I was watching television the other day, specifically music
videos and i suddenly realized music is now widely been recognized in Nigeria
as entertainment. O yes! You heard me say entertainment, which by the way is an
art of keeping people hyped up, amused, excited, and fun-filled through
performances. While i agree that music is an aspect of entertainment just like
dance, comedy, movies, game shows and others, i also realize that music in all
its beauty, artistic form and creativity is not limited to just entertainment.
In fact if you check the history and origin of music from the ancient ages you will
see that entertainment was not the primary function of music from the beginning
of human existence. However i must quickly state that this article is not a ploy
to play down the role of entertainment in our society, cos guess what? I love
entertainment! I get entertained a lot listening to music, watching football
& movies. But i also understand that certain genres of music like classical
& soul music has effects on people on areas such as spirituality,
inspiration, love, healing, cultural appreciation and so on. So where do we
strike the balance? How do we educate people via the media, marketers &
stake holders that there are thousands of genres of music aside dance/club
music? How do we increase the market share of other genres of music to capture
various audiences both local & international? How do we begin to create
middle class musicians, songwriters, record producers, talent managers, labels
and quality distribution outlets at the grass-root levels?
I was watching the afrima awards recently and realized that
Nigerian artistes were not nominated for band related categories. We also didn’t
make the nomination for best Rock music & were beaten in categories such
best Pop, Hip-hop & R&B awards category for the year under review. I
think the solution to this problem starts with giving genres of music like
alternative music, high life, juju fusion, Afro-soul, r&b, jazz & instrumental
music, and other genres more significant opportunities in terms of air plays,
publicity, long-term marketing & distribution structures so the narrative
that only dance/beat driven music sells in Nigeria will gradually change.
Another solution would be to strengthen our copyright laws and content
protection institutions so we can now focus on discovering the next Tu face
idibia, Darey art alade, Asa, Femi kuti, cobhams asuquo, omawunmi, and many
others.
This article is written by Safiano sani, head of
Adlibz media. For more information on our services and subsequent articles,
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