Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song, usually consisting of choruses and verses(wikipedia).

There is this general perception that musicians these days do not give much attention to the lyrical contents of their songs resulting in poor lyrics. Most people do not listen to wordings of songs either, they only dance along to the beats. If the beat is catchy and rhythmic we say the song is good. A couple of people were discussing this issue in an online forum and most of them were of the view that music lyrics nowadays has deteriorated to the extent that good and meaningful lyrics are hard to come by. Someone even said that if you want to listen to a song with 100% meaningful lyrics you should listen to only religious songs.

You can’t heap all of the blame on the musicians because they sing what people want to listen to, there are no two ways about it. They are in the game to make money. If people don’t like their songs, they won”t listen to them or buy their albums. We all know millions of copies of music albums are sold yearly.

A general trend that has been noticed in contemporary songs is the flaunting of wealth, sex, drugs and alcohol. Western hiphop and rap artists are the major culprits when it comes to lewd lyrics. Artists like lil wayne, eminem (to an extent), rihanna, drake, 2chainz, nicki minaj, kanye west, rick ross, juicy j, lil kim etc hold sway. Even the so called respectable artists like Beyonce and Jay zay can’t resist it.

Nigerian musicians copy these foreign artists and sometimes outdo them in the process. A typical naija music video must have scenes of semi nude girls dancing along with well dressed guys. Well, they say sex sells in the “21stst century.

You hear lyrics like “my money and your money no be mate”, “from lagos to london she shake her bum bum”, “make i knack you akpako”, “are you gonna dance o if i show you my wallet?” etc (i am not knocking anybody”s hustle o).

Thankfully not all Nigerian musicians are in that category. There are some who actually take time to work on the content of their lyrics. We have Asa, Darey art alade, Tuface (yes he is now matured), Timi dakolo, Praiz, Mi, Mode 9 etc in this category.

I must give props to all Nigerian musicians, most of them started from zero level, today they are at the top.

I so much love (no homo) and respect the late Michael Jackson. He was a consummate artist and this reflected in all his songs. From “billie jean”, “smooth criminal”, “man in the mirror” to “heal the world” etc his lyrics were always apt and on point no matter the type of song he was singing.

Music lyrics have a way of sinking deep into our minds and altering our thoughts. Each song carries a message that the singer is trying to pass on. I guess you have watched a certain video where Chris brown”s song “fallen angel” was critically analyzed and where he was accused of being a member of the illuminati sect and passing across satanic messages in his songs. This allegation may be true or it may be a deliberate falsehood agenda against the singer (chris brown is an awesome r&b singer) but the point here is that lyrics convey one message or the other. Are you feeling sad or depressed, slot in a “feel good”dance hall song or a good gospel music disc into your music player and notice how your mood changes.

Our music artists need to raise up the standard of their lyrics. A good quality song should come with good lyrics. Songs with quality lyrics are evergreen and stand the test of time. We fans should demand this. We need to have a balance so that when a Timaya chants…

“fun mi doggy/fun mi doggy…baby girl do the dutty/make me want to ejaculating”

a Tuface will be on the other side chanting…

“young man, be careful and think it twice/before you choose to use your device/
so you don’t have raindrops falling from your eyes when you see a blessing in disguise”.

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