The entertainment industry has started talking, that’s good news. It is one industry that never talks, most times when they talked, they picked brainless stars who could not be objective owing to lack of depth.

Now, the ones who are talking are exhibiting the fact that learned and exposed practitioners are gradually taking over the talk sessions. It is indeed worthy of commendations.

While we see only external factors as our major problems from the points that the discussants raised, I will like to ask please, what will it look like to pay gate fee to enter the stadium, and watch Lionel Messi play the ball alone by himself and then runs and scores after exhibiting all his individual skills, can we call that a match? Did you say no? Come off it, of course he is the best thing in football today and it is Messi that you are seeing.

Well, I agree, that's not a football match because a standard football match is eleven players per side so even their stars must have team mates.

What is the standard of a grade A music act? Who is a musician, what qualifies an artist to be an A-list artist? Why is every Tom, Dick and Harry struggling to make a song for release? Why do we have thousands of recordings but very few intelligent songs? Why are we not having big instrumentalists like we had in the past?

The answer is simple! It is because the success of the today's A list artist is not creating any extra employment in the industry. They just charge A list obscene fee, carry their phones to a show and give the phone to the DJ on ground and the DJ plays from the phone and they mime, some don't even say anything, others just shout some unintelligible noise into the songs. Sounds dumb right?

Well it doesn't just sound dumb, It looks dumb too, but who do you blame? The promoters of course! Where is the musicianship, the showmanship, where is the artist that we paid to see, this man that is walking about with a mic alone on stage? That's a fraud!

How have the CD miming artists who earn big dough improved employment in the industry? They are not musicians, they are artists, their songs lack depth that's why the songs don't last, that's why they can't play with other musicians, that is why they fall as suddenly as they rose to fame.

They are the reason people think that singing is a cheap job. All the great names of old employed musicians, people were just happy to be great session men and women, and the session men were also in the limelight along with back-up singers and the star acts.

One successful artist employed an average of eight other musicians while the big ones had more. They went all over the world with them, they exposed them, they played with them, they rehearsed regularly, they employed a manager to manage the team and got a music director to harness the team, they had and created sustainable jobs in the industry! Session men worked hard to stay good or lose their jobs and that competition improved professionalism.

Today's A list is about an expensive video, after that, it is DJ track one, sometimes there's a mistake and you hear, no no no, no be that one I want sing, and then the CD refuses to play. Rubbish! It is because the successful ones are not employing, that is why everyone wants to sing and everyone can't succeed and be stars as singers, that's the hard truth. Instead, we have become the industry with the highest turnover of failures, thousands record everyday but only few are earning a decent living from it.

Nobody should pay an artist anything more than a stipulated fee if he is not playing with his band. We should begin to see a tour bus of an A list act with his crew on the road. One success should translate to real progress in the industry.

State banquets are the worst for this, what do you have Council for arts and culture for if you will pay an act a million and above to come and sing to a cd alone, isn't that money supposed to spread wealth? Let's regulate our industry to spread wealth. The A list acts are not musicians until they employ other musicians and play music on stage.

Their approach to the business has ruined the song writing sector of the industry, in the past we knew of great songs that back-up singers wrote for the main act to record and perform, it also gave fulfillment to the song writer and gave the feeling of usefulness to the back-up singer .

Only a stand-up comedian goes to a show alone and only needs a mic to deliver on his job, clowns don't need mics, most artist look on stage like microphone carrying clowns, musicians sing to a music instrument or perform with other musicians, if we push for this, those who were not supposed to be in this industry will locate their own industry and reduce the failures in ours.

This is the truth though it comes from a twisted mind!

By Mista Xto.

SOURCE: http://www.wetinhappen.com.ng/a-list-bane-of-the-entertainment-industry/