like the Beatles. I personally feel kind of sorry for you for not getting into them, but ok, fine. Life’s full of that kind of subjectivity. But saying they’re worthless, untalented hacks who didn’t accomplish anything is equivalent to saying Michael Jordan can’t dribble or you think Paris Hilton is a great actress. It’s utterly false. You might as well say Mozart sucked and Picasso painted big piles of steamy crap.

If you really think the Beatles sucked, you might as well turn off your radio, iPod, MP3 Player, Reel to Reel, turntable, 8 Track or whatever you use to listen to music with, because their influence can be found not only in the music, but in recording techniques, production, marketing, culture and music videos. You can't listen to any recording artist today in any genre without hearing some Beatles influence. Because for that to be the case, they would have to be recording without any multi-tracking, over-dubbing, or ping-ponging; without any stereo split, or any artificial double-tracking and flanging; without any compression, distortion, limiting, phase shifting, or back-masking; without anything beyond standard blues chord changes; without non-standard instrumentation, non-standard sound production on standard instrumentation, soundscape presentation, or other examples of music concrete. And that’s just a start concerning recording techniques. We can go further into hair length, clothing, political climatology, satellite television appearances, length of singles beyond 3 minutes, record label independence, marketing, music videos, etc.

Whatever nondescript band ‘rules’ today will be forgotten 5 years from now and we’ll still be talking about the Beatles 100 years from now.

[The_Jazz]

Would it kill you to play more Foghat?

[Reese]

Originally Posted by warrrreagl

...

What he said. Even if you don't like the Beatles, You can pretty much guarantee your favorite band's sound was directly or indirectly influenced by them.

[Hanabal]

Even if the beatles did influence modern music to that extent, that doesn't mean their music was automatically good. Like it has already been said, 5 or 6 of their tunes are good. The rest, even if they are technically innovative, are not that great to listen to, at least to my ears.

Take for example "hey jude". good song, I'd even say great song if it was 3 minutes long. Why they have 4 or more minutes of repetitive dribble at the end is mystifying. Recently playing through beatles rock band and I realised that more than half of the songs are good to a point. then they collapse into a seemingly never-ending repeat of the same 1 or 2 lines. Its like they thought songs needed to be a minimum length, so they added very bad, very annoying padding to them.

Otherwise they are great.

Back to the article. I wish the guy put a jacket on or something, to test the judge about his statement that "he was not deliberately stopping Sani from coming to the court because he knew him as a renowned civil rights leader in the North"

[mixedmedia]

yikes.

[yournamehere]

Originally Posted by Hanabal

Even if the beatles did influence modern music to that extent, that doesn't mean their music was automatically good.

Ummmm . . . actually, it does.
Unless you're asserting that all musicians since the early 60s have been deliberately sabotaging their careers by allowing that influence on their music.

[blahblah454]

Its kinda crazy that a shirt with a band on it caused such a stir.

And just because the Beatles were the first does not mean that the techniques that they employed would have never been discovered.

[The Inspector]

Back in the mid 80's I lived in Arkansas and the ONLY real rock n roll station started about this time of year hyping their big New Years Eve TOP 100 SONG OF ALL TIME!!!!!

They would play several song and then come on and say something like 1 or 2 of those will be in the TOP 100!!!!!! You gotta listen all day and all night NEW YEARS EVE!

They played the whole thing up BIG and everyone was talking about it. We even had a pool going at the shop, Dollar a song, for the number one song OF ALL TIME!!!!!!!!

The pot got up to several hundred dollars by the time New Years rolled around and everyone was glued to the radio to hear the final countdown.


The top ten included things like Hotel California and Layla, Sitting on the Dock of the Bay and When the Levee Breaks. Our pool had several votes for Freebird and Stairway to Heaven as the number one song.

The countdown got to 3 and it was Freebird......

The number 2 finally played and it was Stairway.....

We were all like WTF?!?!?!?!? What could have made number 1?

Everything that was good had already placed farther down the list.

Then they announced...
THE NEXT SONG IS AND ALWAYS WILL BE THE NUMBER ONE ROCK AND ROLL SONG OF ALL TIME!!!!!!!!! ALL TIME ALL TIME ALL TIME ECHO ECHO echo.....

Then Hey Jude started to play on the radio.

We were shocked at first then we decided that it was a hoax since the DJ's on there loved to pull stupid stunts so the HAD to be faking this and they would play the REAL song after this....

