Popular
Antoinette Isama
Nov. 20, 2018 10:59AM EST

Top Nigerian Media Maven Tosyn Bucknor Has Passed Away

The family of the radio presenter and media personality confirmed she succumbed to sickle cell complications.

Oluwatosin Bucknor, also known as Tosyn Bucknor, suddenly passed away, Vanguard reports. The Nigerian radio presenter, media personality and social media content creator was 37 years old.

Reports say her husband, Aurelien Boyer, found her in their home Monday night. Her sister, Funmi Bucknor, confirmed her death on Instagram. "My darling sister and besto Tosyn passed away last night due to complications from sickle cell," she says. Pulse Nigeria adds her death comes just after a year after the passing of her father, Segun Bucknor, a musician and journalist.

Bucknor earned a degree in law from the University of Lagos before diving into the media world. She got her start as an on-air-personality at Eko FM, while interning at Cool FM hosting the 'Fun Hour Show' on Saturdays. Bucknor then joined Top Radio FM after completing her NYSC in 2009—making her the only woman handling a morning show. Her 7-year stint at the station earned her the nickname 'Area Mama.' Bucknor also won and was nominated for several awards during the course of her career, including the Future Awards, ELOY Awards and Best of Nollywood, PUNCH Nigeria reports.

Before her untimely passing, she was a morning talk show host at Inspiration FM and was a vlogger.

Living with sickle cell anemia drove her to establish These Genes in 2007—a project to normalize sickle cell and help fellow Nigerians tackle the emotional and mental aspect of living with sickle cell.

Nigerians who consume and create media are in shock and in mourning because of the impact Bucknor had on the industry. Here are their reactions below.












Interview

Amadou & Mariam Forever

We talk to the legendary Malian duo about their rich past, songwriting process and their advice for young African artists with disabilities.

Amadou & Mariam don't require an introduction.

The couple has been making Afro-blues music for over 35 years, drawing inspiration from their home of Mali, for over 35 years.

Their 1999 albumSou Ni Tilé sold 100,000 copies. In 2005, their album Dimanche à Bamako won the French Victoire de la Musique prize for Best World Music Album of the year and the BBC Radio 3 Award for Africa. It also went platinum in France after selling over 300,000 copies. The duo have performed with U2, Coldplay, Blur and many others.

We caught up with them below for a conversation about their rich past, their songwriting process and their advice for young African artists with disabilities, ahead of the duo's performance at the upcoming London Jazz Festival 2021.

Keep reading... Show less
Music
Image: Ian Watts

The New Fela Kuti Box Set is Curated by Femi Kuti & Chris Martin

And they said the perfect holiday gift doesn't exist...

Fela Kuti's 50th anniversary reissues released this year have reminded us why his status as a legend continues to ring true.

Through the year, Partisan Records (the homes of Fela's catalog) has released a number of special reissues, and now Vinyl Box #5 is set to drop just in time for you to be named the coolest gift giver in your friend group. The highly-anticipated fifth installment of vinyl reissues was co-curated by Fela's son, Nigerian afrobeat ambassador Femi Kuti and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin.

Keep reading... Show less
Spotlight
Photo by NurPhoto via Getty Images.

A Year After #EndSARS, Nigerian Youth Maintain That Nothing Has Changed

Despite the disbandment of the SARS units, young Nigerians are still being treated as criminals. We talk to several of them about their experiences since the #EndSARS protests.

On September 12th, Tobe, a 22-year-old student at the University of Nigeria's Enugu Campus was on his way to Shoprite to hang out with his friends when the tricycle he had boarded was stopped by policemen. At first, Tobe thought they were about to check the driver's documents, but he was wrong. "An officer told me to come down, he started searching me like I was a criminal and told me to pull down my trousers, I was so scared that my mind was racing in different ways, I wasn't wearing anything flashy nor did I have an iPhone or dreads — things they would use to describe me as a yahoo boy," he says.

They couldn't find anything on him and when he tried to defend himself, claiming he had rights, one of the police officers slapped him. "I fell to the ground sobbing but they dragged me by the waist and took me to their van where they collected everything including my phone and the 8,000 Naira I was with."

Luckily for Tobe, they let him go free after 2 hours. "They set me free because they caught another pack of boys who were in a Venza car, but they didn't give me my money completely, they gave me 2,000 Naira for my transport," he says.

It's no news that thousands of Nigerian youth have witnessed incidents like Tobe's — many more worse than his. It's this helpless and seemingly unsolvable situation which prompted the #EndSARS protests. Sparked after a viral video of a man who was shot just because he was driving an SUV and was mistaken as a yahoo boy, the #EndSARS protests saw millions of young Nigerians across several states of the country come out of their homes and march against a system has killed unfathomable numbers of people for invalid or plain stupid reasons. The protests started on October 6th, 2020 and came to a seize after a tragedy struck on October 20th of the same year.

Keep reading... Show less

get okayafrica in your inbox

popular.

Meet Uyi Omorogbe: TikTok's Resident Menace and Founder of Clothing Brand NASO

We spoke with the viral 'Annoying My African Parents' creator about online success and his upcoming brand collab with Converse.