It all started with one tweet! Someone tweeted and TwitterNg went ham on the votes, with no holds barred.
It is well known on twitter that Nigerians are not the ones you want to be in a contest with. They take the term “show up and show out” seriously and they have this never give up attitude that is really amazing to see. Nigerians will always come first so if you are running a poll that involves them, you might want to keep it on the down low if you want your country to win.
It was not general knowledge that afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti had been listed among the 2021 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominees and needed votes to become an inductee. According to the rules, the five nominees with the most votes will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame of 2021 class. And at the time Nigerians found out about it, the great Fela was nowhere near the top 10. As a matter of fact, he was at the bottom of the list with the least votes. The list had Tina Turner, Foo Fighters, Carole King, Iron Maiden all leading the poll.
Nigerian artistes like Burna Boy, Don Jazzy and Fela’s first son Femi Kuti – a legendary artiste as well – shared tweets with links asking Nigerians to vote Fela to become an inductee. Everyone joined in sharing this link to boost visibility and awareness. Blogs and media houses including yours truly, shared about it and encouraged Nigerians to vote for Fela. Just like that, Fela went from less than 10,000 votes to 17k, automatically bumping him up from having the least votes.
Fela shot up to 3rd place with over 30,000 votes within a few hours but it would seem that was not enough for Nigerians even though at 3rd place he will be part of the 2021 inductees.
Well, at the time of publication, Fela is currently sitting at the number one spot with over 130K votes and we know Nigerians are not going to give room for anyone else to claim that spot. It looks like the wide margin between Fela and the next person will stay that way. Other artistes gunning for the top five include Mary J Blige, LLCoolJ, Jay Z, Dionne Warwick, Chaka Khan, The GO-GOs, Race Against the Machine among others.
Now we don’t want to sleep on our oars and let someone kick our own abami eda as Fela is fondly called off the first place spot. Voting is open till April 30th so keep the votes coming in for Fela by clicking on https://vote.rockhall.com/results/ . You can vote once a day, every day until the 30th of April.
P.S – If you didn’t already know, we’re rooting for Fela, get to voting!