They were not joking..... they had decided the Hey Jude was terrific.

They were nearly boycotted off the air. I quit listening and switched to country because of their dumb asses.


Hey Jude the best? Not by a long shot, a very long shot. It doesn't even deserve to be in the top 100. While My Guitar Gently Weeps was down around 25 and the highest rated Beatles song EXCEPT for HJ.

[Plan9]

Originally Posted by The_Jazz

Would it kill you to play more Foghat?

C'mon, now! SLLOOOOOOWW RIIIDE... TAKE IT EEEE-ZEEE.

[Baraka_Guru]

I thought everyone knew "Hey Jude" is the best rock song ever. I guess the Beatles will cause controversy on a number of fronts.

"For well you know that its a fool who plays it cool
By making his world a little colder...."

[Charlatan]

For the record, I appreciate the Beatles and even listen to their music from time to time BUT I wouldn't say they are my favourite or even the best of all time.

The problem with the Beatles, for me, has to do with over exposure and my own knee-jerk reaction to counter that with sneers and contempt. The thing is, once you actually read the history of the band and listen with a critical ear... things change. Lennon and McCartney wrote some amazing pop songs. They also changed music. Sure someone else might have done it later but they did it first and they made it popular.

You don't have to like it but you do have to appreciate what they did.

[warrrreagl]

Originally Posted by Charlatan

You don't have to like it but you do have to appreciate what they did.

Well, said, Charlatan, and this is really the heart of the matter. Each of us are different and we all have our own tastes and curiosities. And most importantly, those tastes and curiosities change over time. I definitely don't read the same literature I read when I was in college, and I don't listen to the same music, either. And out of all the possible genres there are out there, there are tons of them that I truly despise. HOWEVER, I still appreciate them. Even for the music I hate, I know what makes it tick and what drives it and inspires it, and I appreciate it. I just might not like it.

And I don't confuse the two. All of us should be able to hate a style of music without feeling the obligation to trash it. The "I hate it, therefore it sucks" argument is extremely juvenile and ego-centric, and much more at home on ebaum.

I think one of the most interesting aspects of my music appreciation classes is the trend I've noticed whereby students lock in their personal prejudices with music. For example, students who are uncomfortable around country white people tend to hate country music, mostly because they associate the type of person to the type of music, rather than a subjective listening to the actual music. Equally so, students who are uncomfortable around wannabe thugs and gangstas tend to hate rap and hip hop as well. I'm convinced their hatred of the music is based on their feelings toward the people they associate with the music rather than the actual music itself.

I always cherish that rare student who is confident enough in their own curiosity and courage to be tolerant and accepting of musical styles that go against their own personal lifestyle.

[percy]

Originally Posted by FelixP

The beatles are one of the worst bands of all time,

As I get older I appreciate the Beatles more and more. I certainly wouldn't call them the worst band of all time though

The Tragically Hip - for those who have heard of them,...are the absolute worst shit band of all time.

Bad songs, bad singing, bad musicianship,...did I mention bad singing,?...

Even mentioning the Beatles in the same comment as the Tragically Shit is an insult.

Of course it is all subjective. Much like the judges opinion.

[Baraka_Guru]

Originally Posted by percy

The Tragically Hip - for those who have heard of them,...are the absolute worst shit band of all time.

Bad songs, bad singing, bad musicianship,...did I mention bad singing,?...

Even mentioning the Beatles in the same comment as the Tragically Shit is an insult.

Does this mean they have to give back all 14 Junos? Does this invalidate their induction to the Canadian Music Hall of Fame?

Of course it is all subjective. Much like the judges opinion.

Yes, of course. That's why we should be saying, "God, I hate that band," instead of, "They're the absolutely worst fucking shit crap band of all fucking time and beyond!!!!11"

If you hate them, fine. It's actually a bit interesting to hear why. Just calling them "teh worst" is not only disagreeable, it's also rather boring.

[Plan9]

Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru

Yes, of course. That's why we should be saying, "God, I hate that band," instead of, "They're the absolutely worst fucking shit crap band of all fucking time and beyond!!!!11"

If you hate them, fine. It's actually a bit interesting to hear why. Just calling them "teh worst" is not only disagreeable, it's also rather boring.

You know what? I want you to teach ethics at my university. You'd be a smashing success.