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.

The week, I’ll be recapping the music video for Raqie’s “Ati Ready.”

Rasqie was second in the short assembly line of Usher lookalikes/unintentional tribute brands that came out of nowhere in the early 2000s. (The p-square brothers were the first.) Alongside artists like Azadus, The Remedies, and Plantashun Boiz, Rasqie was signed to then juggernaut record label, Kennis Music, and rocked the airwaves with his debut single both named “Soji,” He returned a few years with the song, “Ati Ready.”

“Ati Ready” was (and still is) a bop, but something about the music video has always bothered me. Specifically, how random and chaotic it is. As I do every week in this series, I’m going to deconstruct the video to show you exactly what I mean.

The video starts with one of these:

Which made me freak out because I thought I was having a stroke. The video starts for real with two different shots of a sunset and one shot of the full moon, unintentionally making the video look like a horror vampire film from the 1990s.

It goes from this to a shot of a casino/club so poorly-lit that I first thought it was a sex dungeon.

As the extras dressed in insane early 2000s outfits are gambling, Rasqie walks in, dressed in a tie & dye ensemble and with an enormous guitar perched on his shoulder.

All the people there turn to look at him the moment he enters, probably wondering he has shown up to a club/casino/sex dungeon with a guitar. Even more confusing is that after his entrance, the guitar vanishes and is never shown again. So it’s like, what was even the point?

Anyway, the song starts and all the people in the club proceed to lose their fucking minds.

Movie musical style.

It’s when the camera starts moving around the club that the most interesting things in this video become apparent: The extras. It seems like they were given no direction in regards to dress code so they all showed dressed like they were going for different events.

This lady is serving “Christ Embassy member attending mid-week service” realness with her top and hairstyle:

These girls are twinning in what looks like Las Vegas showgirl costumes:

“Alexa. Play ‘Best Friend’ by Saweetie.”

These girls look like every happening 100 level babe in every old Nollywood movie:

This lady looks like a mother who’s left her kids at home with her husband because she needs a night out on the town.

“You better live your life, sis! YAS!!!“

This guy looks like an intro tech teacher who clearly comes here every Friday night to blow off steam because he hates his job and students.

This guy looks like a 16-year old who somehow made it into the club and is now trying to see if he can convince an older woman to have sex with him in the club’s unisex bathroom.

And then there’s the song’s female vocalist, who came to the club dressed in native, complete with gele.

She has an outfit change later in the video that I can’t take seriously because an early Destiny’s Child Kelly Rowland wig is involved.

The video goes on like this for 4 mins and 56 seconds, with all the people at the club super hyper for no apparent reason. I watch it till the end, knowing that a party like this can only end one way.

RECOMMENDED: I Watched The Nollywood Movie, “Full Moon,” So You Don’t Have To

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.

Today, I will be recapping the music video for Seyi Sodimu’s hit song, “Love Me Jeje.”

Seyi Sodimu is a Nigerian singer-songwriter who rose to fame in 1997 when he released his smash hit single, “Love Me Jeje.“ It featured vocals from singer and actress, Shaffy THEE Bello.

This song was everywhere. As a human living in Nigeria in the late 90s, you couldn’t avoid the song or its music video. I heard about it for the first time in Sunday school where the teacher told the class — full of children less than 10 years old — that if we listened to this song or any others like it, we were condemning ourselves to an eternity of hot girl summer in hell, right next to other people who sang secular songs, like Fela and Michael Jackson (which is insane because it would be another 12 years before Michael Jackson died).

Sunday school in the 90s was brutal.

But we’re not here today to talk about my Christianity-inspired childhood trauma. We’re here to talk about the music video for “Love Me Jeje.” I wrote about the music video’s plot a while back but I will be expanding on that today.

The video starts with Seyi Sodimu himself walking into a bar with two bodyguards flanking him. It’s clearly daytime and the bar is PACKED. I take this to mean that everybody in the bar has a serious drinking problem that will consume (or has already consumed) them in due time.

As Seyi’s bodyguards are trying to find a place for him to sit, the video cuts to Shaffy Bello seated at the bar. She spots Seyi and is like:

Then we see her doing her makeup in front of the ocean for some reason.

This video is like 70% green screen. My theory is that the director got access to the technology and lost his mind with it.

Sang by Shaffy Bello, the chorus goes, “Every day I think of you. Every night I think of you” which is weird seeing as she’s seeing him for the first time. But whatever, I guess. Seyi starts the first verse by singing…

…which supports my theory that everyone present is battling alcoholism. Because why is he in a bar if he’s clean and sober?? He sees Shaffy sitting at the bar and approaches her with a look on his face that says:

He asks Shaffy her name but as she answers, a sassy broad in an incredibly 90s two-piece outfit and a synthetic wig comes and steals Seyi away. Shaffy is left sitting at the bar like:

Shaffy refuses to back down and decides to fight back. The problem is that the scene where she does this was probably left on the cutting room floor. I say this because the video just cuts from a shot of the sassy broad bringing Seyi to the yard with her milkshake…

…to him dancing after Shaffy as she sashays down the dance floor.

We stan a strong, independent woman who goes after what she wants. UP FEMCO!!!

The video’s plot is chaotic because as he’s singing to Shaffy and hyping her up, he’ll randomly go rock other women.

Men were scum in the 90s too.

My favourite thing about this video is the group of extras they used, who seemingly received no direction whatsoever on what to do or how to dress so they just shuffled about in the background at different energy levels, while dressed for completely different occasions. Like this guy:

This guy:

This guy:

This guy:

This guy:

This guy who is clearly sick of the whole thing:

This woman, who bravely wears a pantsuit out on an afternoon out to pick up men.

