10 FACTS ON THE NIGERIAN MUSIC INDUSTRY

10 points on the Nigerian Music Industry.


1. Genre Of The Nigerian Music


This is one aspect of the Nigerian Music industry I'm still struggling to get acquainted to. I was brought up with knowledge of R&B (faded into Pop right now), Hip Hop, Blues (which apparently doesn't exist anymore), Reggae, Country, Rock, Pop, etc. I really don't know what genre our music could be classified under. For example do we say D'banj does R&B, Blues, Hip Hop, Dance, Afro Juju or can we say Timaya is a reggae artist? How about Terry G, what does he do? Gingah music, dance hall or Reggae? Now this could actually be viewed as creativity (although I wholeheartedly doubt that).

2. Gibberish Lyrics

Gibberish lyrics or should I just go straight to the point and say "wack lyrics". This point is very serious to our vocabulary and it didn't start today, in the past we had the legends use phrases like "give me likkle likkle sugar for me tea", imagine as an innocent kid growing up and you sing along to the lyrics of a song and instead of "little" it's being called "likkle" it might grow on the kids. In recent times, songs from Timaya have lacked good lyrics, "wine up your body like a monkey, you are monkey", firstly monkeys aren't known for wining, monkey's are known for jumping and secondly, he indirectly insults the audience by saying "you are a monkey". The only excuse I'm going to give Terry G's "free madness" is the fact he said it was a freestyle but I think he has to come out and say he freestyles on every song. I have a long list of songs with extremely poor lyrics, Psquare's " I wish say, I fit say, you too fine pass my mama but that is impossible, thumps up to your mama 'cos she made it possible" I didn't understand 'cos after saying it was impossible, they said her mom made it possible. I bet even the Psquare duo were confused too.

3. The Audience


Recently there was an uproar from the industry when an artist said the Nigerian artists just makes songs about dancing. Well, we have an audience and this audience influence the kind of music being made by Nigerian artists. Apparently the average Nigerian artist only bother about making songs to make people dance 'cos that's what the audience want, I remember hearing the wonderful song "Truly Love You" by Iyanya, I was shocked when I heard "Kukere" and it was more successful because he followed the trend to please the audience and it worked, more notably Modenine has tried to merge his underground Hip Hop genre with commercial appeal and it isn't working while Praiz's "Rich and Famous" is out of the way, in comes "Oshe" with Awilo Longomba . It's so plain to see the Nigerian audience affects the kind of music most Nigerian artists put out. So if the Nigerian audience have such power then they could influence it for better or worse.


4. The Artists


As an aspiring artist growing up, you gradually define your style by the songs and artists that inspires you. Even without a beat you could just sing out loud or just rap to a beat in your inner mind which you think fits your persona. That's how you get yourself entangled in the web of a specific genre of music. So when you decide to upgrade to a professional, it's benefiting if you decide to stay on the route you feel you are good at, 'cos that's when you definitely give your best. Some artists stay on course with what they are good at, e.g Bez, Tiwa Savage, Timi Dakolo while some artists switch up their style to meet up to the audience's specifics, some failed to meet up e.g M.I, Modenine, etc and some were successful (read the number 3 to understand more on that) e.g Banky W (a very versatile artist with respect to his song "Jasi'', Iyanya, etc.


5. Poor Songs


There are certain songs that have been made that shouldn't have been released, I feel an artist should have a listening set, when after making a song he has a small gathering of artists and critics listen to his or her music before releasing it. I heard a song where an artist A'da sang this "After the rain comes the sun, after the sun comes the rain" what was that for? How about Styl Plus' Tunde's return with a song titled "Konga", this is one of the worse songs of this year in my opinion and there are a lot more songs, I heard a Timaya song "Hold Me Now", Timaya dropped a very poor verse shouting "Abracadabra" then all of a sudden started yelling "Ukwu", I was lost and wondering if this is the remix?, I admit that every artist have their fair share of garbage songs, but what gets me pissed is the effort from the artists when they make such poor songs.

6. Instrumentals

A kick here, a snare there and the hihat same with the previous one the producer just made with the baseline ,oh well, the usual. Sorry I keep naming Timaya on this, I really am, but he perfectly fit this, remember his previous album, where the beats on the whole album sounded the same. I feel sometimes an artist have got to use different producers on an album or the producer have got to spend time with the artist concocting new ideas to appeal to different people and different moods.

7. Creativity


This industry seriously lacks creativity, there are lots of instances where the video doesn't synchronize with the song. Even the subject matter, one of the most creative artists on the subject matter was Modenine, doubt me? Go play his previous EPs and albums and listen to different ranges of subject matters on an album with story lines, personifications and more. Nigerian artists need to up the gear, although some of them hesitate due to number 3 above.

8. Dance Songs


Sincerely speaking if I am not thinking of going to the club or dancing I think I can refrain from buying a Nigerian artist's album. The dance songs are way too much on their albums these days, with the exception of 2face Idibia, Tiwa Savage and some others, most artists choose to make at least 10 dance songs on their album which is extremely poor 'cos if I don't like dancing then I can't play the CD.



9. Sexually Inspired Videos and their Effects

With the rise of molest stories all over the internet, I can't fault the Nigerian industries only so I am going to touch on a whole lot of artists and their role on this. From 2 Live Crew's videos that were banned to 2Pac's "How Do You Want It", sex videos have been made with the intent of attracting fans to the songs. One of the most influential musicians and top singers in the world, Beyonce keeps wearing panties on stage even with dresses that show a whole lot to the world, this keeps the audience salivating or should I say, enhance the interests of the audience regarding sex, we have a mad girl on the loose right now who has taken over from Beyonce presently, Miley Cyrus, she keeps the panties on steadily while demonstrating intimate positions on her stage performances. Other Hip Hop artists have a lot of videos with half Unclad girls on them. It's no surprise that the Indian authorities are trying to eradicate western artist's videos from their TV screens, you can imagine the high level of molest in their country right now. Back to Nigeria, have you seen the video from Pucado "Ukwu Nka" or did you see the last scene on Lynxxx's Ifeoma video ? it affects the public in a negative way and these effects can be seen apparently on the news nowadays. Why do I feel it's one of the reasons "molest" is wide spreading? well, people are shy to buy a Indecency movie so most times they are forced to download via internet, well, that's lots of MB ( Nigerians keep complaining about their MBs) when you consider the fact you could just put on your TV and watch one of the lots of semi pornographic videos on Soundcity.

10. Infiltration Of the Untalented

This part, will get some of you angry, but there are certain artists with plenty of songs out there who sincerely lack the music talent, it might appear that I'm simply hating (one of the most used words these days, when someone speaks the awful truth about something someone else fancies lol). For certain purposes I will leave you readers that option of naming the ones you think aren't talented enough.