5 Things Wrong With Dencia's African Energy Song

Have you seen the new dencia video called african energy? What comes to mind when you hear the term african energy? To me it represents a smiley melanin face in the midst of struggle and harsh conditions. Does dencia represent such? I'll point out a few things wrong with the song and its video.

1. A rihanna sample

She portrayed africa as talentless by sampling rihanna's “american oxygen”. Did she have to wait for rihanna before doing a song for africa? Aren't there song writers in the continent who can write something better than the rihanna song she sampled? The fact that it's a sampled song makes it less inspiring, cos hearing the song, all one can think of is the rihanna version.

2. Lupita in the video

When I saw lupita in the video, I thought my eyes were deceiving me. Thesame lupita she dissed for being proud of her dark complexion? Same girl now believes in an african energy.

3. Michael jackson in the video

Is michael jackson a black man? Everytime he comes to your mind, do you see him as a black man or a white person?

4. Herself

The song “african energy”, if it must be done, should have be done by a person that strongly believes in the african values and culture, not by some white wannabe. Am talking about people like Angelique kidjo, Asa, Omawunmi etc. These women have so much africaness in their music, and most importantly, they look it. Dencia, in the video almost looked white like Gwen steffani. If not for her dark lipstick, I would have passed her off for a white lady. Same girl was brown in complexion before she suddely changed. What happened to her believe in an african energy?

5. Her product

On one hand, she sings african energy...On the other, she destroys it with her beauty product whitenicious. If she so much believes in an energy emitted by africans, how come she doesn't know that her beauty product kicks against the very thing that symbolises africa, the black skin? If every african starts using such bleaching cream, would we still be able to call ourselves africans in the next 20yrs? The africa in african-american is due to the dark skin, take it away and all you get is someone who has forgotten his roots. She went ahead to say in one of her tweets that moroccans, tunisians, algerians are still africans even though they are white in complexion. She's right there, but we don't see them trying to turn their skin black using some products. So why is she encouraging blacks to turn white when whites don't even think about turning black?


I think we need to stop africans who don't believe in africa from exploiting the continent for selfish gains. I believe she heard the rihanna song, and using the Nigeria artiste mentality of follow-follow, she decided to do her own version and made it for the africa she doesn't believe in.