Nothing makes people want to hear a song like being told they cannot. Across Africa, governments, broadcasting regulators and censors have banned songs for being too political, too sexy or too honest about drugs and crime. Some of these banned African songs disappeared. Most became bigger hits because of it.
Here are ten songs and videos that were banned, from a 1960s coup in Accra to a police raid on a Zimbabwe concert in 2023, plus one famous ban that never happened.
1. “Guitar Boy” by Victor Uwaifo (banned in Ghana, 1967)
Victor Uwaifo from Benin City was one of the giants of Nigerian highlife. His song “Guitar Boy” tells of the water goddess Mami Wata handing him a guitar and asking him to make good music. It was one of the records that earned him gold discs.
Then a group of junior army officers in Ghana borrowed its name. On 17 April 1967 they launched “Operation Guitar Boy”, a failed coup that killed Lieutenant General Emmanuel Kotoka, Ghana’s Chief of Defence Staff. Afterwards the ruling National Liberation Council banned “Guitar Boy” from Ghanaian radio. A love song about a guitar paid for a coup it had nothing to do with. Read more about Uwaifo in our “Joromi” story.
2. “Hokoyo!” by Thomas Mapfumo (banned in Rhodesia, 1978)
“Hokoyo!” means “Watch out!” in Shona, and the white minority government of Rhodesia took it personally. It banned the record from state-controlled radio and in 1979 threw Mapfumo into a prison camp without charge.
It could not stop the song. Discos kept playing it, and so did stations outside its control such as the Voice of Mozambique. Large protests and the lack of any charge forced his release after three months. Mapfumo later clashed with Robert Mugabe’s government too. See Thomas Mapfumo and chimurenga music.
3. “Fire in Soweto” by Sonny Okosuns (banned in apartheid South Africa)
Sonny Okosun, a former guitarist in Victor Uwaifo’s band, led the Ozzidi band and was one of Nigeria’s biggest stars from the late 1970s. He turned his music against apartheid with songs such as “Fire in Soweto”, named after the township at the centre of the 1976 student uprising. The apartheid government banned it. People in the townships played it anyway.
We told the full story in Sonny Okosuns and the songs against apartheid.
4. “Big Bottom” by Charly Boy (banned in Nigeria, late 1980s)
Charly Boy’s “Big Bottom”, from his 1988 album 1990, was exactly what the title suggests. Most Nigerian states denied it radio play. The video went further: it starred his wife Diane as a wedding guest whose rear distracts the groom, and filmed members of the public who did not know their backsides were on camera.
The broadcasting regulator banned the video for obscenity. Many people now say it was ahead of its time.
5. “I Go Chop Your Dollar” by Nkem Owoh (banned in Nigeria, 2005)
Nollywood comic actor Nkem Owoh sang this song in the film The Master, playing a scammer boasting about advance-fee fraud. The song became a hit, and Nigeria’s broadcasting regulator banned it.
In 2007 Owoh was briefly arrested in Amsterdam during a Dutch police raid on a show, then released. The song outlived the controversy.
6. “Science Student” by Olamide (banned in Nigeria, 2018)
Released by YBNL Nation on 11 January 2018 and produced by Young Jonn and Bbanks, “Science Student” describes young people mixing and taking drugs. Olamide said the song was meant to discourage drug abuse. The National Broadcasting Commission disagreed. In January 2018 it issued a Not To Be Broadcast warning, calling the song “unfit for broadcast” because of its “profligate mention” of illegal drugs.
Its producer later built his own career as a singer. Read the Young Jonn story.
7. “This Is Nigeria” by Falz (banned in Nigeria, 2018)
Falz released his version of Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” on 25 May 2018. The video showed police brutality by SARS, codeine abuse, killings and corruption, with his father, the human rights lawyer Femi Falana, on background vocals. It drew more than 20 million YouTube views, and Sean Combs shared it on Instagram.
The Muslim Rights Concern demanded he withdraw the video over its use of dancers in hijab, and the NBC later banned the song as “vulgar”. Falz pushed back: “If they ban this song, then I do not understand them because that song is definitely not a vulgar song.”
8. “Waka” and “Hallelujah” by Diamond Platnumz (banned in Tanzania, 2018)
Diamond’s album A Boy from Tandale, released on 14 March 2018 by Universal Music, featured Rick Ross on “Waka” and Morgan Heritage on “Hallelujah”. Tanzania’s National Arts Council, BASATA, banned both songs over “obscene lyrics”.
It was not the last time Diamond Platnumz and the regulator clashed. For his rise from Tandale, read how Diamond turned bongo flava into a business.
9. “Tetema” by Rayvanny and Diamond Platnumz (banned in Kenya, 2019)
Released by WCB Wasafi on 20 February 2019 and produced by S2Kizzy, “Tetema” was a club favourite across East Africa. Kenya’s film classification chief Ezekiel Mutua called it “pure pornography” and banned it. The order limited songs such as “Tetema” and Kenya’s own gengetone hit “Wamlambez” to clubs and bars.
The ban did little damage. A later version, “Mama Tetema” with Colombian star Maluma, topped a Billboard chart in Mexico.
10. “Ibotso” by Winky D (Zimbabwe, 2023)
Zimbabwean dancehall star Winky D’s 2023 album Eureka Eureka included “Ibotso” and “Dzimba Dzemabwe”, songs about corruption and the struggles of young people. A pressure group linked to the ruling ZANU-PF called for his music to be banned.
In March 2023 police shut down his concert in Chitungwiza just as he began to sing “Ibotso”, drawing widespread condemnation. Forty-four years after “Hokoyo!”, a Zimbabwean singer was again being stopped mid-song.
Banned African songs and the ban that never happened: “Aben Wo Ha”
In 1999 critics and conservative listeners in Ghana demanded a ban on Daddy Lumba’s “Aben Wo Ha” for its sexually suggestive lyrics. The National Commission on Culture refused. Presenter Tommy Annan Forson declined to play it on his show, which only made people more curious.
The song won Song of the Year at the very first Ghana Music Awards in 2000. Bans, and near-bans, rarely kill a song. More often they become part of its legend. For the full Lumba story, see our Daddy Lumba tribute.
