The French have an expression for the word gossip; ragots de sous-quartier. I’ve always loved it because it sort of describes the kind of place where you will get the dirtiest gossip. Like in a run-down bar in an even more run-down neighbourhood.
It pains me writing this because when I decided to write for Poise, I promised to keep myself far from the maddening crowd of social media in anything that I think constitutes a ‘ragot.’ 2019 is not even one week old and here I am already. Lucky for me I found a nice angle to steer us from the brouhaha of what this story is about.
I looove Mr Leo. For the past 3 years, that able son of Nso has been giving us one hit song after another. I love the man so much that I have been pimping his music to a Nigerian friend who works at a radio station in Lagos for the past months. And so it hurts me when I see the comments concerning his accoutrement. Pardon my French.
I have my own personal opinions on the subject, which I will keep to myself. However, there is certainly no smoke without fire and if a large number of comments on social media has been unfavourable as far as his dressing is concerned, then there is certainly a problem somewhere. Remember the Warzee premiere?
A lot of people have brought forth the argument that people should focus on his music and not what he wears. That argument holds some weight, with most of it in 1925. Today, there is a huge relationship with fashion and music and as an artiste, the moment you step ne serait-ce que your little toe into fashion, you are going to be judged by fans. Even if you take the Ed Sheeran path and just focus on the music, somewhere, somehow, tongues will wag. It’s an inescapable prison.
But I am beginning to steer away from my subject matter. And here comes the ragot.
Media personality (I hate those words) and Dcoded TV owner, Joan Ngomba made a Facebook post yesterday about Mr Leo and his dressing.
She said “On this Mr. Leo matter... its bad PR. Period! His poor red carpet outfits trended more than his music in 2018. That’s a fact. And if people complain about something over and over, then take a look into it or better still, fix the situation…Don't look like their servant when you look too good for all Cameroonians to admire. I think he should start dressing up as good as his music. ”
Well, unlike Joan, I’d like to think it is a matter of personal style and not exactly a matter of PR. Although… good PR listens to opinions and then they remedy it. So somewhere, it is a bit of a PR matter (Confusing, I know).
The post may have come off a tad bit acerbic but I want to believe Joan’s intentions were not so.
Then something happened. The real PR mess, which kind of reminded me of the article we published here about ICT University. A lady, from what I gather is the PR manager of Mr Leo, came on this same Facebook like Prince Oberyn Martel to defend her champion, with her own Facebook post which said, verbatim “It’s 2019 and y’all still don’t wanna focus on your own sh!t. U worried about someone who is stacking up cash and more cash!!!...” (Terrible, I know).
So there are three things involved that I want us to ponder on today: The notion of equating success and reducing everything to money, the inability of our generation to take criticism (even constructive ones), and the number of impostors we have around us.
Listen, if there was ever a doubt that Mr Leo had a PR problem, well it just got laid out bare. “Impostor” might come off as a harsh word, even from a nice and gentle guy like me, but sometimes calling a spade the wood & metal tool it is, is necessary. I think our generation is one that wants to have the title without having to put in the work. I think it was Pascal who said in one of his songs that “all man for Facebook na CEO.”
Today we have people who write two paragraphs on a Wordpress article and boom, they call themselves bloggers. And they are everywhere, not just in the entertainment industry. Now I don’t know if Mr Leo’s PR manager personally, but I certainly hope she did not take a course in PR or marketing. At least she’ll have more credibility. In her defense, we could say she doesn’t know.
And we have, again, as a generation, come to reduce everything to money. Why must it be about money? Why do we have to reduce success to something as fleeting as money? A lot of the people who made great contributions to this world were not rich. Vincent van Gogh whose paintings today is studied in art schools over the world and which fetch millions of dollars at auctions died a broke man at 37 after shooting himself. As a matter of fact, Mr Leo stacking that much cash begs the question why he hasn’t got a stylist. Or if he has one, why they haven’t gotten him a better one.
Success can be measured in other ways other than how much one has in the bank. I tend to think that what Mr Leo has contributed to the culture should be the currency in which his success is measured.
Finally, criticism. I honestly think that this much chatter about what Mr Leo wears is coming from a place of love. Mr Leo and Daphne are arguably two of our most marketable urban artistes. I think people want them to be at their best when they put themselves out there for the world to see. I try to put myself in Leonard’s shoes imagine how it can be hard for him reading through those comments but hélas, that is what it means to be a public figure in this day and age. You have to be tough mentally. I already feel bad even bringing this up in this article because Leonard looks to me like a very sweet guy.
And so we have to sometimes approach criticisms the same way. In this our time when everyone has “haters,” it is very easy to confuse constructive criticism with hate. You have to know how to discern one from the other. Madame PR should have, I think, known better. No matter infuriating the comment could have been. She should know her response indirectly damages Mr Leo’s image.
And judging from the word on the street that ‘image’ needs a stitch or two.
-Wandji Wilfred.