Most new school music in Nigeria that are viral are mostly Yoruba laced or fully yoruba.. even non-Yoruba speakin artistes sing in yoruba or feature an artiste that will do d yoruba hook/chorus.. that will make it catchy... thats my veiw from d list of popular that have d Yoruba language
Oleku
Ara
Most 9ice's songs
Neato C's Tony Montana
Eedris' song(obviously an hausa guy)
Phyno(Core Ibo guy) feat olamide.
Styl plus' Olufunmi etc
All Olamide's song.etc.!
Even most Old school songs that are appreciated are in Yoruba.. respect to Osondu by Sir Victor Uwaifo, and so on..
So compared to Ibo n Huasa.. I observed that Yoruba is lyk d Music lingua franca... juz my view o.. No tribalism o..
What's ur view..and why do we have that way

Flavour does not use yoryba and he sells.

Mynd_44: Flavour does not use yoryba and he sells.

Yeah u are right.. that's one example of non-yoruba speakin artiste that sells...but is his sales more than Dare's 4 example or his contempoary Brymo... As I dey look am e b lyk say Brymo sells more than Flavour o

Jibsonified:
Yeah u are right.. that's one example of non-yoruba speakin artiste that sells...but is his sales more than Dare's 4 example or his contempoary Brymo... As I dey look am e b lyk say Brymo sells more than Flavour o

Brymo doesnt sell more than Flavour, maybe you are looking at it only from the Lagos point of view. Brymo is very BIG in Lagos & the South West while Flavour is very BIG in Lagos, South East & South-South. Mind u, someone like Brymo is also known in the East & South-South but he's not as BIG as Flavour in those places..... Coming to your question on whether you have to use Yoruba in ur songs to sell records as an artiste, well its somehow relative. U might use Yoruba and it will sell in Lagos or South West but when u go to the East or South-South, it wont sell. But dis is also relative, it all boils down to good music and not d language medium. Good music is good music no matter the language used. Flavour was able to conquer Lagos & d whole of Nigeria becos he does good music not becos he's singing in Igbo. 9ice was able to conquer the East/South-South/Naija with Gongo Aso not becos he uses Yoruba but becos he does good music. But one funny thing i discovered about the Nigerian music industry now is dat an artiste has different regions to conquer now before u can truly become a real Naija star. For example there are songs dat are hit in Lagos & i hear it everywhere and it enjoys good airplay there but when i go to the East or PH, nobody will know about the song even when i try to convince them.. So i discovered dat conquering only Lagos as an artiste doesnt really make u a star but conquering the whole of Nigeria. Sorry for digressing a bit, so singing in Yoruba can sell or might not sell u as an artiste. It depends on how good ur music is. Apart from Olamide, i cant say any strictly Yoruba artiste dat is BIG outside Lagos/South West, Reminisce's Kakobi Chicken was gaining alot of airplay in Lagos but i was surprised the song wasnt BIG in d East, so its relative. Good music is the key.

jiggaz: Brymo doesnt sell more than Flavour, maybe you are looking at it only from the Lagos point of view. Brymo is very BIG in Lagos & the South West while Flavour is very BIG in Lagos, South East & South-South. Mind u, someone like Brymo is also known in the East & South-South but he's not as BIG as Flavour in those places..... Coming to your question on whether you have to use Yoruba in ur songs to sell records as an artiste, well its somehow relative. U might use Yoruba and it will sell in Lagos or South West but when u go to the East or South-South, it wont sell. But dis is also relative, it all boils down to good music and not d language medium. Good music is good music no matter the language used. Flavour was able to conquer Lagos & d whole of Nigeria becos he does good music not becos he's singing in Igbo. 9ice was able to conquer the East/South-South/Naija with Gongo Aso not becos he uses Yoruba but becos he does good music. But one funny thing i discovered about the Nigerian music industry now is dat an artiste has different regions to conquer now before u can truly become a real Naija star. For example there are songs dat are hit in Lagos & i hear it everywhere and it enjoys good airplay there but when i go to the East or PH, nobody will know about the song even when i try to convince them.. So i discovered dat conquering only Lagos as an artiste doesnt really make u a star but conquering the whole of Nigeria. Sorry for digressing a bit, so singing in Yoruba can sell or might not sell u as an artiste. It depends on how good ur music is. Apart from Olamide, i cant say any strictly Yoruba artiste dat is BIG outside Lagos/South West, Reminisce's Kakobi Chicken was gaining alot of airplay in Lagos but i was surprised the song wasnt BIG in d East, so its relative. Good music is the key.

U are so correct... ur insight as a some1 d@ know what's goin on in other parts of Nigeria is a good basis 4 ur points...However.. how do u quantify and secure ur success as an artiste.. is it not by conquering Lagos?.. take 4 example most artiste from places oda than Lagos had to come down to Lagos to gain credibilty... their process of doing this mean they'll av to switch to Yoruba flow. This was contrary to what Styl-plus did.. they went to base in ABJ n down went their rave n fame.

Jibsonified:

U are so correct... ur insight as a some1 d@ know what's goin on in other parts of Nigeria is a good basis 4 ur points...However.. how do u quantify and secure ur success as an artiste.. is it not by conquering Lagos?.. take 4 example most artiste from places oda than Lagos had to come down to Lagos to gain credibilty... their process of doing this mean they'll av to switch to Yoruba flow. This was contrary to what Styl-plus did.. they went to base in ABJ n down went their rave n fame.

Well noted, u are correct about Lagos being the basis for hitting the mainstream in the Nigerian Music Industry. But where i disagree with u is on the issue of using Yoruba lingo as a must,for u to blow. Thats why i said in my previous post dat it is relative dat it still boils down to good music irrespective of the language medium. It worked for Ice Prince sha with Oleku when he came from Jos. But i will give u examples of others dat didnt tow dat line but still conquered the Lagos music market, one very big example is Bracket. They came all the way from Enugu & blew Lagos away with Yori Yori, No Time & Ada Owerri, they didnt use Yoruba. Kelly Hansome came all the way from Owerri & blew Lagos away with Like Play (he used Igbo chorus all through). Timaya came all the way from Port Harcourt & blew Lagos away with Dem Mama. Late MC Loph came all the way from Enugu & blew Lagos away with Osondi Owendi (an Igbo song). Flavour & Duncan Mighty inclusive, Iyanya rocked Lagos with Kukere & Your Waist & he used some of his local Calabar dialect. So u see my brother, using Yoruba or Igbo isnt the key to conquer Lagos. It still boils down to making good music dat people can relate to. There are many artistes dat sings in Yoruba dat are not even selling records in Lagos. And u seem to forget dat Lagos is a mini Nigeria,all the tribes are there. Some doesnt understand Yoruba. The Igbos in Lagos alone are approximately over 8 million people. Different music appeals to differrent people. So my brother, its good music dat sells record not necessarilly the language medium.

Singing in yoruba makes a song 10 times boring... that is what these musicians don't know. Moreover the lingua franca of Nigeria is not yoruba but english. And another thing I noticed is that "half yoruba half english" songs usually have better instrumentals than normal songs (or english songs). For example I can listen to the karaoke of Jasi by Banky W, over and over and over... it is one of my favorite songs. These musicians know that most people will dislike a song where they don't understand what the singer is saying... so they always work harder to make "half yoruba half english" songs more desirable, by giving them nicer instrumentals