How I Fought to Succeed -Burna Boy

Afrobeats is going places far beyond where it originated.

Burna Boy. A Screenshoot from BellanNaija.com

The current Afrobeats (not to be confused with Afrobeat) started in Ghana, but, as a UK-based Ghanaian DJ puts it, "the Nigerians picked it up and polished it, and they are gone." 

Afrobeats is over ninety per cent Nigerian. A lot of Africans want to join what has become a bandwagon. So, there is a dogged search for the formula to achieve this dream. In proffering solutions, sadly, we see a lot of lies from folks who are bent on feeding fat on the ignorance of wannabe musicians.

There will always be abuses of anything that is designed with good intent to help people. Some assume, without research, that what they think of something is what it is. Others are aware that they are ignorant of a topic, but care less and knowingly go on to dish out lies. YouTube is one platform that has been abused. There, there is this huge lie that the reason Nigerians are successful in contemporary African pop is because many of them speak a lot of languages from across Africa. What that means is that Davido will probably speak Swahili, Zulu, Wolof, Hausa... in addition to the Yoruba and English that he speaks.

It is not true that if your music must succeed you must speak multiple foreign languages. "Theories" like these work against what they are intended to solve—helping intending artists. Artists would only get more confused, since there are multiples of these sorts of lies that are told. It is the reason why I am posting this—to let people understand precisely what is required to become successful in music.

Here they are:

Talent

An "artist" must have the talent. The singer must have the vocal ability if he wants to sing.

Professional Lyrics

You must know how to write professional lyrics. If you are not sure how to achieve this, listen to successful musicians to study the structure and content of their songs. These days, with the internet, there are always lyrics of popular songs posted online. You can download and study them. And the word "study" shouldn't scare you. Studying could just be ten minutes of you reading to see what the artist has said in the song and how it is related to his life.

Originality

You must be original in your singing style. This is important. Originality is the quality of uniqueness that is natural to you. Check out the vocal character of every successful artist. You will see that he is unique.

Urban Feel

You should be able to sing with an urban feel. Growing up in a major city should give you an urban personality. But it is always good to start somewhere and grow.

Good Producer

Find a good producer. How do you know if someone is a good producer? You know a good producer from the consistency of his good works.

A Hook

Your song must have a hook. In this context, a hook is that mood that gets your head spinning or which "makes your head scatter," as the saying goes in Nigeria. When people keep coming back to your song, you surely find relevance.

Understand When Your Song Is Good

Not all good songs get heard. It does come from poor publicity or ill luck, sometimes. There could be other factors. If you know your song is good, despite its inability to get heard, you understand that the problem isn't you. It is dangerous for an artist to be unable to understand that not all good songs or albums rise above the horizon. The danger is that the artist begins to try other needless and counterproductive approaches.

The Wailers' songs weren't known, for instance. It was after they broke off and found individual successes that people started looking into their past works to discover how good they were. What if they didn't know that they were good?

 Yiro Abari High is the author of How to Become a Music Maestro:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1523494999?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860

Why America May Not Be Great Today

A very good reason

Michael Jackson's Off the Wall album

I once watched a documentary that chronicled the evolution of the electric guitar. In conclusion, it said that, when the instrument finally evolved to its present sophistication, it brought down the Soviet Union.

For those who never experienced the full power of music, that conclusion (that the instrument brought down communism) would sound like a hyperbole, but the statement actually meant it in a literal sense.  

What gave America that boundless influence had been its cultural appeal. American culture represented the difference between America and other advanced nations like Germany, Japan, France and the others in their ranks.  American music and movies had been the leading cultural element of America that charmed the rest of the world. Of these, music stood out more. Unlike the movies, music is understood even without the understanding of the language used. It gives credence to the popular saying, “music is a universal language.”  

While America’s music strength lasted, the radio stations in my own part of the world gave over ninety per cent of airtime to western music. Of this percentage, more than eighty per cent was American music or music inspired by American music. 

One thing with American music is the fact that it evolves very fast. You listen to an artist today, and next year, when he comes out with a new album, the style is radically different from what it was the previous year. In the last decade and a half, though, the music evolved so fast that the rest of the world couldn’t keep pace. The end product is music that the rest of the world can’t relate to. And while one thinks that all Americans will be able to relate to any music that is American, it is shocking to hear that even many Americans aren’t relating to their own modern music. What do you expect of the rest of the world?

The moment the world failed to see the essence of American contemporary music, a void was created. Here in Africa, the youth, empowered by computers and software, started occupying the voids American music created. They made music that local folks could relate to. In the radio stations, they took over the airwaves. I watched on BBC television when Tiwa Savage, Nigerian music diva, talked proudly of how Nigerian music successfully took over the radio stations from “foreign music.” She was saying what all of us had known for over a decade. 

If music made America very visible to the rest of the world, it is only natural that the rare presence of American music abroad would mean that American greatness is at the point of disappearing behind the corner. Out of sight is out of mind.