For so many years now, Nigeria has maintained its position as the country with a very vibrant Music industry, consequently beating other countries to their own game, thereby becoming the number one Music center in Africa only followed by South Africa.
Nigeria is a country found in West Africa and is known for so many things but for now, we shall focus on its huge Music industry which has got every corner of Africa and many parts of the world dancing to its tunes. Nigeria is home to many global superstars such as Wiz Kid, Davido, Rema, Tiwa Savage, Tecno Miles, D – Banj, KIzz Daniel, etc.
Of recent, Ugandan artists have been complaining and asking why Nigerian Music has taken over Ugandan airwaves and is played in every bar around town, thereby pushing Our own Uganda music to the second position and the reasons are discussed here;
Nigerians have an identity in their music which is not the case in Uganda. Nigerian songs have that unique beat with traditional instruments which cuts across in almost every song and listening to their music, one will just know that this is a Nigerian song upon hearing the instruments, which isn’t the case in Uganda. Ugandan music lacks identity and yet Identity is key to pushing a song beyond borders.
Nigerians have a very good sound which many people get attracted to and it makes their music irresistible. In Music, Audio production is very pertinent and so are the instruments that one uses, the keys, pitch, baselines, etc. All need to be arranged well and this is what Nigerians have mastered. Ugandan Sound is good but doesn’t match that of the Nigerians who record with Africa’s most celebrated audio Producers who include Master Kraft, Don Jazzy, Tecno, Sarz, Lizer of the Wasafi Records in Tanzania, etc and their sound is just good enough to take their music to the top.
Nigerians record very nice music videos which have a coherent storyline, professional models, good video vixens, and World-class Videographers thereby making their videos catchy. You have seen Nigerian videos shot by people like TG OMORI, DAPS, CLARENCE PETERS, UNLIMITED LA, DIRECTOR TEEKAY, MEJI ALABI, SESAN, ADASA COOKEY, and others. All these people charge a lot of money for their work. In 2014, Ugandan singer Bebe cool used Nigerian videographer Clarence Peters of’ ‘Capital Dreams Pictures’ to shoot a video of his song ‘Love you every day” the song gained mileage, and this is also the time Bebe cool silenced his enemies because he had brought quality to the industry.
Nigeria as a country has a copyright law that is not operational in Uganda. Copyright is the license to allow someone to copy another person’s works. This means that if you produce say a song, people will have to pay you every time they play it. [Pay per play]. In Uganda, this is still a wild dream. With copyright, comes money because a musician earns from one song for a long time even when they take long to release music and that’s why you see people like 2Face Idibia still earning from his hit song ‘African Queen’ which he released in 2004. With this law in place, it has also made Nigerian musicians extremely rich with people like D Banj, Wiz Kid, Don Jazzy, Burna Boy, Olamide, and others all Millionaires in Dollar currency because they keep earning passively.
Nigeria has a very big Population that consumes its music even before other markets do so. Nigeria has an estimated population of about 216 million people and this is a very big population that consumes music and so when we look at music views on YouTube, you will see that Nigerian Music videos have more views than other African countries. Videos such as ‘Lie’ by Kizz Daniel have views in excess of 25 Million, ‘Calm down’ by Rema has about 78 Million views and yet these are new musicians…it is a bit hard to find any Uganda music video with such views.
Nigerian Musicians are so much exposed. Many of them are highly educated, have lived abroad, and been exposed to good music studios, others have worked with top American rappers hence pushing their music to bigger markets not only in Africa. Look at people like Don Jazzy who has co – Produced music for Kanye West, Nigerian Music directors like DAPS who have directed music videos for Kendrick Lamar, and Meji Alabi Co-directed ‘Brown Skin Girl’ by Beyonce, etc. All this exposure keeps them on top.
Many musicians from Naija have done international collaborations with huge superstars and this makes them a notch higher. People like P SQUARE have collaborated with Rick Ross In ‘Beautiful Onyinye ’while they were under Akon’s music label KONVICT MUSIC, Fireboy DML collaborated with Ed Sheeran in the PERU remix, Wiz Kid with Chris Brown, etc and these are usually huge songs.
Many Nigerian musicians have their teams to promote and push their music here in Uganda. Rich musicians from Nigeria use their money to promote their music and organize concerts here and that’s why we have a Nigerian headlining a concert here in Uganda almost every after 4 months, if it is not Wiz Kid, then it is Timaya, or Joeboy, Tiwa Savage or Ruger.
In conclusion, therefore, Nigerians are so aggressive and take Music as a business and so invest a lot In it. Even in other sectors, Nigerians are ahead of the game; look at their Movie Industry – NOLLYWOOD which is the biggest here in Africa, in Sports, they are doing so well, in Literature, they produce more books in a year as compared to those written in the whole of East Africa, with Prolific writers like Achebe [RIP], Wole Soyinka, Chimamanda Adichie, etc. So Ugandans need to do more to get to the international scene. Bless Up!!!
am with you man