And the bar’s DJ, who just looks happy to be included.

I leave you with this awkward GIF of extras being forced to dance while the others watch:

RECOMMENDED: I Watched The Nollywood Movie, “Namaste Wahala” So You Don’t Have To

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.

Today, I’ll be recapping the 2020 romantic comedy Nollywood movie, “Namaste Wahala.”

When “Namaste Wahala” was announced in February 2020, Nigerian Twitter collectively lost its shit. Everyone expected it to be an explosion of both cultures, culminating in a film that would be described as “The Wedding Party meets Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.” But most of the reviews I saw after the movie was released a year later summed it up as being “meh.” (And those were the good ones.)

Here’s the reaction I had after finally watching it this past week:

I finally watched Namaste Wahala today and LMFAOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

— bebe babbitt (@grandpabbychuck) May 18, 2021

Let’s get into the movie and I’ll explain why.

The movie starts with a montage of the two protagonists, Didi (Ini Dima-Okojie) and Rajesh (Ruslaan Mumtaz), starting their day in their individual homes. They wake up, get into workout clothes, and go for a run. What bugs me about this scene is that Didi wakes up and goes running in a wig, which made me wonder if an alien wrote this movie’s script. Because what human woman sleeps in or goes running in a wig?

Also, she puts her hair in a ponytail before leaving her house and it’s still in a ponytail in this shot. However, in the next shot, which is of her and Rajesh running into each other (even though there’s no one else around them), her hair is suddenly let down.

Even though it’s clear from the screenshot above that Rajesh sees her early enough to stop, their cliché rom-com meet-cute has to happen somehow so they still bump into each other. They give each other googly eyes for a few seconds before going their separate ways. Rajesh exhibits serial killer behaviour by saying this:

Didi goes home to have the most insane family breakfast I’ve ever seen. Seriously, they’re only 4 at the table but look at how much food there is.

And this is just a regular meal!

At breakfast, we’re introduced to Didi’s mom (Joke Silva) and dad (Richard Mofe-Damijo). It’s made clear that Didi’s dad is a piece of shit human when he shades Didi for leaving the family’s law firm to go work at an NGO and refers to her job as a hobby. Later on, Didi takes her friend, Angie, to a fundraising event organised by the NGO Didi works for. Even though the event is to raise money for women who have been victims of abuse, Angie is just there to look for man.

Rajesh is also at this event because Leila, the CEO of the NGO, is his cousin. I pause the movie here to laugh because the director/writer/producer of the movie (Hamisha Daryani Ahuja) cast herself as Leila.

Even funnier, her acting isn’t great.

Anyway, Rajesh and Didi run into each other again and this happens:

Then they start dating and the first 3 months of their relationship is condensed into a 4-minute song and (poorly choreographed) dance number.

Something funny that happens during this montage is that whenever they’re on a date somewhere, there are never people in the background. At some point, it felt like I was watching a rom-com set against the backdrop of the rapture. Check it:

The director said, “Fuck realism and production value.”

Rajesh asks to meet Didi’s parents, and even though she’s worried about how her dad will react, she organises a meeting. Earlier in the movie, Didi’s father says he wants her to get married so he can pass on his law firm to her husband. The problematic nature of this desire aside, you’d think he’d be happy that she’s found someone but he’s not, and dramatically spits out his drink in disapproval.

Didi goes to Rajesh’s house to apologise for the way her dad reacted but Rajesh is upset that Didi didn’t inform her parents of his nationality. They have a stupid fight about it that gets interrupted by a phone call from Rajesh’s overbearing mother.

The introduction between Rajesh’s mum and Didi goes terribly. Didi, on her best behaviour is like:

But Rajesh’s mom is like:

Honestly, the whole thing was giving me incest vibes.

Then came the storyline that effectively stops this movie from being a comedy and turns it into a sad drama. Didi decides to represent a hotel worker who was physically assaulted by some rich guy. Didi’s dad finds out about the case and blows a gasket because the defendant in the case is the son of his firm’s biggest client (meaning that he’ll be the one going against her). Didi explains that she’s just trying to help the victim get justice but her father is more concerned about pissing off his client.

Depressed from everything in their lives suddenly going to shit, Rajesh and Didi sit together in his house while dressed in insane Ankara prints.

Their friends, Angie and Emma, convince them to go on a bar crawl. The movie’s makers used this as an opportunity to work in the most violent product placement I’ve seen since Krispy Kreme in 2017’s Power Rangers. Check it:

Because it’s very common for young adults looking to drink their problems away to order COCA-COLA and nothing else.

While they’re teaching Rajesh outdated Nigerian dance moves in a pointlessly drawn out montage…

…M.I just happens to show up. Because why the fuck not?

Didi shows up to the first hearing of the assault case and says she’s hungover, even though all they had the previous night were coca-colas and mocktails. She’s somehow blinded when the physical assaulter’s legal team provides evidence to counter her claim. The “evidence” is literally just screenshots taken from surveillance footage arranged to fit their narrative. Somehow, she falls for it.

