Do We Really Need International Artiste?

From the likes of Davido to D’banj to Psquare, featuring an international artiste is now a common trend amongst the big boys in the music industry. Many of them have seen the fact that international artiste are willing to collaborate with them as a big step relating to putting their music on the world map. My question now is this; Do we really need this international artiste before our songs can be heard across the globe?

Let me take your mind back to the late 80s during the era of the great musical legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti, he was the founder of the sound known as Afro Beat and without featuring any international artiste or let me say international band, his music was demanded for all over the world. This is why it baffles me when I hear the likes of D’banj and co saying they are trying to connect Nigerian music to the world, the world already knows Nigerian music though might not be as well as what they are trying to do now but the fact still remain, the world is accustom to Nigerian music.

Still in the 80s, people like King Sunny Ade, Ayinde Barrister and even King Wasiu all took their brand of music outside the country and it was well received and this was all achieved even without the help of the so called international artiste. It is understandable if we say that we are trying to open the Nigerian hip hop music to the world because to me that seems like the only genre of music the world doesn’t really know about Nigeria.

The hip hop music in Nigeria has really grown over the years and I must say; there has been a big big improvement. I could remember that I basically stopped listening to foreign music back in 2009 just to pay attention to our own industry and I must confess throughout that one year I was impressed, as a matter of fact till now I still find it difficult listening to foreign music, expect from those that are exceptionally good or my own personal favourite that I have always liked before the 2009 era.

In as much as I appreciate the effort people like D’banj, Wizkid, Davido, are all putting in, in making sure that the world recognizes our hip hop music, I must also say I frown at the fact that we have to depend on all these international artistes just to get our hip hop music known. we need to concentrate on the quality of our sound or should I say music because that is the only true way our hip hop music can true be recognised and I am going to use Cabo Snoop, 2face and Wizkid as an example. Do you all remember that Windick song that drove everyone crazy and made Cabo an African star over night? Well what you all might not know was the fact that that song had a remix with Fat Joe who heard the song and actually got in touch with Cabo for a remix. This was also the same thing that happened with 2face Nfana Ibaga that Bennie Man jump on and also Wizkid Ojulegba that Drake also jumped on.

These songs got foreign attention because of their quality and that is also a sign to tell us that if only we can just concentrate on producing good music on our own, we are definitely going to get that international recognition that we are craving for. I mean let even me ask this; how were the likes of Fela, Wasiu and Sunny Ade able to get their sound recognise without the help of any international artiste/band? The answer is simple; they did good music and there is nobody in the world that would not appreciate good music.

No matter how many international artiste we feature on our song or no matter the status of the international artiste, the only time we can truly say for sure that the world has recognised our hip hop music industry is when we hear an artiste like Tpain saying he wants to do a collaboration with Wande Coal or Lil Wanye hyping his new single that he featured Olamide, if this can happen if the foreign artiste decide to also feature us in their song then we can say boldly that our hip hop sound is been recognised. This can be achievable if and only if we concentrate on producing good music.