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From the early 2000s up till a decade ago, Nigerian artistes struggled for global attention for their music to be heard outside the shores of Africa, with stars like D’banj, 2Baba and P-Square paving the way with international collaborations.
In 2011, D’banj released ‘Mr Endowed’ (Remix) ft American rapper Snoop Dogg. In 2012 P-Square featured American rapper Rick Ross on their single ‘Beautiful Onyinye’. 2Baba also collaborated with Bridget Kelly on ‘Let Me Love You’ in 2014. These collaborations attempted to push the Nigerian sound to the international sphere.
However, barely any of these songs were successful on the international scene because the pop sound then didn’t resonate with the international audience.
Nigerian artistes, meanwhile, benefitted from this venture by getting deals with international labels. D’banj, for example, signed with Kanye West’s G.O.O.D Music in 2011 – a move that allowed Nigerian artistes to get visibility away from the homefront. But that wasn’t enough: that was not the goal; the goal was Nigerian Pop to the world.
In that bid, the newer wave of artistes also adopted the collaboration method, which gave birth to Davido’s 2015 single ‘Fans Mi’ featuring Meek Mill. It was a perfect song, but for some reason, it didn’t do as well as everyone expected it to. Wizkid’s ‘Shabba’ ft Chris Brown, Trey Songz and French Montana also had the same outcome.
In the words of Efe Omorogbe, “Nigerian talents created equally fantastic music but found it extremely difficult to showcase and monetize it.”
The first remarkable break that a Nigerian artiste had with international collaborations was with Wizkid who featured, with Kyla, in Drake’s ‘One Dance’. Its catchy hook brewed up a storm that led to many other hits. Later on, Drake featured on Wizkid’s ‘Come Closer’.
Nigerian music generally started gaining remarkable traction internationally from 2015 with hit singles like ‘IF’ and ‘Fall’ by Davido, ‘Ojuelegba’ by Wizkid and ‘Ye’ by Burna Boy – leading the Nigerian sound into international dominance.
In 2017, Davido’s ‘Fall’ debuted on US Billboard Hot R&B Songs at #25, becoming the longest charting Nigerian Pop song on Billboard. The following year, Burna Boy’s ‘Ye’ took over international charts with the hit single peaking at #26 on Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop and #31 on Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay charts.
A few years back, most Nigerians listened to foreign artistes. Now, it is the other way round. What has changed? We have the numbers in terms of audience and creators. People are willing to listen so far the song resonates with them. Moreover, African artistes have stepped up their game. We now have enough stars here to listen to. It’s an endless list.
This development has led to an influx of international collaborations, even with upcoming stars in the Nigerian music scene.
Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country which translates into great streaming numbers for recording artistes. There is no better way to exploit these numbers as a foreign artiste than to collaborate with Nigerian artistes. Thus, the latter get international recognition while the foreign artistes gain streaming numbers from the African music market.
Justin Bieber seems to be riding on this shift pretty well, with Wizkid on ‘Essence remix’ and with Omah Lay on ‘Attention’.
On June 27, Justin Bieber earned his first BET Awards courtesy of ‘Essence’. The single by Wizkid ft Tems won “Best Collaboration” at the 2022 BET Awards.
Chris Brown is not far behind on this wave as well. In the past six years, he has collaborated with multiple Nigerian artistes, including Wizkid, Davido, Ayo Jay, Lojay and Rema.
At the recent Afro Nation Portugal 2022, he was a headline act performing songs he has featured on, including Lojay’s ‘Monalisa’ and Davido’s ‘Blow My Mind’.
These collaborations are also mutually beneficial, as in the case of Fireboy DML. He became the first Nigerian Pop artiste to perform at the 90,000-capacity Wembley Stadium as he performed the remix of his hit single ‘Peru’ at Ed Sheeran’s concert.
International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) disclosed that Sub-Saharan Africa generated $70.1m of revenues from recorded music in 2021 while Dataxis predicts that Africa’s annual music streaming revenues will grow from $92.9m in 2021 to $314.6m by 2026, albeit warning that internet penetration rates will be the main ceiling on this growth. “Streaming cannot go faster than infrastructure”, the report said.
Globally, Nigerian music is growing in popularity, too. Streaming data on local genres exported across the globe reveals that 30% of Nigeria’s Alté genre is being streamed in the US, with a growth of more than 200% over the past year. Additionally, over 40% of Afropop from Nigeria is streamed in the US, UK and France.
“Since its launch, the average number of artistes streamed per user has grown by 60%, and Nigerian music fans have created 1.3 million user-generated playlists,” the report reveals.
The National Bureau of Statistics report on poverty puts the number of Nigerians living in extreme poverty at over 80 million. This means that an average Nigerian is generally not buoyant enough to afford data bundles.
Still, due to the numerical strength, we pull off great streaming numbers. Besides, dodgy access to the internet will not be a problem for people who music is part of their daily lives.
In any case, the Nigerian music market is slowly seeing the development and an influx of foreign artistes in need of our numerical strength and trending sound. Nigerian artistes just need to be in tune with the fact that these artistes are not doing us a favour. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.
The post How Foreign Acts Are Saving Their Dwindling Popularity In Africa Through Collaborations With Nigerian Stars appeared first on Nigerian Entertainment Today.
Source: TheNet