The idea of surveillance footage doesn’t even occur to Didi until her she’s had her ass kicked in court. She goes to the hotel and finds out that someone from her father’s firm took the footage and destroyed it. Didi goes back to yell at her father for being such a despicable bastard and he pretty much confirms to her that he did it. Upset, Didi decides to move out of her parents’ house. Her mother is like:

Didi goes to stay with Rajesh. They spend a few days cuddling and watching Zee World (I shit you not) until his mum returns and reads her for filth. Didi wants to leave but Rajesh begs her to stay. What follows is a series of stupid events where Didi and Rajesh’s mum compete for his attention. It’s poorly done and doesn’t pack the comedic punch it could’ve. Didi’s mum comes to take her home but gets into an insult match with Rajesh’s mum.

Didi and Rajesh fight each other because of their mums’ fight and kinda break up (?) I don’t know. We’re shown a montage of Rajesh at the beach by himself looking sad and Didi ugly crying herself to sleep in a bob wig.

After a few weeks of grieving her 3-month-old relationship, Didi goes back to work. She’s able to get the surveillance footage she needs from the hotel’s owner who is an Indian man that’s friends with Rajesh and Leila. Yes, all the Indian characters in this movie somehow know each other.

Didi takes the footage to court and wins the case. Only when this happens does her dad have a change of heart. He apologises and says she’s earned his respect. She forgives him, which is stupid because if she had lost, he never would’ve never apologised. But whatever I guess.

Leila goes to speak to Rajesh’s mother on Didi’s behalf and this is how the conversation goes:

Now convinced that Didi is good enough for her son, she and Rajesh go have dinner with Didi and her family. During this, Rajesh’s mother insults the hell out of Didi’s father.

They all forgive each other and hug it out. The movie ends with a cheap-looking Nigerian/Indian fusion wedding with inconsistent costumes and not enough extras.

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.

RECOMMENDED: I Watched The 2021 Movie, “Mortal Kombat” So You Don’t Have To

[donation]

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.

Today, I’ll be recapping the 2021 “Mortal Kombat” reboot.

To be clear, “Mortal Kombat” isn’t awful. If you’re only interested in seeing your favourite characters from the game perform their special moves in fun choreographed fight scenes with cool CGI, then go for it. However, in terms of acting, writing, characterization, and plot development “Mortal Kombat” doesn’t hold up. Simply put, it suffers from the video game movie curse.

The movie starts in 17th-century Japan. Hanzo Hasashi is doing chores with his family, and you can tell that they’re really happy and in love because Hanzo hugs his wife and tells her this:

I’m thoroughly disgusted by how adorable all this is. But then I remember that when everything is super chill and rosy like this in a movie, it means things are about to go to shit. I’m proven right when Hanzo steps away to fetch water and a man with ice powers named Bi-Han shows up and murders Hanzo’s wife and son.

Hanzo returns to find his wife and son frozen and impaled with a shard of ice.

Enraged, Hanzo kills all Bi-Han’s men in what I think is the coolest fight scene in the movie. When the time comes to face Bi-Han, they have a small conversation that gets lost in translation because Bi-Han only speaks Chinese and Hanzo only speaks Japanese.

Because good can’t triumph over evil in the first 15 minutes of the movie, Hanzo loses the fight and is stabbed to death (with his own knife) by Bi-Han. Before he dies, however, Hanzo is like:

Hanzo does in fact go to hell. His body turns into fire and gets sucked into the underworld.

We never get a reason why.

As soon as Bi-han leaves, Raiden, God of Thunder and protector of the Earthrealm, shows up.

Turns out that Hanzo’s wife hid their newborn daughter from Bi-Han and Raiden has come to take her. This makes me angry because Raiden showing up right then means that he watched the carnage happen and did nothing to stop it.

The following text shows onscreen.

Centuries pass and Shang Tsung, the soul-sucking sorcerer in a bitchin’ bone straight wig, summons Bi-Han to talk about their strategy to win the upcoming tournament. Bi-Han (who shows up in a mask and calls himself “Sub Zero” now) says their victory is certain because he killed Hanzo Hasashi’s entire family. Shang Tsung orders Bi-Han to go kill all the Earthrealm champions so the tournament never happens.

We’re introduced to a guy named Cole Young, a former professional MMA fighter who now sucks at fighting and basically loses cage fights for a living.

An original character created as a stand-in for the audience, he has nothing going on and is boring as hell so the writers gave him a wife and teenage daughter.

Cole and his family are having dinner outside a cafe one evening when Sub Zero shows up and tries to murder them with a hailstorm. They’re saved by a man named Jax, who explains that a mark Cole has…

The Mortal Kombot logo. Lmao

…is the mark of Earthrealm’s champions. Jax has one too and decides to stay back and fight Sub Zero. He instructs Cole to go find a woman named Sonya Blade to get more information. If you’re wondering what happens when a guy with a gun tries to fight an ice demon, here’s your answer:

Cole drops his family off at a motel and goes to find Sonya. Sonya vomits exposition all over Cole. Here’s the gist:

• Mortal Kombat is a tournament between the realms (Earthrealm and Outworld)
• The Outworld has won nine times and if they win a tenth time, they’ll take over the Earthrealm.
• The mark is an invitation to fight in the tournament.
• Some people are born with the mark (like Cole) while others acquire it (like Jax, who killed someone who had it and had it transferred to him).

We’re introduced to the assassin Kano, a potty-mouthed discount Hugh Jackman Wolverine. Sonya is holding Kano hostage because he has the mark (he got it from killing someone who had it). They’re attacked by a humanoid reptile named Reptile and Kano rips its heart out, Klaus Mickaelson style. Sonya suggests they all go looking for Raiden’s temple and offers Kano money to help them find it.

