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

 In 2020, Nigerian Afropop star Tiwa Savage released Koroba, a music video that swiftly gained attention for its bold visuals, unapologetic lyrics, and glamorous display of Black femininity. In a music industry where women, particularly Black women, are often visually commodified, Koroba raises an important question: Who owns the image of the Black female body when it is simultaneously objectified and empowered? This essay explores Tiwa Savage’s Koroba through two contrasting critical lenses, Laura Mulvey’s Male Gaze theory and bell hooks’ Oppositional Gaze  to unpack the layered representation of Black Nigerian femininity in the video. While Koroba at times conforms to patriarchal visual conventions by sexualizing the female form, it also presents opportunities for reinterpretation and resistance through a Black feminist gaze. Ultimately, the video walks a complex line between empowerment and commodification, revealing the tension at the heart of Black women’s visual representation in popular media.

Laura Mulvey’s theory of the Male Gaze, first introduced in her 1975 essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, critiques mainstream cinema’s tendency to depict women as passive objects of heterosexual male desire. According to Mulvey, the camera frequently aligns with the male spectator, reinforcing a patriarchal visual order in which women are reduced to their appearance and positioned “to-be-looked-at.” This concept, while developed in the context of cinema, has been applied broadly across visual media including music videos where female artists are often sexualized through stylized cinematography and performative aesthetics.

In Koroba, the male gaze is evident in several visual and technical elements. The camera lingers on Tiwa Savage’s body through close-ups, slow-motion shots, and angled frames that emphasize her hips, cleavage, and legs. Costuming also plays a crucial role, Savage dons body-hugging, revealing outfits that highlight her sexuality. The deliberate framing of her body parts in isolation echoes Mulvey’s assertion of the “fragmented” female form, where a woman’s body becomes a collection of eroticized parts rather than a whole person.

The video’s choreography further supports this reading. Tiwa moves sensually, often surrounded by dancers in coordinated, sexually suggestive routines. These performances are captured in ways that invite voyeuristic pleasure through panning shots across her body or low angles that place her on a visual pedestal. The camera does not merely observe; it participates in constructing a fantasy, inviting the viewer to gaze at Savage as a desirable object.

This alignment with the male gaze reflects broader patterns in music videos, where female pop stars are often expected to sell their image as much as their music. The polished visual aesthetic, combined with a capitalist need to “market” beauty, commodifies Tiwa’s body in ways that align with patriarchal entertainment norms. For a Western or global male audience unfamiliar with African feminism, Koroba might read as another instance of hypersexualized Black femininity, echoing colonial tropes of the exotic, overly sexualized African woman.

In response to the dominant visual politics critiqued by Mulvey, bell hooks introduces the Oppositional Gaze, a concept that empowers Black women to actively resist or reinterpret how they are portrayed in media. In her essay The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators, hooks argues that the Black female gaze is inherently political. It challenges both white supremacist and patriarchal ways of seeing, and it demands recognition of Black women’s subjectivity and agency.

From this perspective, Koroba can also be read as a site of resistance. While it contains elements of objectification, it also features moments where Tiwa Savage subverts the viewer’s gaze and asserts control over her image. One of the most striking techniques is her frequent, deliberate eye contact with the camera. Savage does not appear passive or unaware of being watched; instead, she confronts the audience with confidence, almost daring them to look. This “looking back” rejects the passive female role assigned by the male gaze and instead reclaims visual authority.

The lyrics of Koroba further reinforce this reclaiming. Tiwa sings, “I no come this life to suffer,”and speaks unapologetically about seeking comfort, power, and pleasure. These lyrics suggest autonomy and intentionality rather than submission. Rather than being ashamed of her desires, she vocalizes them, challenging the double standards that often label women who express sexual or material agency as immoral. A Black feminist viewer might interpret this as a bold assertion of independence and self-worth in a patriarchal world.

Moreover, Tiwa’s stylization and fashion choices can be seen not just as sexualized but as expressions of cultural pride and individual identity. Her adorned hairstyles, traditional jewelry, and bold aesthetics reflect a fusion of modern Afropop glamour with African heritage. These visual cues offer alternative readings for Black women, especially Nigerian viewers, who may see in Tiwa a symbol of cultural reclamation rather than objectification. Through hooks’ lens, Koroba becomes not just a video about desire, but one about power.

Yet, the tension between empowerment and commodification remains unresolved and perhaps deliberately so. Tiwa Savage operates within a commercial music industry that profits from the display of women’s bodies. Her visibility and success are entangled with this system, making it difficult to disentangle genuine agency from market-driven self-presentation. This duality is not unique to Savage but emblematic of how many Black female artists navigate visibility in a globalized entertainment landscape.

One way to understand this duality is through hooks’ recognition that Black women can assert agency even within oppressive structures. Koroba’s embrace of wealth, luxury, and sexual appeal might appear to conform to capitalist, patriarchal norms but it also challenges them by centering a Black woman as the subject, not the object, of desire. Tiwa is not merely being looked at; she is also looking out directing the narrative, performing on her terms, and redefining femininity through her lens.

Additionally, Koroba reflects uniquely Nigerian tensions around gender, wealth, and social mobility. In a society marked by both traditional values and modern capitalist aspirations, women like Tiwa face pressures to conform to specific ideals of piety, humility, and domesticity. By rejecting these expectations and singing openly about wanting luxury and liberation, Tiwa offers a counter-narrative that speaks to many young Nigerian women navigating similar contradictions.

Still, the line between subversion and complicity is thin. For some critics, Tiwa’s glamorous display may still feel like a performance tailored for male and Western approval. Her sexual freedom, though empowering, is filtered through an industry that often rewards women for how well they package their desirability. This complicates any simple reading of Koroba as purely liberating or entirely problematic.

In conclusion, Tiwa Savage’s Koroba is a richly layered visual and cultural text that embodies the contradictions of female representation in contemporary pop culture. Through the lens of Laura Mulvey’s Male Gaze, the video reveals how the camera often objectifies the female body, aligning with patriarchal desires and capitalist commodification. Yet, through bell hooks’ Oppositional Gaze, a more nuanced reading emerges one where Tiwa Savage exercises agency, challenges visual passivity, and reclaims her image as a form of cultural and feminist expression.

The power of Koroba lies not in a clear resolution between objectification and empowerment, but in its ability to hold both truths at once. As a Black Nigerian woman in global pop, Tiwa Savage confronts a complex web of visibility, identity, and power. Her gaze bold, confident, unflinching asks not only who owns her image, but who gets to define what that image means.