Why Nigerian Pop Is Soaring More Than Ever

When Trevor Noah asked Burner Boy what he thinks is responsible for the sudden rise of Nigerian pop, I disagreed with the answer he gave. According to Burner Boy, music moves from nation to nation and will eventually drift away again.

The genres of music that were Nigerian pop were Highlife and Juju music. Juju was born in the south-west of the country, while Highlife, inspired by American jazz, came from Ghana (although Ghanaians say it was broadcast from Sierra Leone). Although these genres of music became popular beyond the shores of Africa, they never created the kind of impact that contemporary Nigerian pop is having. Music is a mirror of a culture. Sadly, the culture these two reflected was not attractive to Nigerian youth, largely because youth are heavily influenced by Western culture, which was lacking in these genres.

So why wouldn’t young people just start playing music that reflected the hip-hop-tinged culture they lived in? The answer is: the industry was controlled by the Conservatives, who loved Highlife and Juju. This is in addition to the fact that no one was willing to invest their money in something experimental. Then came the computer and digital recording studios sprang up on almost every street, arming young people to start experimenting with what they thought their music was. The nice thing about music made with software is that you don’t need a band. Another factor is the internet that made interaction easier, but also allowed fans to judge and decide if any new releases match their tastes, rather than in the past, when record companies were sometimes obstacles.

This helped reduce the cost of making a record. Suddenly, a revival of an industry that was dying began.

Since the music was heavily influenced by hip hop, which many music lovers outside of the continent could relate to, it is the reason why music is pushing boundaries, not just within the diaspora but beyond.

People often ask if computers are only in Nigeria. They ask why the music of other African nations does not reach as high as the music of their Nigerian. The answer is in our numbers, we are more than sand on the seashore. Explain why online searches for African music often show Nigerian music artists. This also adds to the possibility that there are many ambitious people in the gigantic West African nation.

The computer became a boon to a sea of ​​talented Nigerians that probably would not have been discovered, talents that would have lived and died even more painful because they never lived to realize the real status that a musical talent bestows on anyone. born with it. We probably wouldn’t have met talents like Tuface, D’banj, Wizkid, Burner Boy, Simi, and everyone else.

Children will always be born to achieve what their parents did not achieve.

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