During their journey through the desert on foot, it’s revealed that Sonya doesn’t even have the mark and Kano mercilessly clowns her for it. They run into Liu Kang wandering around the desert. I say “wandering” because he wasn’t even out looking for them. He was just out doing random desert shit. Anyway, he takes them to Raiden’s castle

Fun Fact: Ludi Lin, the actor who played Liu Kang, was also the Black Ranger in 2017’s “Power Rangers.” He needs to fire his agent.

Also, Jax is at the temple. Turns out he didn’t die after Sub Zero ripped his arms off. Liu Kang found him, brought him to the temple, and gave him useless robot chicken arms.

Kinda makes you wonder how they pulled this off, seeing as Raiden’s temple barely had technology anywhere.

Shang Tsung storms Raiden’s castle with his army of evil video game characters but Raiden puts up a wall of lightning (?) to protect his people while they train and find their arcana, a superpower every Mortal Kombat champion has to find within. Kano is the first to find his while screaming Asian slurs at Liu Kang’s cousin, Kung Lao, during dinner.

After some more training, Raiden sends Cole home because he still hasn’t found his arcana, but not before telling him about his lineage. Turns out that Cole is a descendant of Hanzo Hashasi and that’s why he has the mark. Cole returns to his family, forgetting that the reason he left them in the first place is that his presence was putting them in danger. Shang Tsung sends the four-armed, half human/half dragon, Goro, to kill Cole. Goro almost succeeds but Cole conveniently finds his arcana right then and uses it to kill Goro by stabbing him in the eye.

His arcana is basically Plot Armour.

While all this is happening, Kabal, one of Shang Tsung’s men, tries to get Kano to double cross the good guys. It doesn’t take much.

So he destroys the amulet keeping Raiden’s wall of lightning up and brings the bad guys into the temple.

It’s funny sha that Kano’s motivations here are swayed by money. Because he already knows that the Outworld has turned every realm they’ve invaded into a wasteland. What would money do for him in a post-apocalyptic earth??

A fight ensues and the good guys get their asses severely kicked. Some cool stuff happens sha, like when some evil flying chick named Nitara tries to attack Kung Lao so he does this:

And when Jax finally finds his arcana:

Which begs the question: Would Jax never have found his arcana if he didn’t have his hands ripped off?

Kung Lao is killed when he has his soul sucked out by Shang Tsung (LMAO) and Raiden teleports all the good guys to a place called The Void, a place he says the bad guys can’t follow them to. I pause the movie here to scream because WHY DIDN’T HE JUST BRING THEM HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE?!

When Jax asks Raiden why he didn’t help save Kung Lao, Raiden says it’s because Gods aren’t allowed to interfere with tournament. This is stupid because Shang Tsung is a God who has been interfering all over the place. Hell, Raiden himself interfered when he stopped Shang Tsung from killing them in the temple earlier. Cole suggests that they attack the bad guys one by one and they do.

Jax kills Reiko by bashing his head in:

Sonya kills Kano by stabbing him in the eye:

Transferring his mark to her.

Liu Kang kills Kabal by turning into a giant fire dragon and eating him:

And Sonya returns to help Cole kill Mileena.

Sub Zero kidnaps Cole’s family and Cole has to go fight for them. Cole is losing when Hanzo Hasashi FINALLY returns from hell to help. Also, he’s Scorpion now for some reason and clearly took English classes in hell because he says this line in English:

Recalling the dialogue from the beginning of the movie, Hanzo says this in Japanese:

And Sub Zero is like:

After fighting together to defeat Sub Zero, Hanzo says to Cole in Japanese:

Then he disappears. Cole is like:

Shang Tsung shows up, says he’ll be back with a bigger army next time, and disappears. Raiden tells the good guys that it’s now their job to gather the rest of the Earthrealm’s champions. The movie ends with Cole saying he’s going to Hollywood to look for one of Earthrealm’s champions. The camera pans to this movie poster:

Three guesses who Cole is going to look for.

I have so many questions:

• Why did Hanzo Hasashi waste so much time before returning to Earth to help?
• How did he learn English?
• Why did Sonya throw her life away to do all this? She wouldn’t even have been able to compete in the tournament if it happened because she didn’t have the mark.
• Would Jax have never found his arcana if he didn’t have his arms ripped off?
• If the champions didn’t set out to find Raiden’s temple by themselves, would’ve he ever have gone looking for them? I mean, he all-seeing so he he definitely knew that they were being hunted and killed.
• Why didn’t Raiden just bring them to The Void in the first place?
• Why didn’t the writers just have Cole become Scorpion instead of bringing Hanzo back?
• Why does Ludi Lin’s agent hate him?
• When will the video game movie curse be broken?

[donation]

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.

Today, I will be recapping the music video for P-Square’s “Senorita,” the hit single of the now-defunct musical duo consisting of Peter and Paul Okoye.

The early 2000s energy in this cover art is overwhelming and I love it so much

For those who don’t know, Senorita was P-Square’s first single of their debut album titled, “Last Night.” It was a smash hit and immediately catapulted them to stardom. The song is about one (or both) of the brothers mourning the death of a woman he (they?) loved.

To quote the iconic Saturday Night Live character, Stefon, the 5 minute and 28-second music video for “Senorita” has everything:

• A love triangle.

• Insane early 2000s fashion.

• A dance break in the middle of the street.

• A weird celebrity cameo you won’t see coming.

• A grass to grace story with details shrouded in mystery.

• A beautiful, gold-digging young woman named Vivian.

