Nigerian music gone bad

THE music industry in Nigeria has witnessed a change in recent times from the norms. The indigenous genres of music like highlife, juju, apala, goje, in Nigeria, have been relegated to the background.

It is difficult in this contemporary Nigeria to see five out of ten people listening to the juju music of King Sunny Ade or the highlife music of Sir Victor Uwaifo. This is not because they are not good musicians but because their genre of music is no longer in vogue. The genre of music in today’s Nigeria is hip-hop.

Many of the lyrics coming from these artistes are without meaning that one begins to wonder where the sense in our music has travelled to.

Gone are the days when you would listen to songs from people like the late Orlando Owoh or Christy Essien Igbokwe and you would have to think deeply about the message they are carrying. You would listen to songs and the beauty of their message would attract you that you would sing along with the singer. For example, the horse and the man by the Commander of Juju music, Chief Ebenezer Obey, taught me that there is no way you can please everybody, so do your best and leave the rest.

What about the song of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti ‘Abami Eda’ that is reflective of the blame game that now envelopes Nigerian politics where political parties blame one another for being corrupt? The lyrics are something like this: “You be rogue, I no be rogue; you be robber, I no be robber.”

Many of these songs that have rich lyrical contents are now being classified as old school music even when their messages fit perfectly well into our ‘new school’ life and society.

In comparison with what we have in the past, our music today are degrading our culture and serves as an inspiration that makes our youths get desperate for money.

Apart from entertainment, I believe music should also be something that gives us insight into life from a creative mind point of view. The lyrics are supposed to carry life-oriented meanings. But it is with great surprise that women body parts are now elements of musical composition. They are described and alluded to in music with vigour and rigour.

Nigerian women that I grew up to know are very decent people who respect their bodies and dress to cover their nakedness. But I am afraid that some of these women are now shamelessly exposing their body while dancing to a song they could not even pick out its meaning or have a reflection on. Because most women no longer respect their body, most songs have now moved from singing about life issues to singing about women’s facial appearance, their breasts and buttocks.

I tend to wonder why it is the ladies that usually open their bodies in music videos and not the guys. A dress is supposed to cover our nakedness and not expose them. Most of the immoralities and profane words we have in use in the society today are part of the things that poor lyrical contents of our music have done to us.

You switch on your television set expecting to see nice musical videos, but what do you get? Musicians smoking! And you say youths will not copy them? Plato was very right when he said the new style of music should be guided against because with it comes a different lifestyle and culture.

Songs no longer carry the meaning they used to carry when I was growing up. However, this is not to say that there are no singers that still have some elements of quality in their songs.

This is not a clamour that youths should not sing, instead, their lyrical contents should be improved.

We are Africans, and most importantly Nigerians and we are known as people with values, so our songs should reflect that. Maybe, just maybe, if our current crops of hip-hop artiste could give us meaningful lyrics, we could have an improved society as their current songs are not doing Nigerian youths any good, instead, it raises their consciousness about immorality and materialism as their songs no longer reflect our traditional values.

Ogunlade is an undergraduate of University of Ibadan studying Religious Studies.