The Nigerian music debate: setting an agenda for today’s stars

Let me say straight away that I am not a big fan of rap, which can be described as the precursor of hip hop in the sense that ragtag was of jazz or in the sense that brass bands formed the basis for highlife before it became a Nigerian or Ghanaian or West Coast phenomenon.

However, having spent years in the university to study the sound, rhythm, motifs, melodies, of different genres of music and the culture that gave rise to them, I am the last to seriously condemn any type of music. I choose what I listen to and trust me I listen to all sorts except rock and roll in whatever form it comes. Hip hop or rap draws my attention sometimes because I love words and poetry and rhymes and meaning (surface or underlying). So you might catch me listening to Tupac (I think he was a philosopher). I also do ‘Yahoozee’ and ‘Bumper to Bumper’ (in the club).

My interest in rap, invariably hip hop music, was kindled by two of my friends – Sam Umukoro, whom I thought had more than a passive interest as he would go on and on with the lyrics of ‘Dear mama’ and ‘California’ by Tupac. He would also go on and on about the sense other lyricist were making in their music. The other person was Recky D. His real name is Ogechi Agomo and up till today I still find it curious why he would choose the former over the latter as his stage name. Ogechi, as I always choose to call him, is a lyricist with a mission and a message. It was always a delight to hear him lay life changing words on the sound track of Lionel Richie’s ‘Easy’. That was how my curious interest in the phenomenon called hip hop started.

Two of the most devastating things to have happened to Africa are slave trade and colonialism. Africa has never remained the same since the last of the colonialists left her shores and independence became an accepted political term. America and other nations with slave history are still buckling under the heavy burden of tampering with the natural course of human existence.

But let me assure you that I am completely apolitical and return to the music. Culture, which includes knowledge, belief, morals, laws, customs, or any other capabilities and habits acquired by humans as members of society (including music) is the first thing that suffers the most devastating blow when cultures clash. Those who are students of history know enough stories of how African culture was dominated and brought under subjection by the colonial masters in the name of religion and a ‘better way of living’; everything colonial became mainstream and everything African became second place at best.

How we got out of colonialism (as a system of governance) is better told by the Ajayi Crowthers, the Herbert Macaulys, the Alaja Browns, the Awolowos, and the Azikiwes of this world. But decades after the struggle we are still tied to the apron strings of the west and America in what is now known as neo-colonialism, a term that refers to the political and economic domination of underdeveloped countries by their former colonial masters. I am of the opinion that neo-colonialism is even much stronger in its ramifications because of globalisation where the world has become a global village still dominated by the stronger nations especially America.

The black man in America had to find a way of expression. They did it in Negro spirituals, the gospels, jazz, blues, rap and hip hop. They did it to break away from domination. They did it to assert their nationhood in a community that would concede nothing them.

Today, hip hop is alive and strong all over the world including Nigeria because of their creativity, ingenuity, resourcefulness and relentless spirit. One thing you can not take away from hip hop is its African origin of oral poetry, audience participation and its syncopated percussive nature. But hip hop is not just music; it’s a culture, a movement, a people’s way of life. Which people? The African American.

I am curious to know if the African American ethos and pathos are still completely aligned and in consonance with present day African realities.

Pardon me if I seem to stray every once in a while to distant subjects. But let us return to the music. Jazz is an (African) American music with universal acceptance. So are blues, soul and hip hop. So when you work into a music shop in New York, London, Shanghai, Dubai and Lagos, you would most likely find records or CDs in these genres properly categorised and segmented. Same goes for classical music (even if they may be subdivided in to western and oriental) and country music.

I will pose a question here: where do record stores abroad place hip hop music from Nigeria? Certainly not under the American version of hip hop. You may wish to look for your 9ice, D’Banj, Wande Coal, Paul ‘Play’ Dairo, Eedris Abdulkarim, Ruggedman, Modenine, Tony Tetuila, Sasha and MI in the ‘others’ or at best African Contemporary music shelf.