• A poorly-filmed accident scene that’ll have you screaming, “How the fuck did that happen?!”

Let’s get into it.

The video starts with Paul Okoye on an okada. He gets to his destination and argues with the okada driver for a bit about how much the ride cost, which is weird because people usually agree on okada prices before the ride starts. This small argument also lets the viewers that Paul is poor as shit.

As Paul is arguing with the bike man, we’re introduced to Vivian, the video’s vixen. She’s dressed in a black chiffon top and has braids on her head that look mad heavy.

Paul is there to see Vivian, and for a moment it looks like she’s out to see him but then DJ Jimmy Jatt pulls up in a Mercedes.

It’s been 18 years and I still haven’t gotten over the randomness of this cameo.

As Paul tries to hug Vivian, she pushes him aside with a facial expression that clearly says:

She gets into DJ Jimmy Jatt’s car, kisses him, and they drive off, leaving Paul standing stupidly by the side of the road.

The music starts and we see Paul walking in slow motion through a graveyard. He gets to a random grave and starts singing to the tombstone. My favourite thing about this scene is how it was shot at a real cemetery but because they weren’t able to get rid of other people who happened to be there on the day they filmed, we got random shots like this:

Can you imagine being at a cemetery trying to bury your loved only to turn around and see a guy dressed like discount Neo lip-synching for his life next to a tombstone?

Anyway, the gist of the song’s plot is that in the past, Paul tried to get Vivian to be his girlfriend but Vivian repeatedly told him no because he was a broke ass nigga. Now, Paul and his brother, Peter, have hammered and become rich niggas who can afford to drive around in convertible vehicles with their entourage who just sit in the back and wave their arms like wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube men.

While out on a date with DJ Jimmy Jatt, Vivian sees the brothers driving by…

… and without missing a beat, attempts to go famz Paul.

But Paul isn’t having it and is like:

Angry at the recent turn of events, DJ Jimmy Jatt drags Vivian away from Paul and forces her into his car. As he’s driving off, he gives Paul the middle finger, which is supposed to be badass but just ends up being unintentionally hilarious.

Paul decides that being told “fuck you” is an insult he just can’t ignore so he gets brother and crew together to chase after DJ Jimmy Jatt. Meanwhile, DJ Jimmy Jatt and Vivian are having a heated argument…

….when Paul, Peter, and their entourage suddenly appear in front of their car, causing DJ Jimmy Jatt to swerve off the road way more dramatically than he needs to.

Because of the (almost) accident, there’s smoke everywhere and when it clears, Paul, Peter, and their crew perform a choreographed dance that I personally think both Usher and Michael Jackson should’ve sued them for.

I’m convinced that P-Square started off as Michael Jackson/Usher cover band just never evolved from there.

After the dance break, Paul and Peter drive off, leaving DJ Jimmy Jatt humiliated and Vivian horny as hell.

With her gold-digging powers fully activated, Vivian runs after Paul and Peter’s car. To do what exactly? I have no fucking idea. DJ Jimmy Jatt tries to stop her but she’s like:

And then this happens:

Which makes no fucking sense because Paul and Peter drove AWAY from DJ Jimmy Jatt and Vivian. This accident implies that she ran after them and somehow overtook their car???

I guess the super soldier serum has nothing on the power of gold-digging.

Anyway, Vivian dies and this is when it’s revealed that the whole song is a tribute to her, and that it’s her tombstone Paul has been singing to this entire time. Or is it? Because when Peter comes to get Paul from the cemetery…

….the camera pans to show the tombstone in its entirety for the first time and we see this:

Who the fuck is Senor White?? Why establish the girl’s name as Vivian and then use a tombstone that doesn’t have her name on it? Why was Paul so sad that this fucking awful girl died when all she did was treat him like shit? Why was DJ Jimmy Jatt playing himself in this? Why were they all dressed like that in Nigeria’s hot ass weather?

Until next week, y’all.

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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.

Nigerian music videos are…somehow. They’ve always been somehow. And over the years, they’ve just evolved into a different kind of somehow-ness. For that reason, I’ve always wanted to include them in the “So You Don’t Have To” series. Well, the time has come. And what better music video to start with than Styl Plus’ “Call My Name,” or as I like to call it, “A Tale Of How A Bunch Of Guys Creep Out A Girl In A Restaurant Just Because She’s Sitting By Herself.”

For those who don’t know, Styl Plus is an R&B/Pop group that burst on to the scene in the early 2000s with their hit single, “Olufunmi.”. They were so hot at the time that all they had to do was stand on a stage and sing and people everywhere would violently cream their jeans. In 2003, they released a song titled “Call My Name.” The song is an eternal bop but when you pointlessly dissect it like I’m about to, the storyline is kinda weird.

The video starts with a girl walking into a restaurant, dressed in a way that lets you know that this is the early 2000s.

It’s been 18 years and I still wonder if the light show going on behind that glass is lightning or faulty fluorescent lighting.

All three members of Styl Plus (Tunde, Shiffi, and Zeal) are seated on a couch in the restaurant, ogling the hell out of this girl as she walks in.

Styl Plus’ managers and production team at the time make a cameo in the video and ask the audience a question.

The first verse starts. Shiffi sings about how he has seen the girl — who is sitting at a table for two and has ordered two glasses of champagne — whisper something to the waiter so that MUST mean she’s asking the waiter to call him.

