Tiwa Savage Says New Single ’49-99′ Was Inspired By Fela Kuti

Tiwa Savage has finally revealed what her latest single, 49-99 is all about and what those numbers represent.

In her recent interview with London based Nigerian OAP, Shopsy on the 4th of September where Tiwa revealed that title of the record, 4999 was inspired by Fela’s classic hit record ‘Suffering and Smiling’ where he said “49 sitting 99 standing suffering and smiling.

According to Tiwa, this single is created to shed light on the failings of the Nigerian economy and to show the sufferings of the people. She said;

49-99 was a phrase that was coined by the Godfather of afrobeat, Fela Kuti. 49 sitting 99 standing. Suffering and smiling. For those who are not Nigerians, we have this transit bus called molue and it has 49 seats. Instead of you to have 49 people sitting to communite to work and back, they 49 sitting and double that which is like 99 standing. That’s a reflection of the ecomony and the imbalances where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. The song you can Zanku to but I wanted my first global single to also have a message that we are suffering and smiling and music is a powerful tool … and I wanted a title that’ll be a conversation starter.

Tiwa Savage also revealed that she had written this song with Olamide who was the one that called her and Pheelz the producer made the beat. Tiwa opened up that writing the song didn’t take up to an hour and the beat is so different from what she’s used to. In terms of the video, Tiwa Savage said everything used for the video was from Nigeria and the video was shot in Lagos.

49-99 will be officially released today, 5th of September and it will mark a new chapter in Tiwa Savage’s journey as a Nigerian artiste as this song becomes her first global single after Mavin records and with Universal.