The biggest musicians to have come out of Africa in the mould of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Papa Wemba, Oliver Mtukudzi, Thomas Mapfumo, Angelique Kidjo, Manu Dibango, Baaba Mal, Salif Keita, Ebenezer Obey, Sunny Ade, Oliver De Coque, Haruna Ishola, Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, Kofi Olomide, Awilo, E.T. Mensah to mention a few, had definitive sounds but could only make it as far as the ‘world music’ shelf. But they were afrobeat, juju, fuji, highlife, soukous, makosa musicians.

Afrobeat is still largely dominated by the immediate family of Fela, especially his two sons – Femi Kuti and Seun Kuti and a hand full of those who backed him up as instrumentalists in the Egypt 80 band. Makosa and soukous were the rave only in the 90s even though it still remains a strong force in Francophone countries. The biggest name in juju music till date is still Sunny Ade after Ebenezer Obey became a preacher. You might decide to add Yinka Aiyefele who plays juju music with a ‘gospel’ slant. Highlife as simply remained with those who produced what we refer to today as evergreen. It is said that Sunny Neji plays highlife. That is debateable.

Lagbaja, of whom I am a very big fan, was bold to christen his music Africano about five years ago. Although he is the most creative and research-oriented artist that I know in Nigeria at the moment, his music still borders on experimentation. It remains to be seen if future generations will carry on with what he has started.

American culture through Mtv and the internet may have influenced this present generation of hip hop artistes, I think the Nigerian government through the different culture and broadcasting agencies are accomplices and have collaborated with the west to erode our musical and cultural heritage. So instead of consolidating, our musicians are simply deviating and propagating foreign musical cultures.

It is heartbreaking that they do not realise they are, indeed, the most privileged generation ever, with the technology available to them. They do not see an opportunity for cultural renaissance beyond the bling, sagging pants and effeminate fashion. What a time to break away from all the things that so easily hold us down and assert our African musical heritage! It is heart-wrenching that when nations are busy pushing their ideals and ideologies forward on the global platform we are busy soaking-in what they have on offer without giving back anything indigenous and tangible in exchange.

Some people say our artistes now win Mtv Base awards. Fair enough, but awards are subjective most times. In any case, that medium is still looked upon as a medium of cultural subjugation. Ask why MI, Ruggedman, Modenine, 9ice, Dbanj or Lord of Ajasa can not be ranked and judged in the same category with NAS, Jay Z, Akon, 50 Cent or Eminem.

No musician whether popular, classical or traditional lives forever. But their works live long after the have passed on. The other reality also is that some musicians make more lasting and enduring impression than other with their music. I think of Handel, Fela, Bob Marley, Michael Jackson and many more in other genres in all the cultures of the world.

With everything that is available to them to etch their names boldly and gloriously in the hearts of men and women too, most musicians in this present generation have short-changed themselves by being just about Hennessey, Moet, Bacardi, Bentley, Hummer and chicks. It is not all about the money.

Before the eloquent ones amongst you pick up your pen or start pounding the keys of your computer to write a blog, think about this: when you stand with your contemporaries around the world, what kind of music do you tell them you perform?

SIMPLY JAZZ

It's SIMPLY JAZZ and it's SIMPLY Timely... Review to follow.

Asa: The Subtle Message of a Rejected Voice

If you get rejected in your church choir, you almost certainly (operating word being almost) wouldn’t make it as a singer.

But Asa, the soulful songbird from Nigeria, broke that rule to our collective delight and to the dismay of the church. Don’t get me wrong, I strongly believe that the church is the best place for voices, session musicians and music careers to be nurtured. It is still the best place to discover musicians (singers, songwriters and instrumentalists) in a country where our music ‘stars’ are at best mimes.

According to Asa “People didn’t understand my low-pitched deep voice, the choirs didn’t want anything to do with me. I had to get to church first (early) if I was to have any chance of getting near the mike!”

