Our Hip Hop Industry Is Becoming Weak

Taking a look at our music industry over the last decades, you would agree that things are not the way its use to be. 

I can remember that I for one stopped paying attention to foreign music 6 years ago and that was due to the tremendous development I have seen in our industry and  I was glad that I made that decision. From international collaborations to endorsement deals not also forgetting topping foreign musical chart, the Nigerian music industry has grown bigger over the years and it is only correct to assume that it would continue to get bigger but we need to be aware of a potential threat that might hinder that progress.

Some weeks ago I was listening to Pasuma’s new Hip Hop album titled My World and that was when I realised that there is a big threat hanging over the head of our hip hop music industry and that threat is the Fuji infused hip hop that is currently trending. For what it worth let me say that Pasuma’s album was very good in fact I never believe he could pull it off but again Pasuma isn’t new to the hip hop world as he has been featured by hip hop artistes over time and that was his motivation to release a hip hop album.

Except from Pasuma other Fuji artiste like Adewale Ayuba, Muri Thunder, Obesere just but to mention a few had all done a hip hop track at one given point in time. The latest to join the rank is Saheed Osupa and after releasing about three singles the latest which features Seriki, it is only safe to assume that he is also working on his own hip hop album and that is what scares me. I mean I am okay with hip hop act featuring these guys in their songs but when this Fuji guys decide to crossover to hip hop and drop albums successfully then it means that the hip hop industry in Nigeria isn’t as tight as it is meant to be which is a problem.

It is a problem because the level of achievement hip pop music has witnessed over the years, there shouldn’t be any sort of space or should I say the competition should be so high that if you aren’t hip hop inclined then you won’t be able to survive the industry. For example in as much as we have a lot of Fuji artiste but only the likes of K1, Pasuma, Obsere, Saheed Osupa, Ayuba, Malika have been able to stand the test of time and this is because the competition over there is so hot that you have to always stand on four feet not two feet. Ask yourself this, why hasn’t anybody from the hip pop world especially does that sing in Yoruba Fuji dialect decide to crossover to the Fuji industry? The answer is simple, it is because the competition and hard work those guys put in is so much that an ordinary artiste that is not ‘Fujically’ inclined can’t survive.

I think what has made it easy for some of these Fuji artistes that are crossing over to hip hop is the way we have commercialise the hip hop industry, I know for a fact that as Nigerians we all love party songs, a song we can always dance to whether it makes sense or not as much as the chorus is catchy and the beat is grove-able then we are good to go but these kinds of songs reduce the creativity in our artistes since they know we will always accept a party song. It also makes them switch from the kind of songs they really want to do which defines their talent to genre of songs that have low competition. Once you have a good beat and a very catchy slang in your chorus BOOM you are good to go and who has catchy slangs more than the Fuji artiste themselves and this is part of what has been able to help them find the transition from Fuji to Hip Pop easy.

I am not against commercial music but like they say what is worth doing is worth doing well, if we want to do a commercial song let do a commercial song that has quality so that every Taye, Kehinde and Idowu that wants to come into the industry would know what they are up against.

I am sure many of you might not see this as a threat but trust me it is a threat and if this isn’t checked we might just appear to be developing but we won’t grow.