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The VMAs, a global award body, just released the nominees for this year’s award edition and nominated Usher in the ‘Best Afrobeats’ category.
Amazing.
Afrobeats to the world.
They’re finally seeing and appreciating our genius. The world is finally seeing our genius and catching up to it, but there are questions to be asked.
While we’re on the journey to world dominance, while we are taking Afrobeats to the world, will it come back home with us? What looks like the removal of Nigeria from Afrobeats now advances to a dicey angle.
The structure of the music space as it stands has only one foreseeable outcome. A practising system of not protecting what’s ours, a decade of no gate-keeping, and with local talents selling it all off and conforming to the big music companies will only tilt towards one end: the loss of cultural ownership by Nigerians.
First, they come with money and opportunities, something we have no choice but to accept as it stands because we lack the money, structure and machinery to take us to the next level.
What this results in is the disconnection of the art and the spirits behind the sound. Who’s to blame really? Them? Definitely not. They see money-making opportunities in our exploits and capabilities.
It gets worse. Nigerians, at home and in the diaspora who do not know better but one way or the other have a voice or platform now pushing the fake narrative that London is the home of Afrobeats.
Not Lagos, where the superstars are made, not Abuja where the thugs have found identities, not Port Harcourt which has given us amazing producers and formed the backbone of our sound development. Not anywhere in this amazing continent. London, UK. A strange land.
Somewhere we can not call home, wants to be the home of our sound. Why? Because the foreigners gave us money and relocated our business and music away from home.
These companies have spent nearly a decade throwing our artists in rooms with foreign producers, who have spliced our records, seeking to learn the source. They have gone to depths to understand how we make the sound that gets the world listening.
While they’ve not really succeeded in understanding the roots and replicating the sound and the lamba, they’ve made progress with diluting it. Reducing the originality so it becomes more original by their definition.
Now, they’re focused on moving the home, the source. That’s why the narrative of London being the home of Afrobeats is strong now. Foreign Afrobeats producers with no connection to Nigeria are now producing Afrobeats records.
And what’s interesting? Nigerian artists have begun to work with them. Look at the credits on our mainstream albums this year. The people who truly have the sound are being neglected, and the people who can rinse and repeat are at the forefront of the sound.
How will we not lose in the long run? How?
The culture has become too distant from the masses and even most creators. The only people with competing power are those with major-label dollars.
Our people can no longer afford our shows, and we have resorted to gauging Nigerian artists’ success by what they can do for foreigners. Nothing at home matters anymore. Nothing. Anyone who announces an African tour will look lazy and not ambitious enough compared to his colleagues.
Selling out in the white man’s land and winning awards there means more than 10 headies at home and a hit on the streets. They now dictate to us. Why won’t they want more? The labels controlling our artists and making decisions on their behalf are people who do not understand our sound and judge everything by numbers and their opinions of what we should be.
Now, American artists have started making Afrobeats — with our small assistance, of course — and replacing you at their award shows, where we have fought for our music to be recognized. One more decade and the replacement becomes normalised. Our local collaborations mean nothing anymore, and if an act isn’t featuring a global star, he’s not serious with his career.
One would argue that Pheelz is on the song that Usher was nominated for, yeah. Right now yeah. But tomorrow, when they become more confident, and the cultural transfer is completed, they won’t need a Nigerian to validate their moves. They’ll pull an Odumodu and kick us to the curb.
The sad part? Our sound will remain in those markets, but it won’t be ours anymore.
Ask the Jamaicans and other Caribbean cultures that dined before us. This is history all over again. This is the grim reaper looking for his next meal. This is Deja vu. Slowly at first, and then all at once. Who am I to complain?
After all, what is good for Greece is good for Uganda.
Come together, let us share the grace in fellowship.