I understand very well Asa’s frustrations, if we may call it that, having been in and directed the choir myself for a while. In the church, your voice had to ‘ring’; it had to be able to make the worst sinner work down the aisle to the front of the pulpit to accept Jesus. Plus you had to cut the image of a ‘sister’; the bible-clutching one with an air piety. Unfortunately, our Asa spots dreads, is a tomboy and worst still, has a voice texture that does not sound like her gender.

So she was rejected. But the rejected voice has become a precious gem, again to our collective delight.

We all waited with baited breath when they told us that Asa had gone to France, her birth place, to start mixing her musical broth. I, in particular, wanted to know what she will sound like – home girl or western. Luckily the French didn’t quite tamper with her – her voice, her nuances, her language and her message.

I was not expecting her voice to give me the chills like Yinka Davies’ (don’t even attempt a comparison). But it did in a ‘be careful’ kind of way; not one to hit the high note, she flirts with it, dancing around it then moves past it intelligently and keeps your ears on her message, which to me may well be the defining factor of her music and career.

Where are the messengers?

With her self titled debut, Asa seems to answer that question “we are coming out from the trenches and you better sit up and take notice”.
Oh how she speaks to all of us – the government, the rebel soldier, the father, the media like the voice of one crying in the wilderness singing “there is fire on the mountain and nobody seems to be on the run…” she speaks to the soldier “fighting for another man’s course” and doesn’t even know it.

The subject of war is so apt and relevant in the political clime of Africa. It is one that African writers have devoted their pen to recently from Biyi Bamidele’s Burna Boy to Allah is not obliged by Ahmadou Kourouma and Helon Habila’s Measuring Time. Hollywood also has its own offerings on the theme with movies like Blood Diamond, Hotel Rwanda and Sometimes in April. Asa lends her voice to this subject in such a sing-along way, that even when we decide not to read or when the make-believe effect of the big screen fades from our memories, we can still sing the song to ourselves in our cars, our homes, our offices and everywhere in the city.

Time was when the African safari was the jungle of grass cutters, antelopes, elephants and lions; when men wore their medals of elephant tusk and lion’s mane proudly for their bravery. Today, the African field is replete with fratricidal killings; brothers killing brothers for diamond, oil, indeed, for what should be a commonwealth and even sometimes for no reason at all.

“What did he say to make you so blind to you conscience and reason? Could it be love for your country or for the gun you use in killing”?

She also speaks of how the whole world has become morbid:

"I wake up in the morning
Tell you what I see on my TV screen
I see the blood of an innocent child and everyone is watching…"

… then we blame the children for not reading. But “whose responsible for what we teach our children, is it the internet or the stars on television”.

In Jailer she has a message for you:

“If you walk in a market place don’t throw stones
Even if you do, you just might hit one of your own
Life is not about your policies all the time
So you better rearrange your philosophies and be good to your fellow man…”

Although she might not stand a chance on the church’s stage, but she has her own stage now. She also has her own message, which is not very different from the original message of the church; “love thy neighbour as thyself” and she packages the message with such soul and candor that you think she took direct lessons from Bob Marley.

Asa is a refreshing departure from the dance hall, party anthem, almost pedestrian and commercialism that is currently associated with Nigerian music. She may currently be an opening act for the likes of Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Manu Dibango and Co; she is however, subtly but surely carving a niche for herself in the mould of Bob Marley, Fela Kuti, Oliver Mtukuzi and Lucky Dube.

I hope her next album proves us right.

Hip Hop: The Nigerian Definition

I am an avid follower of music; music generally, Nigerian music in particular.

The reason I turn to music is that it provides a way of escape for me. Escape from the everyday madness that is Lagos – the traffic, the heat, the lightlessness, the rat race, office pressure, and the general swinging moods of the city arcane to that of a pregnant woman.So I escape to music to get my sanity, to set my spirit free, to put my thoughts in order.

