How loyal are you when your favorite music star gets into trouble?

Right now Runtown is king of the airwaves and playlists. He is receiving the most love in his career than he ever has. New single ‘Mad Over You’ is rocking the Africa and Africans everywhere else, and we can swear right now that we are all ‘fans’ of Runtown.

This is in stark contrast to what many of us felt last year. The singer was in a very unhappy place, as label troubles threatened to derail his career. Runtown was dragged through the news platforms, and sensationalized headlines flew about.

What was your reaction then? As a fan and a student of his music, what was your reaction?

How many Runtown articles did you click? How many times did you join the discussion on social media to attack the young man and brand him an infidel and cry baby? The singer granted an interview where he revealed threats to life, and general unhappiness by a record label that pushed him to the extreme. But he wasn’t believed.

If you ‘his fan’ can answer with a conscience free from guilt that you refrained from the conversation, and resisted the urge to brand him a liar and childish brat who makes way too much money than he should, then congratulations. You are the real MVP.

For the rest of us, who enjoy the music and entertainment that these people give us, and the colour that their efforts bring to our lives, then we should take a hard long look at how we have treated our stars when they have faced problems and adversity. What roles we played in their attack and public crucifixion, and how we advanced their pain, rather than show loyalty.

And it isn’t the media’s fault.

Mr Eazi recently stepped out of line with his recent tweet which gave due credit to the origin of his music. The same music that we all enjoyed in 2016, and continue to enjoy in 2017. His love for Twitter and social media banter is exemplary, but his attempt at setting up a genuine conversation landed him in hot waters. And boy we all did roast him. We dragged him to an inch of his life, attacking all that his and more.

Of course the media reported and added fuel to the fire, but we created the war for the young man. We clicked at everything that was thrown at us, and consumed every angle and report. We enjoyed his adversity and fed ourselves full on his fall from grace.

Mr Eazi and Runtown know this. Social media connectivity brings the lack of love back to them in barrages, and they feel it. Getting attacked by the people who had earlier just celebrated and danced to your music is a form of betrayal on its own. It kills the artistic spirit. If you want to give from your heart, getting attacked by your beneficiaries doesn’t exactly make that process easy.

At these moments, when the artistes need us the most, and could do with support, a huge number of us joined right in the spectacle. You could see it in the tweets that circulated and made headlines. You could find it on Instagram and the hate that lives in the comment section.

Mr Eazi disabled his comment section on Instagram due to that hate. Runtown took forever to provide us with ‘Mad Over You’ because he had to go through a period of soul searching. We caused this. We abandoned them and chased the news.

We need to change. These artistes give us something that is priceless. No matter how much entitled you feel to spending your money on these artistes, what they provide can never be bought. Without Runtown, there would be no ‘Mad Over You’ to provide the joy that you enjoy. Without Mr Eazi, our music in 2016 would have lacked that little something extra that made us advance as a consuming public.

Real loyalty to them, even when they misbehave, proves that we are truly appreciative of what they do to us, the gifts that they give us, and the struggle that they go through to cater to our musical needs. It shows that we see these musicians are ordinary folks like us, who are on a pedestal, but experience the same emotions that we all do. It means that we can embrace the good in all of us, and support our own.

Perhaps, the next time D’banj gets into a scandal, we shouldn’t be too fast to condemn. We can show that we understand by being the lights in the darkness that shrouds them in those moments. We can balance the hate with our love. We can be their heroes, their support system, and hold their hands as they walk through life under pressure.

As true fans of the art, it’ll cost us nothing to be decent, extend that decency and do the right thing by these artistes who have done so much for us all.