Please, before you crucify Nigerian Hip-hop Stars and Wannabes

Please, before you crucify Nigerian Hip-hop Stars and Wannabes, look at the brains behind them.
Do not blame the babies swimming in a dirty pool and may even stool in the pool.
Blame their careless guardians or parents who left them in the mess.


The recording studios and DJs should be held responsible for exploiting the naivety and ignorance of majority of these artistes who actually can still improve and excel if well groomed, managed and produced by seasoned musicians and not semi-literate sound engineers and DJs who just want to collect the cash and record any rubbish with mixed and sampled music from keyboards. Then bribe Radio DJs and TV VJs to give them constant rotation and hype them to the public.


Mo' Hits All Stars label spends millions of naira to pay DJs and VJs to hype their artistes. But most of these DJs and VJs are illiterates in music. Their knowledge of music history is even poor. So, they cannot do much for these artistes. They are birds of the same feather.
Most of these artistes will fail performance auditions for High School pupils in the U.S.
Their live performances show their shortcomings when they are not Lip-synching and miming.


The first place for any prospective Pop, R&B, Hip-hop and others is the Artists and Repertoire (A&R) dept of a recording label or company where you must pass through the mill until you are Okayed for recording.
In our days, no "demo", no "deal memo".
But today, the A&R is absent and majority of them do not even know the meaning.

If you cannot play any musical instrument like the guitar or piano, and have not had voice training, then keep away from the recording studio.

Unqualified Judges of Star Quest: Nigerian Musical Talent Hunt Show

A band from Star Quest. Photo Credit: Star Quest


Unqualified Judges of Star Quest: Nigerian Musical Talent Hunt Show

They are not professionals, they are inexperienced and most of them are not even well groomed musically.
How many of them can play musical instruments satisfactorily or defend the music in their albums?

Musical judges should be resource persons drawn from reputable music institutions, industry professionals who know their onions and music instructors with results.

~ Akapo Emmanuel in “Will real Stars be produced” on Star Quest, page 47 of the Viewpoint in Sunday Vanguard on March 28, 2010.

Nigerian Breweries Plc has been spending a lot on Star Quest to promote Nigerian music by encouraging the revival of music bands. But there is a problem. The judges on Star Quest have been making mockery of themselves while thinking they are making fun of the contestants they are judging, because from my knowledge of music since my secondary school days at the famous St.Gregory’s College in Lagos, where good bands such as the famous Ofege, New Generation and others have emerged, I can tell you that these judges have little or no proven knowledge of MUSIC in rudiments and in instruction.
It is erroneous to make Hip-hop artistes who in most cases are music illiterates (those who cannot read and write music) judges.
They are not simply qualified to judge music.


A performer from Star Quest . Photo Credit: Star Quest

Most of these so called celebrated hip hop superstars in Nigeria will not even pass auditions for recording contracts in the US or Europe where music production is not faked by DJs and amateurish sound engineers who dub the sound tracks of American and European musicians and mix them for Nigerian hip hop wannabes to rap or sing over them and these voice over artistes are recorded and released on the streets and bribing radio DJs and TV video jockeys to give them constant airplay (rotation) to hype them on their stage-managed charts. They spend a lot of money to fake or make musical videos copied from American and European videos and using sexploitation to market themselves as stars, but most of them cannot even sing. What we see are Garbage In, Garbage Out (GIGO) hip hop artistes unleashing their mediocrity on us. They even pay bootleggers to pirate their own music in what they popularly call Alaba Mix in local parlance in Nigeria. Then show organizers use them to promote and market alcoholic products and other junk products targeted at the ignorant and vulnerable youths in Nigeria who are now calling themselves the Hip-hop generation. And they have no shame to boast of this sham!

Please, read Our Music Is Dying Slowly, And Still Smiling by Femi Akintunde-Johnson, and Akapo Emmanuel’s critical analysis of the judges is worth reading by the organizers and the viewers.

~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima