Rapper Ssaru opens up on sexual exploitation in the music industry
Female emcee Ssaru has decried the exploitation of young and up-and-coming musicians by top celebrities and key players in the music industry.
According to the rapper, this coterie is the worst to rely on to guide you when you are an up-and-coming female musician.
“People are being promised so much only to be trapped and get laid. Especially these celebrities with big names they have nothing to offer other than empty promises of how they will show you the way by the time you realize you have also shown them other ways,” she explained.
But who is to blame?
“I feel like girls are to blame too because they easily fall for these empty promises. Besides it’s all about how someone carries herself around and this has now become a culture with these top celebrities because they are used to doing that. Once they detect you are naïve and indeed of support, they come after you,” she added.
A case study, according to Ssaru, is the promise of collaborations with top artists.
“Someone will promise you that he will help organize a collaboration for you with let’s say Harmonize. Before you know it you guys end up in an AirBnB in Kilimani just to get you a collabo. Trust you me that collabo will never happen but he will be feasting on you,” she adds.
Exploitation of artists in the entertainment scene and other industries is a story that has been consistently narrated.
In one of the stand out cases, celebrated Nollywood actress, Tunbosun Aiyedehin, described as alarming, a situation where film producers in the industry sought sexual gratification from up and coming artistes.
In a chat with Snapshots on the set of It’s A Crazy World, the thespian, who admits that acting comes with its downsides, said that even though she hasn’t been exploited in any form, she has faced some challenges with respect to the roles she has played.
“Frankly, I can probably speak from the point of view of some other actors with the experiences they have shared with me. I’m alarmed when I hear people say that producers ask them for sexual gratification and I say ‘God thank you’. It hasn’t been like that for me. I can’t get over it, but then, I know it exists. I’ll be fooling myself if I say because I have not gone through it, it does not exist,” she said.
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