Nigerian music veteran, Innocent Idibia, popularly known as 2Baba, has addressed the longstanding controversy surrounding the authorship of his iconic hit song, African Queen, clarifying that the track was a collaborative effort between himself and former bandmate, Blackface.
Speaking during an interview on the 234 Mzansi Podcast, which premiered Monday on YouTube, 2Baba confirmed that while he wrote the majority of the song, it was developed jointly with Blackface, his colleague from the defunct music group Plantashun Boiz.
“It was a collaboration,” 2Baba stated. “I wrote most of the song, but we worked on it together.”
The multi-award-winning singer also expressed disappointment over Blackface’s repeated claims of sole ownership, calling the accusations painful and unfounded.
“The legal facts are clear. I honestly don’t know his motives, and I still can’t figure out what I ever did to him,” he said. “A lot of what he says is absurd. It hurts sometimes, and it’s just unfortunate.”
Despite the public fallout, 2Baba maintained that he has consistently shown respect to his former group member, even as the controversy has dragged on for years.
“To this day, I still ask myself why all this is happening. It doesn’t make sense,” he added.
The dispute over African Queen, released in 2004 and widely regarded as one of the songs that introduced Afrobeats to a global audience, remains one of the most notable rifts in Nigerian music history.