Interpretation Of Songs by Nigerian LIsteners

By; Bello Muhammed Nauteeq DWA

Like a Nigerian Rapper, Cyrus Tha Virus said in an interview with a popular Naija blog;”there is a huge difference between being blunt and being insultive” and that is basically what most Nigerian music listeners do not understand and that has been a bane to the growth of the music industry since God knows how long, most listeners always misconstrue hip hop and other genres of music which they do not listen to as a bunch of trash.

But literally, music as an art or a form of art usually consist of an intended message to the audience and also serves as a medium of communication, the reggae genre consist of either party or dance hall songs or freedom and voice for the voiceless themes as seen in the works of  Bob Marley and Damien Marley also his Nigerian disciple Majek Fashek , Hip Hop might be conscious, deep and also danceable at the same time a la other genres of music as well.

Most listeners do not take these factors into cognizance before listening and giving their final judgment on a music, before a listener could actually decode a music content effectively he must understand the message and the mood of the artist and the complexity of most songs usually affects the way listeners decode songs rappers like; Mode nine, and XO Senavoe have complex lyrics which at times is traced to being poetry inclined, the later whose lyrics was heavily criticized on the recent BET Cypher hosted in Nigeria was basically criticized because listeners could not understand his complex word plays, hence he earned the tag of being a whack rapper.

 An average listener  judge music according to the beat upon which the lyrics is delivered, and mostly on first listen where the listener only listen to the song once and pronounce their final judgment on it immediately overlooking the growing propensity factor  of a song to the mind. Recently some listeners only want to listen to music to detect the flaws of artists and mostly view them with prejudice due to the artist having a not so fruitful relationship with their favourites, at some instance the later might even be at fault, but his mistakes might be overlooked and the result might be a deadly jab by fans on the later.

Recently many artist have been criticized for churning out what listeners see as a whack job even before they listen to it or probably they have the ability to fore hear what the artist has said in the songs, it might not actually satisfy the yearnings of the fans probably due to the artist wanting to reach a wider fans or audience, but might make a good listen if personal biases are cleared.

“Oyato” is a single released by D’ banj recently and it has met  mixed reactions even before the day it was released with some saying it is a very poor effort by him, actually the song is not that bad as the venting on some social networking media portrays it as, in an attempt to satisfy numerous people after his break up with his partner and producer Don Jazzy he employed a very popular term which is usually used by nearly all Nigerians “OYATO” as the title of the single aftermath the break up hoping that the fans gives it a warm welcome, unfortunately for him it was not as good as he thought it would, “OYATO” which means “it’s different” simply represent what D’banj Is after signing with Kanye’s imprint GOOD music and Def Jam records the song bore the same similarity in tune with “Scapegoat” which is well received then by both critics and fans alike so why the fuss about OYATO? To make him look like a failure? Who knows?

 Fair enough Don Jazzy also received the same treatment when he signed Tiwa Savage onto his Mavin Records imprint and also when he released the debut album under this imprint; Solar Plexus some said it was a hurried job and some graphic designers also used the opportunity to show their talent in using Adobe Photoshop after they manipulated the image changing the album title to “The Avengers”.

Most Nigerians has formed the habit of jumping into the bandwagon of naysayers without having a reason for doing it other than “just hate on the success” Davido’s dami duro was a party song precisely danceable and naturally party songs are known for having  memorable verses  and catchy hook coupled with a strong beat, but some criticized it for not having any message and say he spat Gibberish on the second verse, but barely a month later people were dancing to the tune and most people can even sing it from the First to the last word he Spewed, what is the point of hate? Oops he flaunts a cheque on twitter.

Most artist usually bounce back from these hurdles they’d faced, but not all, the likes of Eedris AbdulKareem, Raskie, Kelly Hansome have not the same story to tell, Rugged man actually ended their career excluding Kelly Hansome’ as he was dealt with by fans of M.I. and The Mo hits Crew in a not so publicized saga, Kelly is undoubtedly talented, but the hate he had gathered as a result of beefing the fans favourites dealt a huge blow to his career as all the good music he had churned out aftermath the Mo Hits saga were met with hate and rarely get posted on major blog sites even if it is a genius effort and since then his career has steadily went down the drain.

 9ice well known for his proverbial lyrical content, also was tongue-lashed by numerous people, a lot of allegations were made on him, bad publicity and what not, but he proved to be beyond what anybody can mess with when he released a semi-classic Tradition album and a combination of impressive Bashorun Gaa and Versus albums respectively, but still yet some still believed that he had exhausted his proverbs and lyrical ingenuity on Gongo Aso, and that is where the bandwagon effects comes into existence as the term “exhausted his Proverbs” was coined from the Rugged man beef against him back then in 2010.

Like the popular saying “what goes round comes around” Rugged man’s career is also being threatened as he is no longer respected by fans even though he introduced Nigerians to new and fresh era of hip hop songs at the detriment of other artistes in the game then, he released Ruggedy Baba Part 2 and it was rated as an average track and an insult to the first version were he featured 9ice.

Numerous others also had their own stories to tell, but fans should desist from making destructive criticism about these acts as it would not help in correcting their flaws. Nobody is perfect we all just dey try our best. And like another rapper said on his own track;” you no like my track? Why you no just shut up and skip it”.