Entertainment: I was mocked at US college for being black – Davido

Last updated on September 11th, 2021 at 08:38 am

David Adeleke, Nigerian Afropop singer better known as Davido, says he was mocked for being black while he was at a college in Alabama in the United States.

The award-winning singer brought the revelation to light in an interview with Recording Academy, organisers of the Grammy Awards, wherein he reflected on some of his experiences with racism. He said;

“It’s crazy, because I’m from both America and Africa, so I know how both sides think. I went to school in Alabama. I went to college at 15. I was very young. And Alabama was a predominantly white state.

“So being an African kid in a university where it’s 13% black people, it’s amazing. It’s not easy. I had to learn a lot of the things when I was like, “Yo, why you look at me like that?” And not even just being black, being African. They used to ask me questions like, “Yo, how’d you get to America?” I’m like, “What you mean? I came on a plane.” “Oh, y’all got airports?

“It’s crazy because like I said, I grew up in Huntsville, Alabama, this was when I was 15, 16, so I’ve always understood like, yo, this is going to happen. You know what I’m saying? Sometimes just because of the color of your skin, you might not get a lot of honesty from somebody. You feel me? So it was just crazy.

“The other way I look at it, we’re screaming Black Lives Matter, right? But we killing ourselves too. So the conversation is both sided, it goes both ways.”

On Africans changing the narrative, Davido said;

“Now every American wants to go to Africa. Everybody wants to know where they’re from. So it’s good to see the transition from not being appreciated, to being appreciated right now. Even with fashion. You got designers that making African print fashion, so it’s not only music. The culture is being felt everywhere.”