Chorus:

Ooh babe, ooh babe,
Can I pour your wine ooh babe
I heard a whisper of my name (whisper of my name}
Did you call my name
Say baby did you call my name

All three Styl Plus members are singing from the POV of one person, which they do in all their songs. Because they make mostly love songs, I always imagine them in a foursome with whichever girl they’re singing about.

Tunde picks up in the second verse, and in it, wonders why the waiter hasn’t called him yet even though it’s been twenty minutes since the girl spoke to the waiter. After a while, he decides to go up to the girl and whisper in her ear.

Zeal sings the third verse and takes the weirdness up a 100 notches when he leans in to smell her hair.

While he’s dancing and sniffing her like a weirdo, this happens:

I expect the boyfriend to whoop Zeal’s ass for trying to move in on his girl but he doesn’t. In fact, neither the girl nor her boyfriend acknowledge him. They just say hi to each other, hug, and leave the restaurant, leaving Zeal standing there looking stupid.

It seems like all hope is lost until the waiter approaches Zeal and gives him a piece of paper…

…with the girl’s number on it.

Notice that the girl’s name is Funmi. THE Olufunmi from the song “Olufunmi.” We love an extended music video universe!

Zeal and his friends throw their fists in the air and the video ends.

So now I’m like, yeah, things worked out well because the girl ended up being down with the shit. But can you imagine how creepy the concept for this video would be if she wasn’t and a man did all that just because he thought he heard her whisper his name to a waiter in a noisy restaurant?

Think about it. Or don’t. Everything in this article is just banter I’ve had with my other personalities.

RECOMMENDED: I Watched The Nollywood Movie, “Highway To The Grave,” So You Don’t Have To

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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.

Today, I’ll be recapping the 1998 Nollywood horror movie, ‘Highway To The grave,’ starring Regina Askia.

I’m screaming at how fucking extra this poster is. Regina Askia’s character never turns into discount Medusa at any point in the movie so why this??

What do you get when you throw self-proclaimed witch hunter; Helen Ukpabio, prolific director; Teco Benson, and goddess of beauty; Regina Askia into an idea pot? You get “Highway To The Grave,” a movie about a beautiful witch who goes about destroying the lives of men unlucky enough to eat her snail. It’s a tale as old as Nollywood itself, with this exact plot recycled many times in movies like Nneka the Pretty Serpent, Karishika, etc.

We’ll never know why honorary Winchester sister, Helen Ukpabio, thought we needed yet another entry in this weird genre. But her decision to do so gave us another chance to gaze upon Regina Askia’s beauty so I can’t complain.

The movie starts with a woman running in the bush.

I’m confused as to why she went exercising in buba and iro but after a few seconds, it’s made clear that she’s running from something. And the thing she’s running from is a poorly-done CGI ball of fire.

The CGI ball of fire catches up to her, but before it can burn her to a crisp, she wakes up screaming.

It was just a nightmare.

She gets up and goes to her daughter’s room. As she’s watching her daughter sleep, we’re shown a flashback.

It turns out that an unspecified number of years prior, the woman struggled with getting pregnant. So she went to her neighbourhood Babalawo to find out why her womb wasn’t cooperating. After consulting the oracle using a calabash full of boiled eggs…

And a lone chicken feather as garnishing.

…the Babalwo informs the woman that her barrenness was a result of her husband’s village people playing Suwe with her womb. To help her get pregnant, he took her to a river to appease the spirits by swinging a goat over her head a few times and tossing it into the river.

I was gooped.

Not since the first Living in Bondage movie have I seen a real animal so casually murdered onscreen.

We return to the present day and the woman’s daughter — the baby given to her by the river spirits — is all grown up. Her name is Sonia (Regina Askia) and she’s standing at the side of the road looking confused. A man named Patrick stops his car and asks to give her a ride and she agrees. During the ride, Patrick starts to hit on her.

At first, Sonia seems like she’s into it. But then when Patrick attempts to get frisky by rubbing her thigh, this happens:

Fucking horrified, Patrick abandons his car and runs away. After serving Usain Bolt realness for a while, he runs into a friend of his who asks:

When Patrick explains what happened, his friend says this:

This is insane because this isn’t even a common occurrence. How the hell is he so sure of what he’s saying?

Patrick says he doesn’t know any Babalawos and his friend promises to hook him up with one. I pause the movie here to think of how common it is in Nollywood movies for characters to never bat an eye when someone they know just happens to have a Babalawo on speed dial.

Patrick’s friend takes him to a Babalawo who’s dressed like an ashewo nun.

The Babalawo tells Patrick that Sonia and her home girls in the marine kingdom have latched on to him. He says that the the only way to be free is for Patrick to walk around a market square naked at midnight.

Patrick completes this task and is ready to return to his life when Sonia appears in his living room like:

Patrick is so shocked by this, he falls over, hits his head on a wooden stool, and dies. Sonia returns to the marine kingdom and is given a promotion for completing her mission.

Her next assignment is to destroy the life of a man named Tony (Segun Arinze). She gets his attention by playing damsel-in-with-a-flat-tyre. When he’s done helping her, he asks her to go on a date with him later that night. She asks to go out the next day instead but he insists on it being that night because he’s getting MARRIED THE NEXT DAY.

At this point, I find myself rooting for Sonia because the men she’s met so far are just fucking awful.

They meet up later that night and and as they’re about to bump genitals, Sonia pulls her signature trick.

Tony passes out and misses his wedding. His fiancée is distraught.

Tony returns and attempts to apologise to his fiancée but she beats his ass with a shoe, causing him to leave the house they both share. As he’s wandering about, he gets run over by a Peugeot 504 and dies.

