Words by Mifa Adejumo
These days, I have decided to join the bandwagon and listen to most Nigerian music with the part of my brain that takes over my cognitive functions when feasting on a plate of nkwobi or afang soup. Basically, what that part of my brain does is to stay totally numb to any form of intellectual reasoning at that moment and remain focused on the satiety of my drooling enjoyment.
We are often told to exercise our brains; help our minds stay fit by engaging in some kind of positive extracurricular activity. Well, it would appear that the kind of music being dished out concurrently by the media is only effective in serving one cranial exercising purpose, and that is the continuous bobbing of our heads.
I believe the title of one of Olamide’s song, “Konkobility” –meaningless as it may seem– duly describes the kind of pleasant rhythmic disturbance that is now called music today in various circles. We’re all basically just walking about with our headphones, listening to what the mainstream media is often quick to typify as liberating artistry, as they invariably continue to endorse the “I’m doing me” mentality of mediocrity.
In my opinion, artistry aka ‘doing you’, should be something like Michelangelo in his satchel sandals (if they used those then), half-naked, holding a paintbrush while he gawked at the ceilings of the Sistine Chapel. Instead these days, what we have, translated as artistry, is Orezi’s unclad pose for an album cover; an album on which one particular line of lyric to his hit song “Ogede” alludes to the act of fellatio (Sho fe Jogede, sho fe Jogede).
In all honesty, I have no issues with artiste being themselves. But nowhere is it written that you can’t be an intelligent version of yourself. The kind that actually makes song that talk about something specific and not you going to the studio to make a song about a cluster of meaningless things as quaintly expressed in Wizkid’s hit song “In My Bed”, where his transitioning from singing about seductresses squirming for his attention, to name dropping hearty hails at political figures from Okokomaiko to Banana Island, was simply irksome.
Don’t get me wrong though, I have nothing against any of the artistes whose songs I have used to expressly drive home my point; in fact, I actually like Orezi’s “Ogede”; but more for the melody than for anything else. Nevertheless, all I’m simply saying is that, as much as I want to be an advocate of and for musical transformation in this great nation of ours, the honest truth is that I cannot comman goan kee myself because of it.
The entire Nigerian music scene today gives credence to the common saying that in every nonsense, there is small sense. As such, if musical konkobility is what seems to sooth the ears of the majority, who am I to say otherwise. “If you can’t beat them,” they say, “make up with them like Dammy Krane and take a photo”.
Mifa Adejumo is a Lagos-based writer. You can get in touch with him on Twitter @mifaunuagbo_. If you would like to have your articles considered for publication on Filter Free, send an email to articles@filterfree.ng