LISTEN: Blackface releases own version of ‘African Queen’

Ahmedu Augustine Obiabo, Nigerian singer and songwriter better known as Blackface, has dropped his own version of ‘African Queen’.

The dancehall, ragga and reggae singer, who was a founding member of the Plantashun Boyz, a defunct Nigerian band, took to his social media pages on Saturday to announce the audio release.

Listen below:

The single comes about 15 years after Innocent Idibia, his former band member better known as 2Baba, had dropped a song with a similar title.

The song, which is off ‘Face 2 Face’, his debut album, instantly became a hit in 2004 and brought him to stardom.

In 2006, ‘African Queen’ was also used in the soundtrack for the film ‘Phat Girlz’, which was released internationally.

Following the success of the song, Blackface had sought rights to 2Baba’s version of ‘African Queen’. He accused his former band mate of failing to give him proper credit for co-writing the song.

On Friday, the veteran musician had also visited his Instagram page to explain why he had to release his own version.

“Finally my version of African Queen will soon be available on all platforms worldwide… Just to clear the air again… I gave the initial singer the right to sing the song but I never got credited as a writer by the label that released it nor any acknowledgement from the singer while the song did so many numbers and won many awards since 2003/4 till date,” he had written.

“The singer included a third verse he wrote to the music when it was produced by OJB but I took that verse out and included the third I had written to make this version of mine totally written by self ….I can’t wait for you all to feel this one.”

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Finally my #version of #africanqueen will soon be available on all platforms worldwide…just to clear the air again …I gave the initial singer the right to sing the song but I never got credited as a writer by the label that released it nor any acknowledgement from the singer while the song did so many numbers and won many awards since 2003/4 till date The singer included a third verse he wrote to the music when it was produced by OJB but I took that verse out and included the third I had written to make this version of mine totally written by self ….I can't wait for you all to feel this one #produced By @hookmrbrown for #Loudhouz #releasedates #loading #BFNfans 👌 🎼💥🇳🇬🌎💖

A post shared by BlackFaceNaija (@blackfacenaija) on Sep 6, 2019 at 1:10am PDT

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The Plantashun Boyz, which also had Chibuzor Orji (Faze), split in 2004 after releasing two albums. They briefly halted the separation in 2007 to release just one more album.