Obvious mannequin is terribly obvious.

At this point, I realise that this movie is just a super long montage of Sonia stressing men out until they die. I’m tempted to abandon the movie but I’m already halfway through so I proceed to finish it.

Sonia actually has sex with the next guy she seduces, taking his ability to have erections with her when she leaves. He goes to a doctor for help who then directs the guy to a Babalawo.

The Babalawo informs the man that the only way to get his erections back is to bring his mother’s head for rituals. The man is like:

He starts yelling at the Babalawo, who, in anger, makes the man run mad. At this point, the only thought I have about the movie is this:

Sonia’s next target is a pastor played by Tony Umez so it’s clear that he’s going to fall for her “fuck me eyes.”

And I was right.

He chokes to death on his tongue immediately after. The next guy is a chief played by Jide Kosoko. He attempts to have sex with her in his office and almost has a heart attack when she turns into a coffin.

LMFAO! Sonia is giving Loki a run for his money.

Chief finds out from a Babalawo — I’ve lost count of the number of them in this movie — that the only way to save himself from death is to move out of his house with his family and take nothing with him. Chief doesn’t have any other house so the Babalawo offers him a hut to stay in. There’s an unintentionally hilarious nightmare sequence of Sonia chasing Chief around with a machete.

It turns out that Sonia and her marine home girls are in cahoots with the Babalawo and the thing about Chief abandoning all his possessions was a lie. Chief’s wife, played by Helen Ukpabio herself in a very Shyamalan-esque cameo, goes to a pastor to complain. The pastor instructs her to bring Chief for deliverance but Chief tells her:

Sonia gets wind of Chief’s wife’s plans and goes to seduce the pastor in what has to be the skimpiest outfit of 1998.

But she fails because the pastor calls on Jesus and activates his pastorly powers.

The pastor goes to chief’s house to spiritually whoop the Babalawo’s ass. He prays for chief and his wife, and the movie ends.

If you enjoyed this article, share with everyone you know. OR ELSE:

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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.

Today, I’ll be recapping the insane anti-feminist book titled, ‘We Should All Be Feminists Male and Female.’

A quote from Candace Owens on the cover is all the proof you need to know that a book is going to be hot garbage.

About the Author

“Feminism a concept of falsehood coupled together as emancipation, propagated as equality, sold to women as a means to empower but it is ruse for enslavement!”

– His bio on Twitter

I couldn’t find much about Bakma Daniel Garta. All I gathered from his Twitter account is that he has seemingly dedicated his life to fighting feminism:

https://twitter.com/elijahanointin/status/1355992503950913537?s=20

Loves harassing random women just out here living their lives:

https://twitter.com/elijahanointin/status/1379699229061492736?s=20

And eats up whatever conspiracy theory comes his way:

https://twitter.com/elijahanointin/status/1379612147567763456?s=20

The good thing is no one replies to his nonsense, leaving him to scream alone at his weird corner of the site.

Anyway, his book made its way to the TL a few months ago and a couple of people requested that I recap it for the series.

You guyssssss come and see this book I saw in the supermarket today😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂Wahala for who be feminist o pic.twitter.com/FSnYs0B5yD

— Odugbesan Ifeoluwa aka Jesus Baby (@hadassah112) January 23, 2021

@grandpabbychuck 👀

— Odugbesan Ifeoluwa aka Jesus Baby (@hadassah112) January 24, 2021

I was happy to do it but didn’t want to spend money on or be caught purchasing such garbage, so I waited and hoped someone would send it to me. And that’s exactly what happened. Shoutout to Twitter user @linaxabdul for hooking me up!

Because this book has no structure whatsoever (it’s not even divided into chapters), I’ll just be dropping all the insane shit I found in it.

Remember that music trend in the 2000s when a singer would release a song about the opposite gender and then a singer of the opposite gender would release a response? Well, ‘We Should All Be Feminists Male and Female‘ is Bakma Daniel Garta’s response to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s book, “We Should All Be Feminists.’

He starts off the book calling CNA ‘Ngozi’ because he clearly has no fucking respect. He says that feminism is breeding a generation of Jezebelic rebels intent on destroying the bedrock of society (family). He also talks about what he believes is the origin of feminism.

He accuses feminists of being in cahoots with the mainstream media to push for abortion to be made legal so they can have group sex under the influence of alcohol without consequences. He says that women shouldn’t be given all the rights they want because some of those rights are bound to destroy the world.

In an attempt to further discredit the need for feminism, he pulls out this dumb ass argument:

According to Bakma Daniel Garta, this is how and why lesbians are made:

He then tells a totally true story about a couple he knows whose marriage was torn apart by the feminism monster.

He follows that up with what he says is the only weapon that can defeat feminism.

Inevitably, he drags the rest of the LGBTQ community into it.

Who the fuck is Louis?

He says this shit at some point:.

Now we know where men get the audacity from.

While using an entire page to argue in favour of patriarchy, he makes this argument:

Conveniently ignoring the fact that for most of existence, knowledgeable women have been persecuted and wiped from history books.

Oh. Get a load of this bullshit.

He backs this up by saying that women demanding for equality is reminiscent of Lucifer demanding equality from God and getting thrown out of heaven for it. According to him, because Lucifer was never able to get what he wanted, he is using feminists to get it.

What comes next confuses me.

Do all women who go to school and get jobs end up sleeping with the Satan at some point? Because that’s what this paragraph implies.

The protagonist of Buchi Emecheta’s ‘The Joys of Motherhood’ would violently disagree with this.

