Who Owns Her Image? Male Gaze vs. Oppositional Gaze in Tiwa Savage’s Koroba

 

In Tiwa Savage’s Koroba music video, the audience is immediately drawn to her boldness, fashion, and lyrical audacity. The visuals are vibrant and luxurious, featuring salons, traditional fashion, and urban glam aesthetics that blend the old and the new. On the surface, it is a celebration of beauty, wealth, and feminine confidence. However, once examined through theoretical lenses such as Laura Mulvey’s Male Gaze and bell hooks’ Oppositional Gaze, the video becomes more than entertainment—it becomes a cultural text that exposes the tension between empowerment and objectification, between self-representation and commodification.  

  The text of Koroba, lyrically and visually, engages in a delicate balance. Tiwa Savage sings about being judged by society, especially for her choices regarding money and lifestyle. The line 

“I no come this life to suffer, if I follow politician, you go hear am for paper”

 instantly stands out. It is a direct challenge to societal double standards and a playful defense of personal agency. At first glance, Tiwa presents herself as a woman who is unapologetic and self-determined. Her tone, movements, and styling suggest confidence, glamor, and status. However, when we dig deeper into how her body and image are framed by the camera, more complex interpretations begin to surface that challenge the idea that this is purely an act of self-empowerment.

     Looking at Laura Mulvey’s concept of the Male Gaze provides a critical tool to unpack this complexity. In her 1975 essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Mulvey argues that mainstream media often presents women from the perspective of a heterosexual male viewer. Women become objects to be looked at, admired, or desired, rather than subjects with power and control over their representation. In the Koroba video, this theory is reflected in the way the camera moves often slowly panning over Tiwa Savage’s body, highlighting her curves, zooming in on her lips or hips, and framing her in ways that emphasize her physical appeal over her intellectual or artistic expression. These visuals are not isolated; they are deeply embedded in the music video industry, where the sexualization of female bodies is normalized and often encouraged as part of marketing strategies. In this sense, Tiwa Savage, despite her fame and control over her brand, may still be operating within a structure that demands a certain kind of femininity one that is visual, desirable, and consumable.

    Which leads us to the issue of commodification. When a woman’s body is repeatedly framed as something to be looked at, it becomes a product, a means of attracting views, engagement, and attention. Tiwa’s image in Koroba is part of what is being sold—not just the song or the message. Her fashion, makeup, and dance style all contribute to a carefully curated persona that must perform beauty and sensuality to remain competitive in the Afrobeats market. It is important to note that this performance is not necessarily fake or forced, but it is shaped by expectations that have been historically dominated by male producers, directors, and audiences. So even in a video where Tiwa seems to be front and center, the control of her image is still filtered through a lens that prioritizes how she looks over what she stands for.

    However, another theory which is Bell’s theory contradicts what Mulvey fixed view of women as passive victims of the camera’s gaze. Bell hooks offers a more dynamic alternative. In her essay The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators, hooks challenges the invisibility and misrepresentation of Black women in media. She argues that Black women have developed a way of looking back, a gaze that resists the dominant ways in which they are shown. The oppositional gaze is about reclaiming power, about not just being seen but choosing how to be seen. In this context, Koroba takes on another layer of meaning.

    While the camera does objectify Tiwa in some moments, she also actively looks back. Her eye contact is strong and deliberate, as if she is confronting the viewer rather than submitting to their gaze. Her body language is not passive or demure rather it is confident, expressive, and assertive. This sense of control aligns with hooks’ idea of using the gaze as a form of resistance. Tiwa Savage, a Black Nigerian woman, is not just allowing herself to be looked at; she is also defining the terms of that looking. Through her fashion choices especially her use of traditional African prints and hairstyles, she brings a sense of cultural identity into a space that is often dominated by Western beauty standards. This becomes a form of visual resistance, a way of affirming that Black femininity does not have to be shaped by white or male expectations.

    Her lyrics also contribute to this oppositional gaze. She speaks about societal judgment and refuses to apologize for her choices, which is a radical act in a country like Nigeria where women, especially those in the public eye, are often held to impossible moral standards. Rather than play the role of the “good woman” who sacrifices or stays quiet, Tiwa embraces the controversy. This is empowerment in action by using the platform to speak back to critics, to claim space in a male-dominated industry and society but bell hooks also warns that visibility does not equal liberation. A woman can be confident, stylish, and successful, yet still be working within a system that benefits more from her image than from her being.. Tiwa is both in control and being controlled. She is both subject and object. Her gaze is oppositional, but it is also entangled with the very structures she is resisting. The tension between the male gaze and the oppositional gaze is not resolved in the video, it plays out side by side by using mise-en-scène, camera shot, performance, etc 

    In Nigerian society, this tension is heightened. Women in entertainment are often judged more harshly than their male counterparts. If a man sings about wealth or power, it is celebrated. If a woman does the same, she is seen as arrogant or immoral. Tiwa Savage knows this and addresses it in Koroba. Yet, she also knows that to remain relevant, her image must meet certain visual expectations.

When we consider the structure of the Koroba video, the way scenes are edited, framed, and lit, we see a production that is clearly well-planned and expensive. The camera work is cinematic, often using soft focus and golden lighting to elevate Tiwa’s appearance. This kind of aesthetic is pleasing, but it also raises the question, pleasing for whom? The editing choices don’t always support the lyrical message of critique and defiance. Instead, they emphasize glamor and sensuality, which all returns us to the male gaze. 

In conclusion, the question of who owns Tiwa Savage’s image in Koroba does not have a straightforward answer. Through Mulvey’s lens, we see how her body is presented in ways that serve the male gaze and commercial culture. Through hooks’ theory, we see how she fights back, using her visibility to hchallenge stereotypes and assert her voice. The truth is that her image is caught between being partly shaped by the industry, or showcasing her performance.