A Nigerian artist will hear a foreign hit song taking over Lagos and say, “this is fire, how can I make music to sound this good?”
Then he goes and makes something as hard to overthrow the foreign song.
A Ghanaian artist will hear a foreign hit song taking over Accra, and instead of learning and improving their craft, they’ll start crying in interviews that the reason their music isn’t doing as well is because the local DJs are playing the foreign song.
10 years later, that Nigerian artist has become a global phenomenon with the extra artistic growth.
While his Ghanaian counterpart is still granting interviews saying that foreign song is what is stifling his career advancement.
That’s the difference between the Nigerian music industry, and the Ghanaian music industry.
An imbalance of elite mentality and competitive spirit.
I’m old enough to remember when Nigerian artists will walk into banks for creative loans, and the corporations will laugh them out of the office.
What did we do? We went to the underworld and got funding.
I’m old enough to remember when our music industry was flooded by American and Jamaican music, and Nigerians preferred to listen to Eve, Eminem, Boys 2 Men, Snoop Dog and Blues.
When Nigerians will proudly beat their chest and call our local music horse shit. People even earned social cool points for announcing that they don’t listen to Nigerian music.
What did we do? We didn’t blame the Americans and Jamaicans for eating in our market. We simply looked inward and stepped up our music for three decades, until it became worthy of global cross-cultural consumption.
I also old enough to remember when our music and industry hit a ceiling and couldn’t find a route to new markets beyond Africa.
What did we do? We reached out across the world, begged and paid everyone who made themselves available to us. From Rick Ross to Snoop Dog and T.I, we got scammed in the US repeatedly, all for a guest verse.
We flew to foreign countries, walked into major label offices and sold our market to uninterested execs for decades, until they saw the value, and rushed down here. Took 3 decades and many generations of artists for that to happen.
Everything Nigerian music has right now, took generations of insane work. We earned every win with our blood. Every inch we took, we paid for it in coin, tears and broken dreams.
My dear Ghanaians, no be we dey do you. We aren’t the reason for your industry’s stagnation. You people are. And it’s your job to unclog your pipes and get it flowing beyond your borders.
Blaming Nigerians is the easy and lazy cope to avoid looking inwards and fixing your game. So don’t hate on hardwork and invention. Learn and replicate in your market.
No be Nigerians dey do you. Na Ghana do Ghana.
A Nigerian artist: Stays up for years powered by weed, whisky and Redbull, researching music styles around the world, and experimenting on the fusion of Flamenco music into Apala for an advanced sonic experience.
Ghanaians: See them. They’re stealing from us.
Miseducated Ghanaian media men: “Nigerian artists are big because they stole from us. Afrobeats was originally our genre.”
But their Apple Music Ghana Top 100 has 8 Nigerians (including Dave, a Benin Boy).
E be like say, thief-thief music don sweet pass the owner own o.
Let’s get this clear.
The Ghanaians aren’t mad at Nigerian musicians for infusing Ghanaian sounds into our local music.
They’re mad at us because whatever we’ve taken from them, we’ve improved on it, made it better, and won bigger with it.
Not the fluid cultural exchange. It’s the commercial success that kills them.
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source: OurDailyGist