He pauses for a bit to give horrible advice to men.

More lies:

LMAO!

Whew. The Kardashians just can’t catch a break.

He ends the book patting himself on the back for a job well done.

And adds this:

Me after reading this 60-page book that really should’ve been a 3-page pamphletcif the author didn’t repeat himself so much:

Until next week, y’all.

READ THIS: I Watched The Nollywood Movie, “Last Burial” So You Don’t Have To

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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.

Today I’ll be recapping the 2000 Nollywood horror movie, ‘Last Burial’.

The movie starts with the main character, Ogbuefi (Clem Ohameze), being initiated into the Brotherhood of Knights in the catholic church he attends. After the ceremony, two of his fellow knights come outside to congratulate him. They’re all dressed like the dancing Ghanaian pallbearers so I really can’t take anything they’re saying seriously.

For those who don’t know, “Astronomia” is the name of the song the pallbearers dance to in the meme. You’re welcome.

In the next scene, Ogbuefi is saying night prayers with his family. When they’re done, he kisses them all before bed. All this makes me think that Ogbuefi is a nice, God-fearing man. But I’m proven wrong when, as soon as his family turns in for the night, two barefoot men dressed like Christ Embassy choristers on Valentine’s day appear in his living room to tell him that his time is up.

This is where we find out that Ogbuefi is in a cult and he do usually do money ritual. The conversation he has with these men (other members of his cult) lets us know that he sold his soul for riches and was given a specific number of years to live.

The next day, Ogbuefi goes about putting his affairs in order. He goes to his village and gives the village reverend father ₦400,000 cash in a cardboard box.

Remember that this is the year 2000. ₦500 and ₦1000 notes didn’t exist yet so there’s no fucking way ₦400,000 naira fit in that small box. Also, does that mean he drove from Lagos to the village with a box of money sitting in the passenger’s seat?? So many questions.

He then visits the village chief to donate ₦500,000 to the village’s borehole fund:

Notice how he gave the chief a cheque but gave the priest a carton of cash instead? WHAT WAS THE REASON??

After this, he attends his cult’s next meeting to ask for more time but they tell him no because the patron demon of their cult, Shankiki, doesn’t do life extension policies. As soon as the name, Shankiki, is mentioned, I die laughing because it brings this character to mind:

All my “Martin” fans in the house make some noise!

Ogbuefi instructs his wife, Susan, (Eucharia Anunobi Eku), to withdraw all the money in their account and take it to a pastor to pray on it. When Susan, who doesn’t know about the source of Ogbuefi’s wealth, asks why, he refuses to tell. She screams at him for an explanation and in an attempt to scream back, he has a heart attack and dies.

Wahala starts when the time comes to bury Ogbuefi’s body. Ogbuefi’s brother, Nnado, who is also a member of the cult, reveals Ogbuefi’s occult activities to Susan. Susan is still reeling from this revelation when he drops another bombshell on her.

But because she’s always dreamed of giving her husband a Christian burial or whatever, Susan is like:

And so begins the battle between Susan (backed by the church) and the Shankiki cult for Ogbuefi’s body. On the way to bury the body at the church in the village, one of the cult members pours supernatural glue on the road so the pallbearers carrying Ogbuefi’s body can’t move.

🎵If it’s up, then it’s up, then it’s up, then it’s stuck🎵

The priest tries to undo the spell with priestly magic but it backfires and he gets knocked on his ass. He instructs Susan to take Ogbuefi’s body back home. This is what they want so the cult members are happy.

A lot weird stuff happens after they take Ogbuefi’s body to his house. One of Ogbuefi’s relatives (played by Chinwetel Agu) tries to stop the Shankiki cult from coming in with a shot gun but they neutralise him and the gun with a red handkerchief.

Then some jazz man with leaves ties around his head shows up from nowhere and challenges the cult to a spiritual fight so they get upset and turn him into a midget.

The entire thing is super chaotic and slightly out of pocket but I AM LIVING FOR IT.

It turns out that to successfully bury one of their own, the cult members have to eat the deceased’s heart or they will all die. However, the person has to hand over their heart themself so they have to briefly resurrect Ogbuefi to achieve this. In the middle of the ritual, the priest runs in and is like…

…when he see this:

The priest tries to fight them using a crucifix but it doesn’t work because they’re not vampires. They proceed to spiritually whoop his ass.

It’s not until he’s almost dead that his priestly powers kick in. He screams…

…and the power of God throws the entire cult into disarray.

After the supernatural throwdown, the priest leaves the house and starts going home. When Susan asks what they’re going to do about Ogbuefi’s corpse, which is now sitting upright in his coffin in the middle of his living room, the priest says:

Several weeks pass and Ogbuefi’s corpse is still sitting upright in his coffin because his soul is trapped between life and death. No one agrees to go near him because his eyes are wide open and it’s creepy. No one agrees to touch him because even though he’s awake, he’s technically still a corpse and it’s gross. Since the spiritual fight that took place at what was supposed to be the burial, the village church has decided to exclude itself from the narrative.

Meanwhile, the cult has decided that since they can’t have Ogbuefi’s heart, his son’s own will suffice. They try to attack the boy several times but are never able to harm him because he has an angel inside him.

Eventually, the church agrees to help. The priest has a rematch with the cult members and defeats them quickly this time because his confidence has grown or whatever. Ogbuefi’s body finally lies down to nap for eternity.

RECOMMENDED: I Watched The Christian Movie, “War Room” So You Don’t Have To

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