Music is the way I get my kick. That is why I agree with Shakespeare that “the man that has no music in himself nor is not moved by the concord of sweet sounds is fit for treason, stratagems and spoils”.

I listen to everything under the sun from Apala to Zouk and everything in between, except Heavy Metal, which I think is utter noise and too culturally non-conformist.

At the moment my focus has been on the Nigerian music scene, which has become very vibrant in the last ten years. The focus actually is on those that label themselves Hip Hop heads. The truth is that Hip Hop is running the street and nobody puts it more succinctly than the enfant terrible of the Nigerian music scene, Rugged Man, when he said in his too-hot-to-drop hit ‘Ruggedy Baba’, “back then the world only knew juju, fuji, (highlife) and afrobeat, but now I cleared the whole area and hip hop is rocking the streets”. True.

What gladdens my heart, though, is not the fact that hip hop has taken over the airwaves. It is the way Nigerian artistes have injected a refreshing local flavour to this musical culture that makes everybody want to listen. When Rugged Man dropped ‘Ehen’ and ‘Big Bros’, where he dissed fellow Nigerian artiste, Eedrees Abdukareem and his benefactor, Kenny Ogungbe, that put all other artistes in check or practically sent them back to the studio.

A strong advocate of using your mother tongue to transmit your message, Rugged Man showed the example by inviting the current rave of the Nigerian music scene, 9ice for a collabo (the slang for collaboration coined by practitioners in the industry) in the song “Ruggedy Baba”. That song brought 9ice to national consciousness. I remember calling Rugged Man to ask him where he fished him out from.All of a sudden, 9ice is on everybody’s lips, I mean the song “Gongo Aso”. Even my colleague from Sao Tome, Airamindra Torres, could not get enough of it in spite of the fact that she could not understand a word of what the light skin artiste was saying.

9ice’s appearance on the scene has brought a number of issues to the fore; first is the need to get Nigerian languages to the younger generation and I’m not talking about the everyday Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa and Urhobo that we speak. We need to hear more of our languages on the radio and television.

One veritable way to do this is what 9ice is doing with his brand of hip hop that is laced with strong Yoruba proverbs. Chinua Achebe had said in one of his books that “proverbs are the palmoil with which words are eaten”.Second is the need to do things in a new way. I will stick to music.

Time was when only what was allowed in the church was one-part singing, and then the revolution of SATB (Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass) came, giving room to more melodious harmonies of voices. One of classical music major revolution came from Ludwig Van Beethoven with his 9th symphony. Symphonies were not supposed to have voices, but Beethoven shocked the world when he introduced voices (solo and chorus) to the 9th symphony and called it “Ode to Joy”, actually a poem by Friedrich Schiller, in the last movement. It is the first example of a major composer using the human voice on the same level with instruments in a symphony, creating a work of a grand scope that set the tone for the Romantic symphonic form.

There are countless examples of musical trail blazers; Scot Joplin, who created Ragtime, the precursor of Jazz; Bob Marley, whose lyrics and bass line (instead of his mien, dreads and ganja) made Reggae a mainstream genre of music. In Nigeria we had the irripressible Fela, who took on the establishment with his poignant messages and delighted the hear with his elaborate instrumentation. There is also Lagbaja, who is probably the most eclectic artiste Nigeria has ever produced, with his very evasive style of fusing music types making it difficult to tell if he is a Fuji, Juju, Highlife or Afrobeat musician.

9ice has impressed us by delving deep into the heart of Yoruba language to pass a message with an unlikely vehicle – hip hop and it sounds good on the dance floor, too.

Success stories have always started with someone doing things differently. This is the spirit which has advanced mankind through out the age.

By the way, can anybody tell us in simple English the meaning of “Gongo Aso” or “gudugudu, akin kanju ara kan gudu, okurin ogun” ? I actually picked the latter from 9ice’s song titled “Street Credibility”.