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”.
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